I am planning a layout based on the Minnesota Transfer Railway ca 1962. I have a design for the layout, thanks to a lot of excellent advice provided by various people on these forums.
Now the time has come to move on from planning the trackwork to planing how to actually build the layout.
The track layout looks like this:
All dimensions are in centimeters - tick marks on the axis is 10 centimeters (about 4 inches) apart - ie one foot is about 3 tick marks. The heavier tick marks are 1 meter apart, ie 39 inches or roughly 3 feet, 3 inches.
This sketch show the cookie cutouts necessary for my layout - the ones labelled are at level plateaus, the others are inclines.
The framework mostly need to be fastened to the walls - there are existing shelves for storage of various tools and things below, and it will be hard to put legs down to the floor for support anywhere (except in the corner just to the left of the door, where there will have to be at least one leg).
For the girders (main load bearing beams, along the long sides of the layout) I was thinking of using either
1"x3" L-girder, ie with longer leg of the profile 1"x3" and the shorter leg of the profile 1"x2", ie looking like the picture on the left below), or
1"x4" beam - looking like the picture on the right below, or
2"x4" beam - looking like the picture on the right below, except twice as thick
According to Linn Westcott, the 1x3 L-girder ought to be able to support spans of up to 9’ 6", ie about 290 centimeters, and the
Looks VERY good. The only thing I would add is one more joist at the upper right, to support the stub ends of your yard tracks.
L-girder construction done Westcott’s way calls for all screws to be driven upward from below. If it turns out that a joist isn’t quite where you would like it, you can loosen a couple of screws and move it - lots easier than relocating a turntable or having to get creative with turnout linkages. (At the moment several of my joists are held in position with clamps while I determine exactly where they need to be.)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on steel L-girders and joists)
Steel L-girders. Mmm - what kind of dimensions do you use with steel instead of wood ? I would imagine that you could have gotten away with using a lot thinner girders and joists when you use steel instead of wood ?
The steel I use is very light - thin sheet metal bent into C shapes, standard US wall stud (2x4 and 2x3 - actually not that big) dimensions, which come in various lengths from 8 feet up - sold under the generic name, ‘steel studs.’ I use the heavier gauge meant for load-bearing walls as ‘C pretending to be L’ girders, and the lighter non-load-bearing variety for everything else. Making risers lets me get creative with tin snips and bending pliers.
Here in the desert, wood has issues. Steel studs cost about the same as construction grade wood of the same dimensions, and don’t warp and twist into unusual shapes after prolonged exposure to high heat and extremely low humidity. The only wood I use is plywood sub-roadbed, prevented from warping by liberal applications of steel angle iron.
