Can someone explain what a mushroom layout exactly looks like? Maybe some details on it’s construction?
http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.20
has a trackplan and side view drawing of joe fugate’s mushroom layout . he’s the mushroom expert around here , hopefully he’ll drop by with a full explanation
Ahh now I remember Joe did explain it to me before. When i searched the forum for Mushroom I didn’t get hits.
I’ll stop by Joe’s site.
If you draw a block letter S and a block E you have the difference between a mushroom and a double level railroad with both scenes on the same side of the backdrop. The advantage is you only see one scene at a time. It is imperative with a mushroom that you have proepr bracing in the flooring so it doesn’t collpase and hurt someone and have adequate escape route(s) in case of a fire or smoke emergency which should probably include emergency lighting and exit signs.
In short, a mushroom is simply a double decked layout where one of the decks faces the opposite direction.
This enables you to use a raised floor for viewing the upper deck, and thus keep the lower and the upper decks closer to the same (apparent) relative distance from the floor.
In a nutshell, that’s it. Here’s a cutaway diagram from my web site that illustrates the idea:
(click to enlarge)
The raised floor is the one element of a mushroom that you generally don’t have in a traditional double deck design where both decks face the same way.
Also here’s a panoramic view of the upper deck portion of my layout taken from the room entrance. When you enter the room, you immediately step up onto the raised floor and see this scene. If you go around to the right, you step back down to the room floor, and there’s a “whole 'nuther layout” back down there, to quote the surprised response I get from many visitors. That’s one of the mushroom’s real beauties – it doesn’t look double decked, even though it is.
For a much larger view, click here.
How did it get the name “mushroom”, rather than, say, “overlapped”?
KL
The famed Dean of Track Planning, the late John Armstrong, came up with that name.
If you notice, the upper deck portion is T shaped in a cross section, and is maybe just a bit reminiscent of a mushroom.
And mushroom is easier to say than opposing-double-deck – which is actually what it is.