I made my staging yard like a transfer table.This way i don’t need turnouts so it is much cheaper.IT is 6’8" long and 16,5" wide, and i will lay down 11 rows of track.
Hey, that’s really clever. In most staging yards, the ladder eats up so much space that your trains can’t be close to the length of the yard. Do you have a mechanism to lock the table in place while you’re moving trains on and off?
Yes, i will make a mechanism to lock in place.It will have 11 steps and in every step it will align each row with the arrival track.This is the most difficult step of the construction.
This is the mechanism to lock in place.I thought it this way so it will be in each step adjustable.
Seen these used a few times and their prety good space savers and seem to work well when constructed properly. You wont go far wrong making the table from mild steel either, good choice and good work. You can solder copper pcb strip to the rail ends to keep the ends strong and in good alignment.
Another thing ive seen used is brass door bolt arrangments that are used to lock the traversser in the desired position and double as an electrical contact to your storage roads.
Pretty coo-ool.
Keep us posted. I’m really interested in how this will work. The way you have done leaves very little margin of error. I’m optimistic that this will perform as well as it is planned.
To quote the ad, “Brilliant!”
That’s some impressive design work you’ve done there.
Great design idea! Looking forward to see the progress.
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
My staging yard starts finaly to look like a staging yard.Tomorrow i will lay down the tracks for the loop and make a test to see if it works.I am an optimist that it will.
Quite impressive !
That is awesome! I could use something like that on my layout, I think a lot of us could. Great work.
Well it seems that it works!
But i made a stupid mistake.I did not leaved enough space between the tracks !!!
Now i had to remove some of the tracks and i ruined 5 of them.It was impossible to remove them in good shape because i used glue in the whole length of it.
Ahh…the pain…been there done that. I learned the beauty of latex caulk… try it, man. Your track stays down, but if you have to rip it up, it comes up real nice.
Brian
Well,that was my second mistake,i used adhesive caulk instead of aclylic caulk! That stuff is very strong!
The mechanism is ready and it works perfect!The tracks align perfect. I push it down and the transfer table is released.
Very clever idea. I like the way you incorporated it with a balloon track to allow for reversing trains. When I saw the first pictures I thought you had a muzzle loading staging yard that would have to be fiddled. What is the radius of your balloon track?
At the begining it starts the “S” with 17" radious and after 19"
I made a run test with a Mikado 2-8-2 and a 4-6-2 BR03 and had no problem.
Finaly it’s finished!Here a train entering the staging yard.
And here leaving the staging yard.
It works nice! I don’t know it’s durability in time but until now i am satisfied.
I also made a tric for reversing the polarity for looping with a simple switch.In position 1 the train enter the loop.In position 2 the train leaves the loop.
Entering…
Leaving…
It is not automatic like a reversing module but it cost only 2 euro!
Excellent, Railroad. You do great work! [:)]
Im impressed.
Where do you put your wires? having to put wires long enough to follow the table to it’s maximum travel must be a pain.