I am in the process of rebuilding our overhead train layout that goes around the walls of our living room. Back in our mobile home, when I did the curved parts, my quicky design didnt look good at all, I want the wood shelf to flow around the curves, matching the curve of the 0-72 track. All but one corner need this, the one oddball corner has a full shelf back into the actual wall corner for my animated ballroom and xmas village buildings. I have the straight sections up, I use pine wood shelf brackets and planks from Lowes and stainted them a nice dark walnut color. I am looking for options on building the corner sections, I could do it out of plywood, but that looks crappy when stained on the edges. The straightaway planks are 1"x6" pine. Has to be able to take the weight of my scale hudson and 5 car heavy weight passenger car train. Thanks Mike
Mike,
I used Baltic Birch Plywood for the bed and dimemsional birch for the wall & ceiling brackets. Wish I had preplanned better to leave clearance for building facades and other scenic touchs.
That looks nice! My issue is dealing with 0-72 curves, much longer curved area to deal with. I will probably just have a buddy cut them from sheets of plywood. Mike
Let me suggest again one of my favorite layout ideas, the spiral curve. This curve begins and ends with a long radius, with a shorter radius in the middle. It can greatly reduce the size of the curve while looking very much like a long radius throughout, especially when viewed from the inside of the curve, as in this case.
For example, on my O27 layout, I use O72-O34-O72, which is 30 precent smaller than O72 throughout. The saving would be similar for O72-O31-O72.
Of course, the single 45-degree section in the middle of the curve cannot be sharper than your equipment can handle mechanically; but, if you’re using O72 more for looks, I think you’ll be happy with a spiral.
A clever idea, Bob!
Bob,
Could you do the same thing with 1/2 section curves to lessen the curve effect?
1/4 O-72, 1/2 O-72, 1/2 O-34, 1/2 O-72, 1/2 O-34, 1/2 O-72, 1/4 O-72
If you mean to lessen the curvature of the middle section, I think it would be simpler just to use a 45-degree chunk of the sharpest curvature that your trains can handle. (1 1/2 sections of O42 or 2 sections of O54) In either case, the whole thing gets a little larger; but, if your trains can’t handle a section of O34, they can’t handle a section of O34. But note that a train that can’t do a complete 90-degree curve of O34 may well be able to get past just one section.