I hope there is someone out there with the answer to my dilema. I’m in the initial stages of designing a new model railroad after almost 30 years out of the hobby. I’ve been keeping up to date on all the latest goodies, hence the re-newed interest. Anyway, to get to the point. My new layout is going to have to be multi-level by necessity, and I want to avoid a helix. The best solution for my situation (based on the track plan and room requirements) would be an elevator. Now, it seems to me that at some point in the recent past I saw an ad in MR, or perhaps an article, regarding an elevator to move trains vertically to staging tracks. The elevator may have been marketed by a company that sells wall-mounted display cabinets. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
While I’m not familiar with the system you referenced, there are two others you might consider:
In John Armstrong on Creative Layout Design, the Dean of Layout Designers showed a design for a train elevator 16 feet long, designed to move entire O scale trains from one level to another of a multi-level railroad.
Some time back, there was a long thread in this forum about using an automotive scissors jack as an elevator actuator. IIRC, the final design incorporated two scissors jacks linked together.
I’m leaning toward using the Armstrong design to ‘close the loop’ on a loads in/empties out scheme where the mismatch in height is about 16 inches. Construction is probably a couple of years away.
At one time I had a layout that had 2 levels and there was no room for a helix nor enough running length of track for a grade. The solution I came up with was a train elevator. Now, being a poor boy from the deep south, I didn’t have the bucks for an electric elevator nor could I build one. No parts. What I came up with was a length of track about ten feet long glued down to a piece of 1/2" plywood with a piece of 1 X 1 run along the bottom to make it rigid. I put two screw eyes near the left end and two more screw eyes near the right end. There were metal rods measuring 2 1/2" in length vertically at each end, two per end, with 1" sticking out the top and 1" sticking out the bottom. These mated with metal tubes on the bottom part of the layout and on the top part as well. This assured that the tracks lined up when the elevator went to the top or the bottom. I attached 4 thick strings to the screw eyes, one string per eye, and ran them through large screw hooks (about half the size of bicycle hooks) in the ceiling. The string came down to two manual winches (cannibalized from boat trailers) That I had linked together, so when I turned one, the other turned as well. When I wanted to transport a train from the bottom level I simply drove the train onto a stub siding that took the train onto the elevator strip, stopped it and turned the winches to pull the track up to the top level where it mated up to another stub siding and simply drove the train off onto the main line. It worked pretty well most of the time. A couple of times I forgot that the elevator was on the wrong level and ended with some smash-ups that Gomez Addams would be proud of!
Here is a pic of what I did to solve the same problem. The threaded piece is a hardwood dowel but you could use a length of ready rod & nuts . My RR is in the room on the other side of the wall. Hope this helps.
I’m convinced it will meet my need as I didn’t want to use a helix and I didn’t have adequate space to get the elevation I needed.
However mine won’t be as long. I only intend on having about two to three cars maximum on my elevator.
They show using a portable drill to power it.
I plan on using the motor out of a small paper shreeder.
Our paper shreeder just quit and when I opened it up to see why, I found the plastic gear stripped rendering the shreeder junk. However the motor is perfectly fine and its 3amps and has a reversing switch. It should be perfect to put in the elevator and when I add a potentiometer, I should be able to control the rate of climb very easily.
There are several threads on the boards about this including one where a person was using a couple of scissor jacks for cars linked together and driven by a hand drill. My question is since the train is entering a track at the end of its run isn’t it going to be faced in the wrong direction on the other level?
It all depends on the track plan. In my case, the train will be a coal unit without locomotive, backed in loaded at the bottom after the matching empty is pulled, backed in empty at the top some time after the loaded unit has departed. The locos come off because the two ends belong to two different railroads and use two different types of motive power (steam and catenary motors.)
In another plan I made, but never built, the train would have entered the lower level, been lifted to the upper level and proceeded on its way in the same direction. The alternatives were a spiral (impractical in a space only 42 inches wide that had to be used as a passageway) and a multi-leg switchback (totally unprototypical, and a PITA to operate.)
If used as an interchange track, handling cuts of cars without locos or cabooses, or as access from ‘the modeled world’ to hidden staging, the elevator can be loaded from the same end, from opposite ends or from both ends on both levels.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with back-in staging)
Thanks to everyone! There are some really good ideas to choose from. That RO-RO elevator is exactly what I remembered, so at least now I know I’m not totally loosing my mind. I am curious about that article “Going Up!” in the MRP 2001, so I’ll be looking for a copy of that mag.
