Thanks for the complement. I saw some yesterday at a semiar that just blew my socks off. Guy used a stencil.
-Tom
BigRusty, I hear what you are saying about the rerailers. Do you mean on the diverging route of the TO as the train enters the staging yard from the ladder ?
I’m interested because I could obviously eliminate the need for the helix. I have enough linear distance to make a no-lix; a better proposition.
Yes Tom. That is where they go, because the switch is where derailments happen. I agree with the long ramp rather than a helix if you can hold the grade to 2 percent. Remember, you have get the train back UP that hill. I only use a helix to get up to a second tier where it can be disguised as a mountain usually in the corner of the layout.
Lower level staging has many benefits. On small loop layouts you can avoid the train “chasing its tail” effect, because that is what it is doing on a 4 x 8 layout. On a small layout like that a train would only traverse all of the mainline track once and then disappear for a while. Then maybe another would be called out tfrom the opposite staging to run in the reverse direction. Most of the people I know who built a “trainset” on a 4 x8 sheet of plywood quickly became bored with it. The more realistic operation one can build into the design the more fun it becomes to operate.
Thanks. I want to investigate this as a possibility vs. the helix.
Thanks again,