Off-Topic Comment "Unless you show-up in my garage in the middle of the night (like the cobblers elves) it's up to me." HA! mg: Haven't heard that story referenced in ages!! Sadly, I hardly ever hear anyone mention the traditional fairy tales. When I was 6 or 7 (mid 1950s), my parents gave me a storybook with a whole series of traditional tales, and the Story of the Cobbler and the Elves was one of them. In the 1980s I read (and re-read, and re-read, and re-read) them to my daughter as bedtime stories. Thanks for jogging my memory! :teeth:
Michael S, There is a very good, well known, long time modeller here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bill Kaufman, who is also building a San Francisco State Belt layout (in HO). You can find a ton of info on your topic, as well as see Bill post from time to time, over on: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BayArea_RailHistory/ Since I see you are in Sonoma, CA, also, on Feb 10 2007 at the Santa Clara Depot, is a great meet, the LDSIG/Ops meet, Bill and probably 100 other avid modellers will be there - would be a great resource and fun day for you to attend. I'll be there too. Info: This year's PCR/LDSIG/OPSIG weekend meeting is coming up. It's scheduled for Saturday/Sunday, February 10-11, at the South Bay Historical Railroad Society in Santa Clara. There's more information, including a tentative schedule, on the web page: http://homepage.mac.com/jacobsen/LORM2007 To anyone who is anywhere near the Bay Area that weekend, go to the web site, check it out, if you like what you see, email the organizers and tell them you're coming. This is a great event.
John Thanks for the "Heads Up". I do subscribe to the Bay Area Rail History Group. I'll indeed try to make this meet. Do you need to be a NMRA member or belong to the SIG? Michael S
Hi, Michael, No, you do not have to be a NMRA member or a member of the LDSIG/Ops SIGs to attend the Feb 10 Layout Design / Operations Special Interest Group meet at the Santa Clara CA historic depot. Just come on out, and invite your friends as well. In fact, the organizers go out of their way to make this event a friendly-to-newbie-to-LDSIG/OPs feeling. Part of the reason for this event is they want others who are truly interested in LDSIG/OPs to have a choice to meet and find out what is going on with all the 'experts'. The Operations on Sunday (you have to register first, of course) is designed to give those who want to try Ops, a chance to operate with some of the very best and find out what all the buzz is about in LDSIG/OPs. Some of the best layouts in the US for doing this are located right here in the Bay Area. It's a great opportunity. I'll also put below here, the offer of help for layout design that they offer, via very experienced layout designers like Byron Henderson of San Jose. Check out his web site in the email below. Attending this meet on Feb 10 is a great way to get introduced to the very active variety of Layout Design and Ops things happening in the San Francisco Bay area. And, depending on where you are coming from, you can just take Caltrain and get off at the Santa Clara depot. How's that for a good deal. =========== From Byron, sent to those who have registered for the LDSIG / OpSIG / PCR meeting in Santa Clara: - We are again offering free advice on layout design and operations planning during the Saturday sessions on Feb 10th. More details on this year's meeting may be found at: http://homepage.mac.com/jacobsen/LORM2007/ There will be consultations throughout the day during the other sessions. I'll try to balance the number of help-seekers and help-providers on the day of the event with a sign-up chart, but there might be a short wait to either receive or provide help. We're planning for each individualized help consultation to last about 20 minutes. The room we typically use will allow about 3 of these sessions to be going on at once. There is additional information below my signature for help-seekers and -providers. If you would like to offer help on layout design, operations, or both, please email me back and let me know approximately how many hours you'd like to offer and in which area (design and/or ops) you'll be offering help. It's very important that we get some people who will agree ahead of time to sacrifice part of their meeting time to offer assistance. Thanks in advance. If you are planning on seeking help, please let me know via a return email. If you can give me a rough idea of the kind of help you will be looking for, that's a plus. I'd just like to get an idea of the number of help-seekers we'll have. And if you just wake up on that Saturday and impulsively grab your planning materials and come to the meeting, that's fine too ... but it's easier to organize if I know about how many to expect. Regards, Byron P.S. Tips: Help-seekers, it's probably most productive if you take some time to organize your thoughts a bit before the meeting. Here are links to a page on my website which offers one approach to defining your layout vision, givens, and 'druthers. If you'd like to download an adobe acrobat (.pdf) version of these questions, just scroll down to the bottom of the web page. http://www.modelrail.us/id13.html It is _not_ necessary (or even desirable) that you answer every question, this is just a guide to ideas that you might want to explore with a volunteer consultant. For design questions, one of the most important things to bring along is a sketch of the proposed layout space with dimensions, even if it is hand-drawn on a napkin (hopefully not too many grease spots). Maps, prototype materials, layout design sketches, etc. are also very helpful. For ops questions, a clear diagram of the existing or planned layout is very useful. The quality of the advice received is often proportional to the amount of preparation by the help-seeker, but keep in mind the 20-minute duration of the help session when thinking about the volume of materials to bring along. =========== Michael S, enjoy and hope to see you there.
Michael: I put together the Excel tables attached below for your helix calculations. Essentially, you'll have 3 oval helixes: the lower of 3 loops, the middle of 1 loop, and the upper of 3 loops. The tangents before and after each of the 3 helixes will be unique. Set their values to 0 if you do not want to have any grade through the tangents. 1. The lower helix will have a tangent that runs up a grade all the way from the northeast corner. You'll have to do some fancy measuring of a J-shaped length of track to enter as your value (length before entering the bottom of the helix) used in the table to automatically calculate the exact height of the starting support above the starting elevation in the NE corner, but that shouldn't be overly difficult. 2. The middle helix will have very short tangents or perhaps no tangents at all, depending on how you decide you want to establish the center points of either end of the middle loop. 3. The upper helix will have no tangent at its base where it meets the middle loop, but one tangent that continues (on a grade?)toward the west side of the layout by the yard and turntable and maybe past there to the northwest corner, and a second tangent that curves back toward the southeast corner (also on a grade?)and continues as far along the east wall as you want. If, by chance, you plan to have one end of your oval a different radius than the other, then you'll need to adjust the formulas for one end or the other...annoying and tedious, but certainly not impossible, if you are familiar with Excel formulas. (OTOH, adjusting formulas can be crazy-making, if you are also trying to learn how to create Excel formulas as you adjust them! ...Let me know if I can help.)
I have posted a revised lower level track plan. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/42743/ppuser/6862 Dave H. Thanks for the xl spread sheet. I use one I put together to check my projected grades. The way I have configured the tracks is not strickly a sprial. The North end loops are nested concentric half circles, the west tangents are mostly 18" while the east are mostly 19.25". The south-east quadrant is the radii of the curve counter-clockwise, and becomes the radius + 1.25" for the south-West quadrant. Sorry, I don't know if this is clear. Michael S
Dave H, You sure put some time into the XL speadsheet. I had some time today to really look at it. Thank for the tool. Michael S
What a fun week-end. I went to the Layout Design / Operations SIG meet this weekend. Tons of good informaton on designing and operating. Other than the couple of months I've subscribed to the Trainboard I have had no contact with other modelers. So being able to sit down with a group of other "N" scale folk and go over my plans was an eye-opener. Ppuinn, a couple of folk looked over the mock-up, took pictures, and asked questions, that I directed your way. The biggest plus for the first time ever, I got to operate on someone else's layout. Ya Hooo!! To the bottom line. The State Belt is in a design revision. Updates will be forthcoming. Michael
The SBRR layout design was critiqued by Byron H., Bob H., and Walter N., at the LD/OP SIG meet in Santa Clara. Just as photos of our models, bring us back to reality, so does the input of our layout plans from other folk. This is what I carried away from the meet: 1. I have two blobs in a 12 x12 space, can they be consolidated. 2. The people space is very tight. 3. Hidden transitions of much length, in the middle of a track plan are a big drag. 4. The “nod” under could be narrowed. This is entrance to the inside of the mushroom. I actually have since then, operated on an HO layout with a hidden 3.5 turn herniated helix (shadow box scene). It was VERY uncomfortable to loose sight of the drag (30 cars, three locos, and a caboose) for so long. The train must have been over 20’ long. I’m an at home N scale guy, to me this train was huge. So I now appreciate point #3. One suggestion was to build two separate layouts one over the other, the connection only by car float. For me no, I really want to have all the traffic on the layout to mesh together and then disburse by rail or sea. This brought me to, what was the purpose of the lower level, other than more track to run over. To be honest, I just figured I’d fill in the lower level later. Now I have a concept. The lower level is going to be Harrison St. in San Francisco. It was the old 1900 main line in to the city. Picture triple headed, steam, running in the street on a 1% + grade in front of your house. The first section (lower level top (North)) 17th St. and Harrison has a lot of history for me. With in two blocks, my grandfather worked the iron at USSS, my dad, and best friend’s mom, worked for PCA, my son in-law worked at Universal Games (that was the old laundry/pillow factory across from PCA) and I did construction work to convert USSS to the MUNI barn. I didn’t think I had the space, but this is what is developing. Follow the progress on the 5th Annual Layout Party. The elevation gain I am still working on. It is at this point it’s looking like a nolex (this allows two more scenes to develop), with a 1.5 to 2.5 turn spiral at the top. While hopefully the top level won’t change too much, this redesign is a shake-up of what I thought I was doing.
Thinner layer supports I wonder if any of you are using thin supports between levels on your layout. I at this point have 5" of structure under my sub-roadbed. It is soild but thick, my wife was standing on the upper deck to reach things in the loft. If there is something, someone is using, that is thinner and strong PLEASE give a shout. Five inches is about two turns on the helix in 'N' Scale. The layout progresses but the plan is in flux. This is sort of like a wagon-train, the settlers moving westward, while scouts survey the route ahead. So please again any ideas on creating a thinner upper deck, that is stong, let them be heard. Thanks Michael S
Major redesign of 90% of the layout Since Feburary I've been redrawing and re thinking my layout. Much of the design I had oridginally proposed were from twenty years of doodling. This needs to be fleshed out more Industries and streets added, but I think it may work. The some of the track arrangements are based on the sanborn maps and old photos. The botton level has the "west" and "north" trackage installed. This version has more open space for people to operate. The mddle level will allow three more scenes to be developed. I have secured air rigths over the passage way between the front of the garage and Sharon's studio. If she can walk under it I'm cool. The upper level is a complete rework and is only about half drawen. This will represent the old SP main line (San Bruno branch) Harrison st to King St and the State Belt along the water front. Michael S
