STACKED SWITCHING ON LAJ LAYOUT
#16
Was thinking about how to have more switching in the same place & came up w/ this idea of stacking them on some kind of apparatus to move them up & down. My friend Jim Thurman of the Orange County Module Club came up w/ doing it by a having a large threaded rod turned by an electric motor. It will need some kind of guides on the ends. My original idea was to use the Sipping & Switching Society of NC waffle frame module design to keep the weight down while being super strong. But Jim did suggest using 2" Styrofoam but wonder if they would sag. Maybe use the S&SSofNC waffle frame on the sides. The modules, guides & rod will be mounted on a 4' x 6' board doubling as a backdrop.
The Los Angeles Junction RY is an industrial switching RR about 3mi. SE of downtown LA. It has about 64 miles of track in a 2mi. X 5 mi. area. There are 22 switching "Leads" coming out of 3 yards in Commerce, Maywood & Vernon CA
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#17
ninastaford Wrote:Was thinking about how to have more switching in the same place & came up w/ this idea of stacking them on some kind of apparatus to move them up & down. My friend Jim Fuhrman of the Orange County Module Club came up w/ doing it by a having a large threaded rod turned by an electric motor. It will need some kind of guides on the ends. My original idea was to use the Sipping & Switching Society of NC waffle frame module design to keep the weight down while being super strong. But Jim did suggest using 2" Styrofoam but wonder if they would sag. Maybe use the S&SSofNC waffle frame on the sides. The modules, guides & rod will be mounted on a 4' x 6' board doubling as a backdrop.
The Los Angeles Junction RY is an industrial switching RR about 3mi. SE of downtown LA. It has about 64 miles of track in a 2mi. X 5 mi. area. There are 22 switching "Leads" coming out of 3 yards in Commerce, Maywood & Vernon CA

Nina
Have known Jim Fuhrman of OCMC for over 30 years. Don't know a Jim Thurman from OCMC.
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#18
Andy, I think the answer to your problem of keeping the levels straight when stacked and moving up and down is to make the backdrop very strong, and then build a second piece also strongly anchored to the layout behind the back drop with heavy duty roller bearing drawer slides between the two pieces. The drawer slides at the ends of the backdrop would maintain straight and plumb as the screw mechanism that Jim suggested would move it up and down. Since the drawer slides are @1/4" thick, you would probably need to mount them on furring strips to allow for the bulk of the screw mechanism.
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#19
I'd suggest 2 vertical threaded rods linked by wheel and chain so that they both rotate together and at the same speed, inset from the ends by between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total length Each threaded rod has captive nuts so that they cannot turn and therefore will move up and down depending on the direction in which the rods turn. I'd also suggest that there is some sort of counter-weight system to take some of the weight off the threaded rods - the cassettes/shelves with trains on them are going to be HEAVY! Ball bearing drawer slides, or similar, fitted vertically will help with the guidance, but they MUST be plumb vertical - the slightest deviation will result in jamming.
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#20
Russ & Shortliner
Thanks for your comments. Here's my drawing of the stacked lead "system" for my LAJ layout. Each stack is 10" by 72". Does it look like it's workable? Only show one threaded rod but would two be better? Thins the should be in front to give more support. To work right it has to be very light but still very sturdy. Not sure about having it motorized. Having it hand cranked may be better, i.e. K.I.S.S.
Will look at using a combination of of foam boards & foam core vs using any wood wood to help keep weight down. A bunch of cars on each level should only weigh around 8 lb +/- total. Most structures would be against backdrop. With the good advice given here this design will surely change plus work fine & it should last a long time!
Russ, being a module club member, do you think would work as a module to use at OCMC?

   
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#21
FWIW _ built a loco lift (many years ago that ran on a single threaded rod and a pair of plastic drawer slides salvaged from an old chest of drawers - To power it I used a rechargeable screw-driver with the head located in a slot in the end of the rod - with the screw-driver gearing it rotated at a suitably slow speed to prove that the concept worked - but it was only moving a single Athearn BB loco up and down
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#22
Seriously interesting idea! The first thing that came to mind, and forgive me if this sounds negative, but having a centrally placed winding mechanism might cause you some issues if there is any movement outside the tolerances for the guide system. It's essentially a seesaw and potentially could cause enough movement to bind up in the guide rails. Maybe it would be rigid enough if you can work within higher enough tolerance in construction and the materials wouldn't distort over time. I don't have enough experience of the foam board but I have read of shrinkage.

Do you even need the motor? If you counter-weight it you could use hands at both ends of the board to guide it. I accept you would then need a method to lock a level into position.

Really just me thinking out loud. I would be really interested in seeing your progress though.

*EDIT* all this has already been said by others. Servers me right for not reading all the posts. Sorry!
UK Engineering fan, from the tiny artistically engineered to the huge and powerful
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#23
This is a very cool concept! I am definitely following this thread to see how it all comes out. I can see a loop of track and this system in the middle. By the time the train made a trip around the layout the next "town" would be in place ready to be switched. The first and last units could be end of the line terminals. One could conceivably have more towns and areas to switch than a large layout in the fraction of the space. Sorry if this has all been said already, but this just really caught my attention!

Chuck
Detroit Connecting
We are your
inner-city connection.
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#24
Chuck
As can be seen in this plan there's NO roundy round much less to the next "town"! Trains just go from yard to the Switch Leads & back. The LAJ is just a switching RR so there's no mainline running. The whole RR occupies a 2 mile by 5 mile area.
The plan was done by Rob Chant thru a free offer on Railroad Line Forums from my hand drawn plan. Still need to do some tweaking of some of the tracks.

   
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#25
The trackplan looks great and like the prototype. Any update on the layout?
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#26
The layout is on hold til after my move end of May. So probably June before any work can begin.
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#27
Andy, I just came back to this site and looked at this thread again. I like the idea of two threaded rods synchronized together better than one threaded rod. I also think it might work better with a crank system instead of the expense of an electric motor. I'm thinking that you might take a look at a bike shop to see what it would cost for a couple of sprockets and a bicycle chain. I would also use a ball bearing at each end of each threaded rod. Make sure that both sprockets are identical in diameter and tooth pitch.
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#28
Thanks for the ideas Russ. It's very K.I.S.S. >) Finally moved to Santa Fe Springs 7/31/15. Will have to come up w/ a new plan as this place is configured very different than the old place. But it being a modular layout, can build one module at a time.
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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