Need some help with Grades...

[Trucklover]

Hi guys,

I started looking at my Steel Mill Trackplan I made a while back. I made the plan to fit into a one car garage, 10x20' or half of a 2-car garage. This plan is just for the future, and I will not be building this layout anytime soon. Just one of those that I was bored and I got to making a plan for the future when I have a house of my own. The door placement is obviously going to vary, and I have only placed it where it is on the plan to show where a door might be... In a 2-car garage, there would be no door and just liftouts

This layout consists of 3 decks, the top deck being at eye level (62-64" from the floor; yes im a pretty short guy LOL). This should make it pretty realistic, seeing as how the Blast Furnaces are on the top deck, and they are very tall and large in size... Looking them dead on from the eyes of the workers should give you a scaled perspective at just how large a steel plant is and just how massive some of these structures are.

The middle level will be at 40-42", so about 20" below the top deck which should be plenty of room to not only work on the deck but to also have enough "sky" room and provide enough of a valance to conceal some lights for the middle level.

The lower level will be very low to the ground, around 20" off the floor. I still have not decided if I would want to this third level, but there is no way to go any higher with it. Right now I have a workbench that is 26" off the ground, I can sit at it and work comfortably, so 6" lower would not work and I would have to sit on my knees while working on the lower level. While I wouldnt necessarily mind doing that, it might be rather difficult to see without sitting down on a chair and looking down onto the lower level. The Lower level is just basically an Iron Ore Mine with 2 large Open Pit Mines and a one MASSIVE Single-Sided Ore Dock. Ill have to do some thinking about the lower level. I REALLY want to model the mine and Ore Dock, so that is the only reason I still have the lower level right now. I might do some revising to the lower level and make it smaller and more compact, Maybe try and get it down to a single wall instead of a full lower level...


Now to my questions....

I want to connect all 3 levels so a train can run between them. I had originally designed this plan so that all 3 levels were separated and a train could not run on all 3 decks. I was originally fine with that, but now im thinking that it would be nice to move the cars throughout the decks to different buildings and yards so that they are not restricted to just one deck without me physically picking them up and moving them to a different deck.

A helix is pretty much out of the question I think, and if I did do a helix, I would want a minimum radius of 26" which takes up ALOT of space and I would have reach issues in the corner the helix is in. I am thinking that a single track hidden behind a backdrop that could run up the 20"s between the decks would work. I would have to make access hatches every so often in case a derailment occurred inside...

Now im not good with math and calculations, so what kinda grade should i do if i need to travel up 20-22" between decks? I dont want a steep grade, and it doesnt really matter how long it takes to travel up 20-22", there is about 60' if need be to go up that to the next deck....

Any help, questions, comments, concerns are appreciated

BTW, sorry for the large pictures, it usually doesnt go off the page and usually just puts the picture in a scroll box, but it seems like every once in a while they do go way off the page LOL

[MasonJar]

Hi Josh,

You need two of the three pieces of information to get the other...

Grade% = rise/run*100

So if you need to go up 22" (rise), and you have 60 feet (run) to do it, you can have:

Grade% = 22"/(60feetx12inches/foot)*100

Grade% = about 3% which is reasonable.

If your grade has curves, it will effectively be steeper, as it will take more power to move the same cars up and around at the same time. Or you need to have a longer run.

Andrew

[TinGoat]

Use an elevator:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.aglasshalffull.org/article-logging-train.html">http://www.aglasshalffull.org/article-l ... train.html</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.southpacificlines.org/tranzdeck-whole-train-ho-elevator">http://www.southpacificlines.org/tranzd ... o-elevator</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.a-51x.com/eclipseauctions/davp/elevator/index.htm">http://www.a-51x.com/eclipseauctions/da ... /index.htm</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skSCtLUaf-o">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skSCtLUaf-o</a><!-- m -->

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K86V3L9aAMg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K86V3L9aAMg</a><!-- m -->

[Russ Bellinis]

Hi Josh,

You need two of the three pieces of information to get the other...

Grade% = rise/run*100

So if you need to go up 22" (rise), and you have 60 feet (run) to do it, you can have:

Grade% = 22"/(60feetx12inches/foot)*100

Grade% = about 3% which is reasonable.

If your grade has curves, it will effectively be steeper, as it will take more power to move the same cars up and around at the same time. Or you need to have a longer run.

Andrew

I may be mis-understanding your calculations, but 60 x 12 is 720 inches. So, a rise of 22 inches in 720 inches is 3.5%. 3.5% is a bit steep for the prototype, but not too bad for model railroading. You would just need to add more power to the train. I don't know how long you want your trains to be, but that is the main short coming of the elevator in ho scale. You are then limited to what I would consider very short trains. Any sort of tight curves would put more load on locomotives pulling trains up the hill, but some long gentle "S" curves will add extra distance without putting so much load on the power. If you have room for some "S" curves with at least a 48 inch radius, and bigger if possible, you could add extra inches to the distance it takes to go up a level.

One thought that occurs to me is to make it a two level layout instead of three. Put the entire steel mill on the upper level using peninsulas in the center of the oval off the 20 foot wall oposite the door. Then you could do a two turn nolix around the walls between the lower and upper level. If the spur on the peninsulas were all stubs with run around tracks or wyes where the peninsulas joined the main benchwork, and the peninsulas were narrowed at the joint so that you could fit in for a better reach, you could make the peninsulas as wide as needed for the structures and the tracks would all be near the edge of the benchwork.

[MasonJar]

Hi Russ,

By my trusty Windows calculator, I have:

22/(60x12) = 22/720
22/720 = 0.0305555
0.0305555 x 100 = 3.05%

I knew there was a reason to listen to the teacher when she said "show your work"...!


Andrew

[Russ Bellinis]

My bad, I just multiplied 12 times 20 on my calculator and divided the 720 into 22, but I misread the result. I overlooked the zero between the 3 & the 5, so I thought I was looking at 3.5% when it was actually 3.05%. 3.05% is not a bad grade at all for a model railroad.

There is one venue where we occasionally set up the modular layout where the floor slopes 3%! When we go to a show at that venue, we only run Christmas tree style. No switching operations on that layout until someone invents ho scale working brakes!

[ocalicreek]

Are you averse to a helix? Or did I miss that somewhere in the description? Nice planning, btw.

Galen

[Trucklover]

Hey Guys,

I appreciate everyones help in this thread. It is a 3% grade, I did it and it worked LOL. See the new thread I just started for the plan

21" between the Upper and Middle Decks, and 14" between the Lower and Middle Decks is what I decided upon....

Russ, you have certainly given me something to think about there. I have just finished adding in the grades and re-arranging to get them in, but now after reading your thoughts, its got me thinking again and I may have to give your idea a go... Thanks for your input and suggestions

Galen, First off thanks And to answer your question, I am trying to stay away from a helix as it will occupy far to much of the valuable Steel Mill Property

Ron, as Russ pointed out, an elevator would be cool but limit me to small short trains, something i dont think I could live with. I plan on running long trains, and when there going up the grades ill have 5-6 locomotives pulling, and maybe even more to get that heavy load up grade