Two Steps Forward, One Back

Allegheny Eastern Trackplan

The helix has been designed, but once again I have put the cart before the horse. While the materials to build the helix are at hand (5mm plywood underlayment on sale at Lowes) the track required for the helix will be a long time coming. 128 feet of code 55 flex is about 52 thirty inch long sections. At over $4 a pop it'll cost over $200. Aside from price considerations, the annual Christmas "deadline" is looming. The trains need to be operating before the grandkids visit over the holidays.

For the time being the helix will be bypassed by a straight and level, but temporary, connection between Gallitzin and East Altoona. I won't elevate any trackage until the helix is set in place sometime in the future. Because of the realignment there is a bit more running room in this area, but not the scale mile the helix will provide.

Altoona Benchwork

 I incorporated Dave Smith's yard design into the Allegheny Eastern track plan as best I could. It still needs some work but I have a general idea of where the main lines will run on the new extension. The passenger mains still run separately from the yard, although they have been relocated to make room for some "scenery" to separate Altoona from The Curve.. The yard is separated into two "halves" on either side of  the freight mains. I was also able to tuck the engine terminal, caboose, MOW and RIP tracks into a corner. All of this will be finalized after the mains are relocated and trains are running again. The bench work under Altoona has been extended by building a 15 foot long bookcase to support the tabletop. I recycled the cheap bookcases from my office/library/spare bedroom. I laid the bookcases on their side and stacked them. Some extra particle board shelves were added at either end. Pressure treated 2x4's (cheaper than untreated) were used to build a base and bring the height up to match the rest of the benchwork. I didn't bother to mount the bookcase on casters, the total weight of all my books would make the thing immovable even with wheels. The bookcase will house the rather large amount of railroad related literature I've collected including several decades of  Model Railroader and Rail Model Craftsman. It will also serve as the location for the main control panel for the layout.

Altoona

While the Altoona extension adds only a additional 12 inches to the width of the layout, that's quite a bit of real estate in N scale. The available space for the yards is now about 24" wide and 15 feet long. The photo to the right shows the extent of the new section. The freight mains have yet to be relocated to the new route. The passenger mains will be realigned further to the left. The  The area in the foreground is "East Altoona", now wide enough to accommodate the engine terminal where it actually belongs. There still isn't enough space for a full circle roundhouse like the prototype, but it will still be a fair size installation. Something equivalent to the PRR roundhouse at Crestline, Ohio.

"West" Altoona

The extra width also allows expansion of the city portion of Altoona at the west end of the yard. Since the passenger main will move further "south" from its current location the city scape can be expanded a few blocks in that direction. The realignment will also provide additional room for the Altoona freight house and adjacent tracks. The prototype installation handled quite a bit of express and LCL freight and should add some interesting operation to the layout. I'm hoping that I can also extend the Altoona & Logan Valley traction lines to East Altoona.

Gallitzin

The main lines have not been relocated just yet, and there is new track to be laid between Gallitzin and East Altoona. This is the "temporary" connection until the helix is complete. I also need to reconnect the relocated section "east" of Tunnel Hill to the main line coming off the west side of Horseshoe Curve. I'm hoping to have the work completed and resume operations in the next week or so. It won't be complete by any means, but the grandkids don't seem to mind. Their eyes will still get big as saucers watching multiple trains making their way around the garage. Their happy faces have rekindled the wonder of this hobby for me more than anything else.

Helix!

World's Largest N Scale Helix?

In our last discussion I was ranting on about grades and helixes and what not. The only real way to see if this idea would work was to mock up the beast shown at left using some foam board I had purchased for backdrops. With a 30" minimum radius this massive construct is almost six feet across. You can see that it takes up most of our family room. Fortunately the garage is a tad larger. The wide curves were necessary to produce the 1.6% grade I feel my locomotives can handle. I won't actually know if this is true until I lay track and run a few trains up that slope. My quartet of Baldwin "sharks" are typically assigned a twenty car train on level track. Hopefully they can make it up the hill with the same train.

Allegheny Eastern Track Plan

You can see from the floor plan to the right that the helix is a major component of the layout. The green lines represent the "east slope" of the Alleghenies and the scenery will reflect that. Gallitzin and its helper loop are level trackage and are shown in black. The red lines indicate the west slope (the helix) between Gallitzin and Cresson and points west. On the layout these tracks actually connect to the east end of Altoona and as such represent connections to points east. The helix tracks are long enough to serve double duty as staging tracks, but there is no plan to use them as such. Trains may "hold" on the helix while traffic through Altoona clears the tracks but only temporarily. I know staging is recommended for realistic operation, but I have opted to try another idea. A possible staging solution used on yet another N scale "Horseshoe Curve" based layout can be found in the October 2011 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist. Currently, I don't see the major difference between staged trains and the "orbiting" trains I'll be using on the Allegheny Eastern. Staging does allow each train to be unique in consist and the use of prototypical consist for a particular train at a given time. Unfortunately, only so many staging tracks can be provided. Either way the layout runs a limited amount of trains per operating session. I want to create the impression of a large number of trains passing over the hill, not necessarily duplicate the exact car and consist of each train.

While reading the July 2011 issue of  Model Railroad Hobbyist, I came across an extensive article on building "helixi". The helix in the article by Art Houston is quite tall. Way back when I thought the All East would be multi-level I could have used it as is. The construction technique can be used for any height helix. I like the idea of the laminated and staggered joints, but the "wastage" caused by using quarter turns of plywood goes against my grain.Still, the article caused me to rethink my own design. The trapezoid panels waste less lumber in one sense because they are straight. On the other hand the design makes them larger than what is actually required to carry the track.

By splitting the loops into ten 36 degree sections I was able to get the entire helix on one 4' x 8' sheet of plywood. I tried smaller trapezoids in several redesigns but wasn't satisfied. Each section still required too much width and required multiple sheets of plywood. I followed Art's idea of curved sections, but stayed with 10 per loop. I was able to get all 20 sections required for the entire helix on one sheet. I wasn't planning on using Art's overlapping joints, however, because the plywood at Home Depot run's about $20 a sheet. Serendipity stepped in at that point...I found the 1/4" plywood underlayment on sale at a local Lowes for about $11 a sheet so the redesigned helix will be laminated with staggered joints. The real helix will cost less than the mockup!

With the laminated panels the helix is 1/2" thick, more than strong enough to support the N scale trains and scenery. There is still 2 1/2" of clearance between loops making it easy to access the track and trains in the event of a derailment or repair. A major cost will be the track itself. The price of code 55 flex track has risen since I started the layout and is now about $4 or so for a 30" section. The four tracks in the helix will require over 100 sections! It might be possible to save money by using code 80 on this part of the layout, but it doesn't look promising. Last I checked the code 80 was just as expensive.