Second post

I started out with a sheet of 2” thick blue foam.

I used an 8 foot long piece of wood as a guide to cut a piece a little over one foot wide.

Next I used the table saw to square up the hand cut side and make it exactly 12” wide.

I have two pieces clamped to the sides to measure how wide to make the spacers and end pieces.

I made a jig for spacing small 1” X 6” spacers that will be used to space the inner support pieces.

The first one is spaced in one thickness of the end piece. Then each subsequent piece is spaced one width thickness of the inner support pieces. It is glued and nailed with 5/8” long brads.

The first row of spacers have been glued and nailed down. I also marked the boards for proper assembly.

Using a pair of side cutters I cut the brads sticking out the other side off.

I then used a Dremel tool with a drum sander to bring down the ends of the brads flush with the wood.

All the spacers have been glued and nailed down.

The first end piece is installed using a square for proper alignment.

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Brads are driven in at a 45 degree angle to hold the pieces in place while the glue dries.

The two end pieces and one side piece have been glued and nailed in place.

The inner support pieces have been glued and nailed in place. The pieces are 2” shorter in height so the foam seats inside the frame.

Test fitting the foam top.

The second side is glued and nailed.

I discovered I need to cut holes in the sides to be able to wire it up.

Bernd

Bernd

Really nice work. I'm curious if you are leaving the bottom solid or are you going to be cutting it out between the supports to allow access? 

Rick asked:

Thank you Rick.

I plan on cutting holes in the bottom. I was also going to do the sides but will see how well the holes in the bottom work out. It'll be a simple method of drilling four holes and cutting some straight lines.

Bernd 

Paul asked:

No, that's 3/16" thick underlayment. The stuff will warp easily if left laying around for a time. It will soak up moisture in the air. I painted it as soon as I assembled it. Seems to have helped alot.

Bernd

Next installment

Some more progress in getting the frame roughed in. I cut holes in the bottom for access to the bottom of the foam for wiring and turnout controls.

A little more info on materials I plan on using. I'm going to use my resin cast track and I'm going to give scratchbuilding turnouts a try. I plan on controlling them manually. I have an idea, but the layout needs to be at the point of them being installed. Who knows I may change my mind by the time I get to that point.

I laid out the holes by drawing lines where the stiffeners on the inside are. Then I made a 1" wide piece and a 2" wide piece for locating cutting lines.

Then I drilled 1/2" dia. holes at the corners and then used a saber saw to cut out the holes.

All the holes have been cut.

Believe it or not that is the blue foam. The flash washed it out. With the foam in place the whole frame has become very rigid. It's a little "twisty" without it.

Bottom view. I have nice access to the inside now.

I had to add some end pieces to keep the foam from being pushed down at the ends.

I think the next thing on the agenda is laying out the track diagram.

For those of you who do not know what the Gum Stump & Snowshoe layout looked like that Chuck Yungkurth  had designed here is a drawn picture of it courtesy of Model Railroader. It was in the April 1966 issue.

Just imagine it with a forest on it.

Bernd

If you have access to some of

If you have access to some of the old RMC and Model Railroader magazines, I believe 1982 through maybe 1990 you can likely find several articles about a layout based on this plan. Robert Smaus not sure of the spelling but I think it is correct, built a 3x11 foot layout with wheels on one end. The layout was inspired by the industrial areas of LA and had lots of very photogenic scenes on it.

The track plan was based on the gum stump and snowshoe and just stretched here and there. It was designed to be portable and he would roll it outside like a big wheelbarrow for photography or in some cases to work on it.

I thought it was a very interesting plan for the space in HO scale.

Old Magazines

Hi Rob,

Yes I have the old RMC & MR magazines. My collection goes back to the early 60's for RMC and into the beginning of the 50's for MR. Been collecting them as I find them on E-bay and at shows. Many interesting articles in there that todays newbies are asking questions about.

I'll have to get those older articles out and peruse through them. Thanks for the info.

Bernd

Port Ogdon & Northern

For an expanded GS&SS.  See page 6 of '101 Track Plans .....' by Linn Wescott.

I almost built this at my former garage but had to move.  Designed as 12"x16' for H0, I was gona build it at 16"x22' in Sn42 with some Sn2.  For TT it supposedly measures 9"x12'.  

Toooooo hot in the garage here so I am doing something in the "spare room".

More Progress

dapenguin,

Ah yes I remember that now. I've got the book collecting dust somewhere.

 "I'm going to give

I  found that I could make turnouts that would work with both HP size flanges and euro/Gold coast size flanges by making them without guard rails. They seemed to be reliable on my test track setup.Being able to run both sizes of wheels is very handy in TT scale since the old stuff and the new stuff is different standards....DaveB 

@Bernrd, October, 1989 had an

@Bernrd,

I thought I would do a search as his layout in the dear Rick article was a favorite of mine. I found some references on the MR blog pages from a search and they are quoted above. Hope that makes finding them if you wish to see what someone else did with your track plan.

@ Dave

Thanks for the info Dave. Right now I have over 100 wheels sets from Fox Valley when they had them. I plan on scratchbuilding the log buggies with these wheel sets plus the Precision Scale HOn3 frames with the my home made bolsters. I won't have to worry about flanges.

Bernd

@ Rob

Rob,

Thanks much for doing the leg work. Much appreciated. I'll check it out after surfing through the forum.

Bernd

 "I plan on scratchbuilding

Standardizing on wheel sets will certainly make building turnouts easier . What do you plan to do for loco wheels? ......DaveB 

Loco Wheels

Not sure yet what I'm going to do about them. I've been looking around for a set of spoked wheels. I've got one set of axles made using the Fox Valley TT scale wheels. They are 33" wheels that I added a worm gear to.

One unmodified wheel and one with a gear installed.

These home made tools and a lathe helps.

And the finished pair.

I have a set of spoked wheels from the Bachmann San Francisco cable car that might work. They are close to a 33" wheel at 32.64".  Who knows what will show up by the time I get to that project. I might even be tempted to do my own spoked wheels.

Bernd 

More Layout Progress

@Rob, I checked out the October 1989 MR. I like his layout.

Finally figured out how to do the curved grade section. I was scratching my head wondering how I was going to get a nice smooth curve and grade up 2".

I put a piece of paper under where the track is going to be and drew some lines following the cork roadbed.

Cut out the traced part and placed on a piece of 2"thick foam. Drew some freehand lines.

Cut out the contour on a bandsaw.

Next head scratcher was getting a smooth grade from 2" down to 0" near the turnout. A piece of cork makes for a nice flexible tool to be able to draw a grade on the side of the foam.

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Back to the bandsaw to cut the grade.

Not quite good enough. Going to have to try that again tomorrow. Enough for tonight.

Bernd

Gump stump is a popular one

Bernd, first off nice work on your table.  Now, I first encountered a layout based on this Gump Stump in the hallway of an O scale Convention in the 1980's. It was a display layout John Dunn made and brought to show people one did not need excessive room to have fun with O scale. I cannot post the article because of copyright rules but the issue of of 48/ft O Scale News is number 105, November 1990. Worth a look, the layout was termed the belle of the ball at the convention. This Gump Stump has many variations in deed. It's a remarkable bi level arrangement in any scale. Enjoy the process.

Btw. John's layout was called the Linfield Northern and Southern.

Transfer.

I see by the Kit boxes you have in your photo that you have an interest in harbor railmarine practices. Me too.

Awesome.

Watch your vertical curves...

Hi Bernd,

Watch your vertical curves, especially on any bogie rolling stock. For your log bogies or disconnects, it shouldn't be too much of an issue because the vertical transitions can be taken up by logs on your logging bolsters and the log bolsters themselves should be short enough for coupler overhangs not to be an issue between adjacent wagons.

The only way we get away with this in Code 100 rail

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is that:

1. the wagons are short (see the small coal skip on the high line in the background)
2. we move them over the vertical curves uncoupled one at a time
3. The grade change is completed before reaching the turnout
4. the rail has been modified to allow it to curve vertically as tightly as this. 

To assist with size comparisons, the foreground wagon is a Bachmann On30 side-dump car.and the falling grade on the kickback is 1 in 7 or 14%

You will be/could be unpleasantly surprised about how gradual the vertical transition curves at each dead-end of a grade have to be to prevent uncoupling with bogie stock and how short that makes the constant part of the grade.

An additional tip - if possible, keep your vertical grade change areas away from your sectional joints as shown below. 

It solves a whole flock of operational problems if you can jump a section joint on a constant grade (and preferably on straight track as well).

I'm not sure what style of couplings you are planning on using. You may find that one of the UK/European loop coupling systems (like MiniTrains etc) may be a whole lot more forgiving on the grade transitions that one of the Knuckle coupler systems. Which ever way you go, you'll need to minimise overhangs on locomotives and any longer bogie vehicles. 

Just a friendly "heads-up", but I'm sure that you have already thought through all of this,  

48/ft O Scale News is number 105, November 1990

I checked their web site. I see they are working on doing PDF's of back issues. I'll have to keep an eye on their site. Thanks.

Bernd

Watch your vertical curves

I was already thinking about that. Right now I just want to get the general grade roughed out. Once I get that I'll lay some track down and see what I have and what needs to get tweaked for better operation.

I did a calculation on the grade. It's a 2" rise in a 22" length giving a 9.09% grade. The Cass Scenic railroad had an 8.7% grade on one of the sections to Bald Knob. So I'm pretty darn close to a prototype grade. The vertical transistions shouldn't be as severe as they look to be on your line.

BTW, thanks for the input. This is the kind of information that you don't see to often in the construction of a layout on forums.

Bernd 

More on vertical curves

Hi Bernd,

Your last post rang warning bells. You could be sailing into dangerous waters with that grade. Here's why 

You have a known start and end point for your grade because your module size is now set and you have selected a desired height that you want your train to climb to give the "Measured Grade" in the sketch below

Remember what I said about those vertical transition curves at top and bottom of the grade? Because they have to be there the ACTUAL GRADE is steeper than what you measured. Your vertical transitions should be nowhere near as severe as mine, but because of this your vertical transitions will "eat"  more horizontal distance and thus steepen the grade more than would my tighter vertical transitions for the same increase in height over the same total distance. At 9% on the measured grade you could easily be +10% on the actual grade. Also remember our models do not have sand and Hi-Ad bogies to assist traction. At +10% your locomotive could be battling moving itself uphill without moving anything else as a train uphill.

It might be time to do some grade testing on a smaller straight piece of track off layout to see what grades and loads your trans can actually pull on the grade you currently have before you go too much further with scenery or tracklaying. If you can, when you do the testing add at least one more car to your planned train to ensure you have some adhesion capacity "up your sleeve" for any curves on the climb. The additional haulage capacity will probably be needed. The target maximum grade should be the grade that you lets you start the train on the grade without slipping. Remember to check both pulling and pushing uphill on the grade (you might be surprised at the difference). This gives you an measured "Maximum Actual Grade" for your train. You should then adjust your grade on the modules to suit by flattening some of the hill.    

My initial recommendation, looking at your measured grade, would be to lower the height of the climb to the dead-end by at least 1/2" or so to achieve "reliable operation" on the grade, and make a second less-steep climb from the dead-end to get you to your desired finishing height. I'm not sure if you can do this with what you have planned.

I hope that this helps you to get things right "on the hill" with what looks to be an interesting concept layout. 

Verticle Grades

Thanks for the heads up John. Will do some testing when I get everything together. Still have to design the log buggies and build them. Same goes for the engine, so it might be a while, but I'll take your valuable advice into consideration.

Bernd

 "the ACTUAL GRADE is steeper

Yeah, the correct way to design vertical curves is to continue the grade in to the PIVC (where it meets the slope grade) then project the slope grade to the PIVC going out. Once the grade in, the slope, and the grade out are chosen then the length of vertical curve is added,half on each side of the PIVC. The length of VC to use is determined by the rate of change needed, which is a matter of length of equipment, speed, etc. The sketch is a schematic of the process.In practice the grades of the three parts are determined by the existing terrain and the best fit based on the route criteria, cost,topographical details, etc......DaveB

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Log buggy design for Bernd

Hi Bernd,

Seeing you are scratch-building log buggies or disconnects. Have a look at  http://www.hon30.org/disconnect-log-cars/  This method was successfully used by Professor Klyzlr in the early 2000's. They worked well on his Broughton Vale layout.

I know it is a different scale, buy it might provide some inspiration for you on how to fabricate your log buggies and log loads.