Finally a ramp with parts of

Finally a ramp with parts of infinite radius. I'm joking, but I couldn't resist.
Very nice and sophisticated.

That....

... is fairly amazing, just as an engineering project.

Wow, that is cool!  Double

Wow, that is cool!  Double track no less!  Looks like N scale?  Some long trains to go with it.

Talk about your "roundy-round".  

Made of wood.

Mike.

Snakes

Snakes, I hate snakes.

It's N scale

Yeah it's nice, but my first thought was, what the hell's the purpose of it?

The purpose is to entertain

The purpose is to entertain the general public that attends train shows.  Non-model Railroader’s enjoy a very broad  assortment of model train types. This was a very popular display.  This fellow had several trains running all weekend.

GS

The purpose is to entertain

The general public do serve a purpose.  Help subsidize the ticket prices and keep the show runners in the black, hopefully.

And hey, maybe a few of them will graduate from shiny things to getting a real interest in trains.

The real purpose

Entertaining the public and visitors is no doubt a secondary purpose.  I’d argue though that the real purpose is the same as the real purpose of pretty much any model railroad project - to entertain the guy building it.  And you can pretty much tell from the neat and apparently well planned construction that it served that purpose well

Moving

It could be very useful in case you have to move to another home.

The real purpose ... to

I'd agree it may have been entertaining to build it.  That part is over.

But now that it's built, you'd think watching trains run around it over and over and over and over and over and over - at show after show after show after show after show ... you get the idea.

Worth the price

Another cool helix here in less than two weeks, nice. Absolutely amazing at how people create their own designs and then the fabrication w/o fasteners is on another level rarely seen.

This would work in many instances if one has the space, sometimes I regret sticking to HO in cases like these.

I would suggest that he might

I would suggest that he might be selling the helix components as a possibility. Or he wanted to build it to show off his engineering skill. From the looks of his design I suspect it might be something that can be configured for many scales and can be placed into many different layout foot prints. If one was interested in a helix a lot could be learned from this guys work.

construction details?

 It would be interesting to see how the parts are shaped and how they fit together without fasteners. Those trains were really flying so the joints must be smooth :> ) ......DaveB 

Speed vs. Quality

Nobody ever proves the quality of their track work by setting the throttle to creeping speed and letting the train spend the afternoon making a single lap...

Although having said that it comes to mind that once or twice I’ve come across odd track anomalies that worked OK if blasted through as speed, and going slower allowed the trucks/wheels time to get misaligned and derail.

Fitting the parts

DaveB said:

Stop the video at 4:24 and you can get an idea of how the parts are made. The vertical pieces have two cross members in a dado. They are also secured with what looks like a staple. The plywood sections that hold the track have a tab on the bottom that fit's in the opening of the vertical cross members and captures the track board. You'll also notice the number on the table top. They are used to make sure the vertical members are placed in the proper location. It's a very simple design if you take a moment and stop the video at certain points to get a closer view of the set up.

Bernd