Eras

Stan, not a problem, really. Unless you want to be 100% prototypically accurate for your 70's era a little modeller's licence can make it happen for you. Steam logging railroads operated well into the 50's and some maybe even into the early 60's, but by then most used small diesels. Why not have an eccentric logging baron run Shays and Heislers up in the logging branches and a road locomotive of your choice, maybe a 2-6-6-2 or a Baldwin DRS 44-1000, to bring the logs down to North Vancouver via the logging main, either to interchange with BC Rail or to a log dump by a mill in the harbour.

Just my thoughts.

Roy

two eras in North Van

2 eras

I would send the "oldtime" train with an appropiate loco to a hidden interchange track where it would be picked by a more modern one for the rest of the trip. Older loco then would go back to it's appropiate era with the empty cars.

MRMR

My Railway - My Rules

That's my number one rule, If you want to have pixies riding your railroad then thats your rules.

It may get a raised eyebrow but so what?.  

I may not have pixies but if my wife already has a theme for my yet to be built garden railway - the "Teddy Bear Express" - she's into teddy bears and thinks it would be fun for the kiddies.  We will see if MRMR applies to my significant other or not. 

On another note I'm experimenting with lift out scenic section.  I have one started just to see how it works.  I made two identical foam board shapes - basically a city block, and will put two different scenes.  I might have a 1960's city block that can be lifted out and replaced with a lumber yard.  My interest was not so much modeling two era's as having twice as many buildings and kits as nscale real estate.   I can justify steam on my layout as excursions - not sure that would work with a logging operation. 

Great Idea

This seems like a great idea. Especially if you run each level as a seperate operating session.

Two Eras, Two Mills

 Thanks for your replies everyone!

I've considered setting up a large "modern" sawmill in North Vancouver on the lower level, but I already own the backwoods Sierra West Twin Mills complex (not yet built). I don't think the Twin Mills has the right "feel" to be located in the city, so I wanted to keep it up in the mountains. Maybe I need to have TWO sawmills!    What do you think? A shingle mill on the logging deck and the main mill below?

As far as swapping engines between eras, I don't really have a place to interchange steam and diesel engines convincingly, so perhaps the the idea of bringing the logs down to the lower level as opposed to the finished lumber is the way to go. I think I can justify a steamer in 1970 better than a diesel in 1940 anyway. 

I really should get my track plan to point of it being presentable, I think you guys might have an opinion or two to share about it! 

Stan

When the old trains come

When the old trains come down, they're tourist trains.  Simple enough of an operation.

When the new trains come up, they terminate in a yard where both eras are served, but in such a way it appears older.  As such, simply removing the cars and a couple vehicles and this ubiquitious yard could be either era.  You could then have a small vignette off to a small modern operation, but emphasizing loading operations, whereas the modern facilities are all on the lower levels.  This vignette would be isolated [spurish] form the reast of the 1900 side of the upper deck.  The spur serving this area would terminate in offlayout storage - you take the empties off via this track, and pull the fulls on.  Modern era, all your traffic would be log freight anyways...and perhaps this spur that goes off layout connects to another city thus you can send any freight up over this route.

This leaves that upper terminus yard as the end of your old time operations - and everything from there on could all be older operation.  If you need a historic district in Vancouver, you might have have the two eras share the route down to the lower level, if the route has stayed unchanged, and then diverge once they get to to the lower level - with the old route turning back to a vignette representing a coastal town more prominantely served by railroad in 1900, but not in 1970, with a small yard for terminus operations, perhaps at a SP/SP&S car-ferry operation.

The vignettes may represent upwards to 2'x8' or more, depending on how much space you devote to them.  Your upper yard town is the key - 1990s, it's a Yuppie Arts town, or a bustling town if it's 1890s; a dreary town if it's 1900s, or a decayed town if it's 1970s.  Lowerdeck, the routes split off - so there's no issue.  If an old time train DOES go into Vancouver, it's a tourist excursion.

Time Tunnel!

 It depends on your sense or humor and irony...  Benny's first line, above, sums it up for me: I have a couple of woodburners that will run on my 1948 layout as museum  excursion trains.  The TVRR does it in Chattanooga nowdays: I just transpose it to the late 40's, why not?

If you are willing to be humorous, I would model a Time Tunnel, lighted, just like in the 1960's TV series: the trains from each era would traverse it to get to the other era!

A layout schema

Since pictures are sometimes better than words, I came up with a couple sketches.  The first is this basic schema; it shows which trains go where.

The green areas are 1880s-1900s.  The blue areas are 1970s-1980s-1990s.  The purple areas are shared areas - there's one upper shared yard, but down below the lines diverge to seperate areas.  Of course, you could reduce the upper shared yard effect altogether, to the point that facilities aren't shared.

The blue arrow would represent a line running off to somewhere like Minneapolis.  You might have a large staging yard here.  Your modern trains would enter the layout from this staging and essentially represent freight coming from the east headed for the lower west, with no stops on the upper deck unless you have one or two major industries in the blue vignette site.

The red line represents 1880-1900 passenger trains.  These trains could effectively be in either area, though running from the upper yard to the lower yard would represent a modern tourist trains, while green to green would represent 1880-1900 travel.  Furthermore, you see that the orange line also goes to the Minnie staging - this could also be a 4449 or a 3751 or a 644 or a 3985 excursion run.  But this run would be Modern Era, so it would not go up into the upper deck older era sites, whereas that area would have been abandoned or left in disrepair by that point.

So there's a viable Schema that allows for both eras.  That leaves your creative juices to solving the issues where the two eras converge in such a way that you can minimize your compromises.

A Game Plan

What a creative group, I love this forum! You've got me thinking....

I think the best solution to my time traveling logging train is to indeed include the Capilano Timber Company sawmill on the lower deck in North Vancouver. I wasn’t going to originally include the mill because in 1973 the prototype had been long gone and seeing a mill on the waterfront was not what I recall as a kid.

On the upper level of my 1/87th world, the Capilano Timber Co. will not have shut down it’s operation in 1933, but rather continued to thrive in the current year of 1945 (perhaps even coexist with the watershed regulations). This will allow for slightly newer steam motive power, which might be easier to sell as still operational on the lower deck in 1973.  

Thanks for your ideas everybody, If you have more ideas or opinions, please keep ‘em coming.

Stan

There is something else to

There is something else to the Nolix...you could effectively create areas that are specifically 1977 and 1933 - where one line is abandoned, the 1933 route having disappeared from the scene via a prior spur turnout that disappears behind the brush and goes around the scene via a tunnel.  The next scene could include a site where a new tunnel bore is being made in a wall, representing the 1977 route under construction, while a 1933 turn back through the valley and around the edge represents the 1933 route still in use.  Effectively, then, you'd run one type of train through one terrain,and the other train conversely so.

I did a bench work plan just to see what could be done in your space and ended up with two aisles 2 foot wide, an island 4' wide, and walls each 2 feet wide as well.  I found if I pinched the walls to a foot, I could expand the end of your island out to 6', which provides ample room for at least a Turnback.  You might also consider widening your aisles out to 3 or 4 feet where you have your yards by taking six inches to a foot from either the walls or the island, or both in some places.  Your operators will REALLY appreciate it!!

The turnback effectively leads to the central lower island being available for elevation gain trackage between the upper and lower levels, an area about (2-6)' x 24'; if you wanted to restrict your layout to a 2% gradient, you would need to traverse 50" for every 1" up, or travel a total of 100 feet to rise up 2 feet.  This means your rails will need to go down and back twice on either side of this island portion, if you don't use a helix.

If you went this route, then the Aisle 1 side of the layout could effectively be entirely 1933, and Aisle 2 could be entirely 1977.  Your staging would be on the upper side for 1977 - you might have a dualish track main here, with a line taking the 1933 trains from staging behind modern scenes. on the upper level.

Plenty of thoughts to ponder, of course!

Pretty Close Benny!

My layout plans so far are pretty similar to what you've described, only I've used 2'-0" wide decks throughout thereby allowing two 36" wide aisles on either side of the peninsula. I've even managed to squeeze in a 78" wide blob at the end of the peninsula so I can maintain a 36" radius on the "city" mainline. 

The center decks (actually 3 decks  including a low 36" high passenger station deck) will be quasi -mushroom. I've posted (I hope) a cross section of my layout. I'll post the layout plans for each deck as soon as I clean them up. 

The 24" peninsula will be split 18" on one side and 6" on the other by 1/2" thick MDF backdrop supported from the ceiling.  

I hope you can see where the nolix begins to ramp up in Howe Sound on the left side of the peninsula and continues up on the right side on the way back. What you can't see is the 60" radius single turn helix inside a mountain on the peninsula blob. (I guess it's a "somelix" more than a nolix). Anyway, I hope you get the idea. The grade is a spicy 2.5% all the way up the 22" to the top deck , but that's pretty acceptable for a logging line. 

I'll post more plans as I complete them. What do you guys think?

edit:  Sorry about the crappy picture quality. Had to convert a pdf to a jpeg on a Mac....  I'll work on this too 

I saw your post last night

I saw your post last night but I lost my reply (I log in and then the site automatically logs me off not a half hour later??? yuck!!!)

But Anyhow...

I had a similar thought in mind, though I had a bit more elaboration you might like.  In your image, you have old logging on the upper deck on both sides.  In my version, I basically let the aisles do the time separation.

Your place names gave me a direction to start researching, and there I found some rich information.

You might start with the Wikipedia page for the Pacific Great Eastern.  This railroad was supposed to run from North Vancouver to Prince George, but for 30 years it only went from Squamish to Clinton - a perfect "nowhere to nowhere" railroad!!

Now this railroad was eventually finished as the BCR, before being rolled into CN.  And CN provides you with a second route of greater importance, the Canadian transcontinental line from South Vancouver up over the mountain to Calgary. 

I then drew a layout schematic, taking into account this historic information and your physical parameters.

In this diagram, the outer loop represents the upper deck while the lower loop represents the lower deck.  The middle area represents your grade section, in which case you have to rise up 24" and at a 2% grade that means you need 100' of total run to get up there - a total of four runs, or twice around the middle island for your mainline.  The dashed area represents the end of the room where you might have to contend with a door - I have no idea where your door is, but it probably wouldn't matter one way or another.

Notice how a train from Squamish cannot run straight into South Vancouver, and further, a train in Calgary can't run straight into Clinton!

You'd run in the left aisle as if it's modern day.  The route starts in South Vancouver, goes up the grade and then terminates in Calgary, with a line leading off to your "Canada East" staging yard, perhaps in the dashed area.  The Right side would then represent the PGE, or BCR, from Squamish to Clinton.

How you thread this through the middle would be up to you, but I'd do it in such a way that you'd have two major vignettes in the central island, one on each side, representing a town halfway between the lower deck cities and the upper deck cities.  There would be holes deep enough in the central island such that you'd be able to access switches and see the trains in the proper places without having to ever going to the opposite side.  If you were really cleaver, you;d put in passing sidings in such a manner so that if you were running both sides simultaneously, you could minimize the amount of time an out of era train appears on either side of the layout.

Now you see the dashed area...and here things get interesting.  Let us suppose you connected the layout on both upper and lower levels, with 4" wide bridges at the doorway.  This now allows you to insert the Prince George yard, and run from North Vancouver up to Squamish.  From there, you'd go up grade to Clinton and then Prince George, before heading south to Calgary and then back down grade, terminating in South Vancouver.

The line out of South Vancouver may even be 4" lower than the Squamish line, to accommodate that 4' of concrete you have to contend with, and cross under the Squamish [hidden] line. After about 16', though, the two lines would be at level grade with each other.  But that's more complexity to deal with later...

Nicely Done Plan!

Now that's what I call creative thinking. Nicely done Benny! You had me second guessing and rethinking my existing plans. I love the way the new and the old coexist yet remain separate. I have several LDE's I wanted to incorporate in the plans (such as Ambleside Beach, a favorite train watching spot of mine) and want a much greater emphasis on logging (such as the entire upper deck).

I still think I haven't got this posting thing right, but I've posted my rough track plans. Admittedly it's a convoluted mess, but you get the idea of the layout space. The final tracks have not been laid out, there is much design work to do in that department. 

I'll post again a in a little while with a better description of the layout.  And hopefully find a way to post a legible set of plans.

Stan

Industry-wise, my schematic

Industry-wise, my schematic just provides a sense of where the route goes - it doesn't describe the industries or what you have going on up there; I used Clinton only because it was the prominent end point of the PGE.  I have Calgary/Prince George there only because that's where The railroads open up to the plains and it gives you a way to generate a high volume of variable traffic aside from timber trains to run through the center module and into Vancouver. 

I do believe you could take my schematic, cross it with your IDEs and your general room layout...and somehow we end up with the same layout!

The rest is all yours!