Turning a Train

LoudMusic said:
Hey that's a good idea. More staging yard lines without all the turnouts and such. Now I'm picturing maybe a 6 track staging yard about 8 feet long with four or five levels and a mechanized elevator. Suddenly you have 30 sets of track. Sweeeet.
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LM -

Sorry, didn't revisit this thread to see your response. If you'd like another option (besides cassettes) for a staging yard without all those expensive turnouts (it's just staging, not an operational yard... ;) ), take a look at my friend John's solution:

http://www.ovar.ca/Mitchell/john_mitchell.htm

The picture at the bottom left of the page shows his "sector plate" which has a length of flex track running across, but not fastened to, the surface. This allows it to line up with any number of tracks. John has nine, but you could probably double that...

Andrew
 
MasonJar said:
LM -

Sorry, didn't revisit this thread to see your response. If you'd like another option (besides cassettes) for a staging yard without all those expensive turnouts (it's just staging, not an operational yard... ;) ), take a look at my friend John's solution:

http://www.ovar.ca/Mitchell/john_mitchell.htm

The picture at the bottom left of the page shows his "sector plate" which has a length of flex track running across, but not fastened to, the surface. This allows it to line up with any number of tracks. John has nine, but you could probably double that...

Andrew
Click to expand...

You know, I'd wondered about that before. Kind of a cross between a turn table and a transfer table. It's a ... swing table, swinging from one end to align at various points. Is there such a thing in real life? It also resembles a massively long turnout, of sorts.

Maybe sometime I'll draw plans of what I had in mind. Someone may be interested to build such a critter.
 
I see nine decks (?) and five sets of track per level. Looks about six feet long. That's one hell of a staging system. I'd want it about four times that long and with two levels for trains to leave from and maybe twice as many decks. That would be brilliant for a big 2400 sq foot club layout.
 
MR did an article a while back about a "train elevator" constructed from drawer slides and a screw mechanism to raise and lower it. The idea was to eliminate a helix, but add a dozen levels and 50 more tracks, and you've got what you see in the movie clip... ;) :rolleyes: :D

Andrew
 
I think Art King used an old phonograph turntable to turn his train on. You could mount a bridge on the turntable the correct length for a train as long as you want to run. The table doesn't even need to be powered, you could turn it by hand. Cut a couple of rerailing sections of n scale snap track in half and put half on each end of the table bridge and a half section on the end of the track where it runs onto the table. No fancy electrical hookups needed. Put a 2 wire receptical on the end of the track and a matching 2 wire plug at each end of the turn table. Run the train onto the table, shut down the power and unplug the table from the layout, spin the table by hand until it lines up the opposite way, plug the table back into the layout, turn on the power and reverse it to run the train back onto the layout. If you need it a hole on the opposite side of the table from the layout could lock the turntable in place and index it with a nail as a locking key. Remove the nail spin the table and reinsert the nail.
 
It seems like segues into monstrous mechanical storage systems kind of defeats the purpose of the original poster's question on how to turn a train in minimal space.

A three-foot or four-foot "whole train" turntable seems kind of silly: why not just build a reversing loop if you have a four-foot radius space? If you're modeling something that can't handle a 22" minimum radius, four feet is probably too short for the whole train anyhow.

The whole point of a cassette is that it's something you can take down and put elsewhere, rather than having it be a permanent part of the layout: the calliope-style multi-level mechanically actuated monstrosity LoudMusic envisions seems like something that would require a ton of space and be a maintenance nightmare--not to mention the exquisite fun of extracting a derailed train from one of the inner chambers of such a beast, far from the reach of even the nimblest fingers!

Besides, if what you want is a way to roll trains onto your six-foot shelf switcher, that monster machine is just a tad of overkill!
 
jetrock said:
It seems like segues into monstrous mechanical storage systems kind of defeats the purpose of the original poster's question on how to turn a train in minimal space.

A three-foot or four-foot "whole train" turntable seems kind of silly: why not just build a reversing loop if you have a four-foot radius space? If you're modeling something that can't handle a 22" minimum radius, four feet is probably too short for the whole train anyhow.

The whole point of a cassette is that it's something you can take down and put elsewhere, rather than having it be a permanent part of the layout: the calliope-style multi-level mechanically actuated monstrosity LoudMusic envisions seems like something that would require a ton of space and be a maintenance nightmare--not to mention the exquisite fun of extracting a derailed train from one of the inner chambers of such a beast, far from the reach of even the nimblest fingers!

Besides, if what you want is a way to roll trains onto your six-foot shelf switcher, that monster machine is just a tad of overkill!
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I would agree with you if he is looking at running a train 4 feet long. I'm presuming that since he says he doesn't have room for a return loop to turn the train around that he is envisioning shorter trains, probably on the order of 18-20 inches in total length, or even less.
 
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