l trains in ho and also scratch built .


jfb

Member
:Dhey i am from chicago and i have a ho railroad just about ready to run totally about14x16 total wall to wall with flip ups for access. I have a question though for my l line how much space do you need for a 10 inch platform i have riser kits with plaster cloth for a good appearance and 2 10 inch platforms about 5 inches wide. I am talking about length only width is not a problem this is scratch built. i will check back on friday.
 
If you have the room you could make it as long as the longest passenger train you intend to run. Are you trying to model any particular area and era in a prototypical way?
 
replying to this quote.

If you have the room you could make it as long as the longest passenger train you intend to run. Are you trying to model any particular area and era in a prototypical way?
around the early to mid seventies,i have the color structure etc taken care of. I stated earlier how many feet of track do I need to adjust to 10 inches of height, I have 2 to 3 pier kits for the outlying areas they are still concrete now. this is shaping up beautiful and it is for downtown Chicago il and the southside plus northside l.s I was also thinking since I have about 5 feet of length until the 10 inch platform of lowering the legs any ideas for height?;)
 
The wording of your posts make it difficult to understand what you are asking. If English is not your primary language perhaps your friends could help you with your posts.

In any case what you are asking about (I think) is "grade" - the steepness of a slope. Grade in this hobby is measured in percent. If you have a length of track 100 inches long and it rises 4 inches in that LENGTH you have a grade of 4 percent ((4" / 100") * 100).

So the first issue is what grade do you want or need. I limit my grades to 2 percent which would be 2 inches of rise per 100 inches of track. To rise 10 inches thus requires 500 inches of track. But that assumes straight track because going around a curve adds friction and makes the effective grade a bit steeper - of course the radius of the curve makes a difference too - the tighter the curve the greater the friction.

Hope that is what you are asking and hope what I have provided is enough to get you started on determining what you need.
 
I thought you were talking about a platform passengers would wait on for a train.

If you are talking about a grade a 2.5% gradient would allow a model diesel locomotive to pull a fairly long train. that would mean 33' of track to rise 10"
if you went for a 3.5% gradient some engines would only be able to pull a five or six cars up it some locomotives would have no problems pulling 20 cars up it. That would be 23' of track to climb 10"
Most model steam locomotives cant climb gradients as well as diesels can.
 
jfb - Welcome to the forum - good to have another Chicagoan aboard. If I understand your plan, attempting to model anything larger than than a small part of Chicago is extremely ambitious. Good luck, we love to see pictures as it progresses.
 
jfb,

Are you trying to model the L train? Thats what it sounds like to me. If so, there's no way you can get that kind of elevation in your area. I've seen other people do this, with a completely different separate track and trains that are on the elevated sections, while having the regular trains run at level on the bottom.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I will lower this to 5 inches thanks for the advice guys by the way ,I am also doing a steel yard out of Indiana just east of Chicago the board is done and the models are perfectly built and weathered. my l train will go up from a engine house 6 to 8 feet away.
 
Are you saying you are going to rise 5 inches in 8 feet? If so that works out to be a bit in excess of 5 percent - which is rather steep. For 6 feet it would be nearly 7 percent.
 



Back
Top