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There was an article in Model Railroader about 4 years ago where a guy built topless tables with L-girders and then laid his HCDs on top of them.
Depending on the size though, that can defeat any plan for making the benchwork portable and you have to have the tools and workspace to cut and screw the wood together.
I had my N-scale HCD layout on top of the coffee table in my living room for awhile when I was working on it. Moved it though because I was getting strange looks from visitors.
Ok, I need a little help, frankly because I don't understand.
I am looking through some N layouts from Atlas. I found one that I think would be a good first layout. So I google it, and find some completed layout pictures of it, and some on-going ones.
The "blueprint" if you will in the Atlas layout book, doesn't say anything about how high to make certain points? It references an "open grid" benchwork, and I understand I can do this with the foam, but building up the foam in places and cutting it down in other places. My question is....the "cookie cutter" layout is confusing me. Sad huh?
Ok so anyways, I was looking at the Scenic and Relaxed N Scale Book 7 Layout N-17,
Thats a link from 2004 where someone was wondering the same as I am now....anyone have any help with this? Any exp with this one, as from my research it seems to be a pretty common one for people to jump into with?
Ok below is my really bad attempt at trying to break this down. Mind you I had to use a mousepad on a laptop, so no comments about my "lines" lol.
The blue lines are where there are cuts to be made, up top is a stream. In the middle orange section that is to be raised. Now as you will see, there are really no height descriptions. This is an edited layout that came with the RTS program for my Scenic and Relaxing layout, I just removed a bunch of stuff. In the book I have as I said above it speaks of height, I am just trying to figure out to what degree here.
I guess my question is, how does this relate over to the foam top? It is not an open girder grid, but I have read people doing this on a door with foam, just trying to figure out, how to do the "additions" in foam to the base foam layout to achieve the same thing that the "cookie cutter" cuts would do? Hope this makes sense...
So after staring at my picture for a bit, some thoughts have come to me- hope you are still bearing with me here....
The entire girder system is built with 1x4s. Then for the orange area, the total height is 5.5inches. So my thought process is.......from the top of the foam, I would have to make the entire platform 1.5 inches taller. That makes sense to me...I think.
On the right side of the layout where the "cookie cutter" line is, to the right of that is 4.75 inches, so I would only add .75 to the top of my platform.
The "cookie cutter" lines are confusing me, and I am overthinking it I believe. My previous paragraph makes sense- so I am going to take a step back for now, and wait patiently for some input here, before I lose my mind
Thank you.
Perhaps I would be better off doing something like RailHobo did here with the blocks?? Seems like a pricey way to go though, but would ensure a perfect grade right?
The layout in the threat you linked to is a good one and I'd use that as a start. I have no idea how far up that track through the tunnel goes but it must be at least three inches to cross the tracks beneath on the bridge. The need to cross the lower tracks on a bridge is what's causing your ruling grade. The level of the platform or foam is immaterial. You still need to get one set of tracks up and over another set of tracks. You can see my warning about grades in that thread. You can calculate the grade by knowing how high you have to rise from level and dividing that by the amount of feet of track you have to go up the grade. For example, if the total rise is three inches and you have 10 feet (120 inches) of track to go up that grade, the grade would be 2.5 %, which is manageable. For every foot of track less, the grade gets steeper. Five feet of track would be a 5% grade, which is impossible for mainline operations. The Woodland Scenics foam riser system is worth the money for building your first layout since it takes a lot of the guesswork out of making a smooth grade. However, a smooth 5% grade still won't work. You need to calculate exactly what your grade will be and at least try to keep it at 3% or less.
I like that layout, it combines runnining, possibly with two trains, with some great switching moves. The tracks on the lower right can be extended for a yard in the future.
Have you considered mocking it up with cardstock or card board first to get a better perspective?
