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Alternative to a normal Staging Yard - Nelevation


Melandir

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Nice! It's the N scale copy of the system used in the MiWuLa in Hamburg in H0. Great for hidden staging if you have the vertical space and don't need to switch trains fast.

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Very cool, but I'm afraid to see the eventual price Tag! Just doing vertical movement really helps the versions that I've seen circular or doing a lateral move as well (like the auto park versions and display cases) have to deal with swinging, especially with light weight n scale.

 

Looks well built and thought through. Tough getting the track alignment perfect!

 

I prototyped the poor mans version with just a track on a 1m slat of wood. Allowed fast transfer of the train to the layout and setting the trains on the tracks on the bench instead of on the layout. Eventually plan to make a rack to just put the slats on for wall display with a removable cover. The thing I was trying to fiddle with was coming up with some sort of simple and lightweight blocks that could hold the train from tipping off sideways if you jarred a slat in transport from the bench/shelf/layout. You have to be careful in the transport phase! The German carrier boxes did this but they were clunky in practice and made to do heavy transport,not just a lift across the room. Of course 1m or so 8 car train is probably the max in one shot.

 

Has anyone seen someone doing this idea horizontally? Where you would just slide out a shelf to the proper track? Could just use the little spring ball bearing locators to align the track physically. This way avoids all the linear space needed for the yard ladder (and its sometimes crankiness with some trains)? Then just need to stack these pullout shelves with a vertical mechanism and then you could do a huge density of storage! But the stored trains would then be mostly hidden!

 

Jeff

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My N scale club has one 2 meter horizontal for the german layout for exhibitions and it's screw actuated and hand cranked, running on drawer rails. Cranking is slow but at least safe for the trains.

 

 

The vertical version could be a piece of wood with shelfs on it moved up and down with a rack. The miwula version uses spring loaded ramp sections on both ends to correct fine alignement and is microswitch based like the kato turntable. For removable train holders i would use clear plastic U sections with rails in them and lips on the moving shelves that hold them.

 

Edit: I'll make a few pictures at the october show. It's just a large transfer table with a transparent cover, but it's shorter and much cheaper than a yard with turnouts.

Edited by kvp
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Clear plastic U gets really expensive quickly, I looked at sourcing a number of options, also on the wall the individual tubes are not an attractive way to display something. You end up with way more case than train displayed and this just looks awful. One back sheet with a minimal bracket to hold the wood slat with the track would allow the trains to really stand out. Then perhaps stagger the tracks some alternating could give a very nice feel. Then very simple and clean plex face box to pop onto the backboard for s super clean frame. Could be quite elegant and really pop the trains. We spent a little time a few years back sketching this out quickly with my design partner when we were sketching out the ideas for a small train exhibit in la and it really looked promising. Jsut the right wood finishes could be really nice with Japanese trains (light cedars).

 

Nice with the hand cranked screw mech, bet that feels nice to do. Something nice to have a hand done thing like that!

 

When I was a kid I made my own turntable and got really good at hitting track alignment by eye. Then I got fancy and set up a relay system and contact strips to do automated stopping. It was totally cool the first few dozen times I used it, then I noticed it sort of lost its fun I use to have at hitting the alignment by hand!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

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Martijn Meerts

The one in Hamburg is out of order more often than not, it's proven to not be very reliable there :)

 

The price tag is going to be pretty scary, especially if you want one that can store 16-car shinkansen. Imagine shipping costs of a pre-built one....

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A very interesting method of storing, I completely forgot about. Here in Japan, they are so stuck on traditional staging yards with points, you forget about vertical and horizontal fiddle-yards with movable plates. This vertical solution is definitely one that should be canon in Japan where space is so precious.

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Talking at the club, a friend told me of a similar system he found in US some years ago with a good price tag

 

http://www.ro-ro.net/

 

$399 for 9 trains so like $45 per train, not horrible! can chain 2 together for an 8' one but would be just shy of a 16 car train unfortunately!

 

 

I would love space to have large fiddle yards, but not alway possible. horizontal would be simple enough to do and save the the point ladder space as well as a bunch of money in points! but still get the display of trains lined up in a yard.

 

the other reason i wanted to suss out the single track slat shelf thingie is for our club layout when we dont have the yard. would be fun to just display the slats on the table as sort of a yard then quickly move one to the layout. fiddling with trying to get a new train on the track on the layout w/o the yard takes time and gets in the way of running the layout. 

 

cheers

 

jeff

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$399 for 9 trains so like $45 per train, not horrible! can chain 2 together for an 8' one but would be just shy of a 16 car train unfortunately!

 

jeff

 

Jeff they make also the 6' for $80 more, you can chain one 6' and one 4' or two 6' to have enough space for a 16 car train :)

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cool, missed that! too bad you cant do more shelves for n scale as you only need 2" each. 

 

one issue with these, though, is visually they could really dominate a layout! but as the back track on a yard it would be nice with horizontal display in front and then a vertical in back!

 

i was thinking more on the horizontal slide idea and could be done w/o the elevator and just have a rack below you could pick the drawer up and slide it into sort of a train cabinet! only issue would be weight. with a stout base to keep things flat and having like 8-12 trains on it, it would not be a light thing to gently lift up and slide into the rack below! wouldn't necessarily have to slide either if it fit into a yard ladder, just a way to change your whole yard stock in one swoop. of course probably 6-7 car trains max!

 

jeff

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For a home layout i would imagine it as a wall mounted frame with 1-3 trains per shelf. Then the tracks would enter the layout from the side. (either front side corner for a corner or back side corner for a layout with the far end to the wall)

 

This would make the storage display independent from the layout and easier to mount. The multitrack shelf would also make it more space efficient but some turnouts would be still be needed to join these tracks before reaching the edge of the layout.

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yeah a 2-4 track removable platform would probably be the max to easily move at a meter long. for the single track i was thinking of just cutting a U of expanded polystyrene to hold the train from tipping over. a 2" sheet could have multiple channels easily cut out so you could plunk that over 2-4 tracks to help cars from tipping from bumps and also seal them up from dust! Luckily most trains widths are pretty close.

 

i need to get back to fiddling with this to see how well it works. our new club show layout in the planning stage wont have the yards that the older layout had so getting trains on and off easily and fast and then showing off trains on a display table may be really needed.

 

jeff

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Wow...

 

 

  Short Medium Long Self Assembly £646 £725 £804 Fully Assembled £736 £815 £894

 

Actually it's quite reasonable, but I can expect to pay another 894 just to ship them here to Sillypore....   :(

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