Is there a pre-fabricated elevated spiral loop track on the market?

[SubwayHypes]

I swore I was shopping online last week and saw it somewhere, but its a basically a single track spiral that just loops in a tight formation and can drop a train a foot.

 

I thought it would be perfect to hide my Ginza line in one, because I can run it elevated as it does at Shibuya station, then slam it to the bottom subway level and run it to Omotesando then it can reconnect to the loop, rise back up and pop out shibuya station elevated again.

 

here is a picture of one I found of another layout.

http://smallmr.com/wordpress/a-helix-in-foam-core/

http://smallmr.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/IMG_2311.jpg

Edited September 2, 2017 by cteno4
image imbed

[cteno4]

Subway,

the commercial ones tend to be much larger radius for larger trains, don't think I've ever seen one for small radius track. There is one company I remember seeing that would laser cut Custom ones, but you are talking some bucks there. What radius are you thinking?

cosmic had a system that just supports the track joints and uses the unitrak for the floating rail support.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/search?typ1_c=104&cat=rail&state=&sold=0&sortid=0&searchkey=Spiral

works then with whatever radius you use. Could roll your own pretty easily or make a foam core one like in that guys blog, pretty simple. Lots of sites out there describing creating helixes like this. One of our club members made a double helix using kato double viaduct and I just make him some spacer pilings that had notches cut fornthe edge of the viaduct about every 2.25". Worked well but tight vertical clearance and tough to get trains out in a derailment.

folks also use theaded stock for the support legs and bolts on it to adjust the height of the helix platforms.

get some track out and play.

jeff

[ToniBabelony]

AFAIK, Cosmic does a series of laser cut loops for either Kato or Tomix mini curves in R180 and R177 respectively.

 

EDIT: Jeff was just a tad quicker and more accurate on the draw.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Kabutoni

[Martijn Meerts]

The threaded rod and bolts is a great method, and if you use Kato track you can easily get away with just supporting the parts where the track pieces join up like the Cosmic one does. I've made mine the old fashioned way, just cutting out all the wood I need and then laying the track on it. I used the threaded rod and bolts system for it, and it works great. Took a bit of measuring and careful drilling to make sure it all lined up, but it's well worth taking your time on a helix. It's easy to mess them up and they're hard to fix.

[SubwayHypes]

3 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Subway,

the commercial ones tend to be much larger radius for larger trains, don't think I've ever seen one for small radius track. There is one company I remember seeing that would laser cut Custom ones, but you are talking some bucks there. What radius are you thinking?

cosmic had a system that just supports the track joints and uses the unitrak for the floating rail support.

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/search?typ1_c=104&cat=rail&state=&sold=0&sortid=0&searchkey=Spiral

works then with whatever radius you use. Could roll your own pretty easily or make a foam core one like in that guys blog, pretty simple. Lots of sites out there describing creating helixes like this. One of our club members made a double helix using kato double viaduct and I just make him some spacer pilings that had notches cut fornthe edge of the viaduct about every 2.25". Worked well but tight vertical clearance and tough to get trains out in a derailment.

folks also use theaded stock for the support legs and bolts on it to adjust the height of the helix platforms.

get some track out and play.

jeff

Nice!! that's exactly what I saw and wanted.  I'm having these crazy visions of dropping my Ginza line to the subway level hidden in a giant building, having it run on one line and do the parallel station change at Omote-Sando with the Hanzomon line, then having to loop back up to the elevated level and running across that classic Shibuya bridge to a small yard hidden in another building.

 

Shoot did I not post that picture correctly?   Shit keep forgetting that I can only upload pics that are taken from my camera? 

[SubwayHypes]

DO you have a picture or link to the club members who did the kato double viaduct?  that's sounds very interesting.

 

I'm planning on running any trains at slow speed through these turns to help avoid derailment.  The stash building hiding the helix will also have a removable top to access whats inside, and the subway level can be reach from the sides.  My Layout is going to have subway as the base, then elevated to street level, as well as elevated track on top of this, with multiple lines running from subway to ground. 

[cteno4]

Unfortunately the new forum software defaults to embedding a copy of an image put in as a link. When you paste in a link to an image it now will pop the picture in and you have to click the "Display as a link instead" link in the little pop up window at the bottom of the picture to remove the picture and put in the link only.

Our member, Fred did a whole slew of layouts, he would change them every few months (I built him a 10'x4' base on top of his dining room table and another 4'x6' rollaround platform in his living room). I never took pictures of them, and he's been out of tranins and the club for a few years here. Here is an article he did on one of his final layouts. I made him a bunch of Y type double and single viaduct supports out of wood at 1/8" lengths increments so he could do any sort of elevated tracks he wanted. Some went up like 9-10" high! Many had steep gradients and that was super hard on his trains as he like to run them fas and was deaf so he could not hear them screaming in pain...

For the helix I made him supports similar to the cosmic that were just 3/4" square stock that I cut small notches in that were then height of the double viaduct wall and about 1/4" deep. He put some double stick tape in them to hold these outside columns to the outer surface of the viaduct walls. It hung inside the viaduct wall a little but all his trains cleared them, if not I was going to make it just little 1/4" x 1/4" bumpouts every 2.25" that would just fit in the little L depression under the bottom of the viaduct wall.

you could easily make your own by just gluing in little chunks of 1/4" x 1/4" basswood or plastic support strips onto your vertical support sticks. Then just stagger each of these ladders a set amount for your spacing of the support column. If you are doing a 2" rise per loop then if doing 8 supports each ladder would be 1/4" higher than the next.

can do the same with threaded stock and bolts, just need to hold the threaded stock in place at the base. Bolts can support the viaduct.

cheers

jeff

[velotrain]

1 hour ago, cteno4 said:

Unfortunately the new forum software defaults to embedding a copy of an image put in as a link. When you paste in a link to an image it now will pop the picture in . . . .

That sounds dangerously similar to how we used to do things ;-)

[cteno4]

Yes, folks still need to  use the "display as link instead" option for external pictures not thier own. We are looking into if this can get changed as a default.

the New forum does do the proper embeds for twitter and other platforms that allow embedding of their comtent in other sites with the proper inclusion that's done by the new forum software (only YouTube and Flickr worked in the old version). These are allowed under the guidelines.

jeff

[SubwayHypes]

Hey jeff did you post a link to his layout?  I saw the "here" but didn't see a link, would love to see this in action!

 

 

[cteno4]

Sorry bright shiny object

http://japanrailmodelers.org/pages/modelingjapan/fredslayout.html

jeff

[SubwayHypes]

On ‎9‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 11:09 AM, cteno4 said:

Sorry bright shiny object

http://japanrailmodelers.org/pages/modelingjapan/fredslayout.html

jeff

wow I love those huge buildings, are those the tomytec office set or custom?

 

Very nice layout!

[cteno4]

Subway,

 

the big rectangular high ruses are the old tomix buildings, you can pop them apart every other floor to make them as tall as you want.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10214786

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10009834

 

the apartment building with the balconies is also tomix. It comes in two colors and comes apart by floor so you can stack them up as high as you want and alternate floor colors!

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10454218

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10009848

 

cheers

 

jeff