Viaduct Station extension

[Hayashi]

I am considering a large viaduct station (4 tracks in with 4 sidings = 8 track width plus 4 platforms wide). It would be 7x 248 and 1x 124 long plus the turnouts on either end. Does Kato sell just the viaduct platforms without having to purchase the whole 23-232 viaduct platform extension set? I need some complete sets for outside walls, but mostly I just need platforms to build out the center. I'm only in planning stages now, but it's expensive enough without having to purchase sets that would give me more walls than I need.

[cteno4]

Nope sorry they don’t. You wind up with a lot of walls getting extension sets to build larger stations.

 

you can make pho viaduct base that is the same thickness as the Kato plates and you can poke the walls onto by laminating 1/8” Masonite, 3/16” foamcore, and Formica or 040 stryene sheet on top. Laminate with contact cement. You can then poke holes into the foamcore layer with a drill bit to shove the wall pins into to secure the walls. You can then use whatever you want to support it at height like strips of 1x wood, etc and make areas open for station buildings, tracks, etc.

 

downside is your really need access to a table saw to square up the laminated piece down to size. But it works wonderful, I’ve built 2.5m Long double wide viaduct stations like this. Very sturdy and flat due to the 3ply lamination.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

Thanks cteno4. Brilliant...and cheaper. I have the tools.

[cteno4]

Cool, it’s quite easy. It does take a bit of contact cement and that stuff is also very very smelly so well ventilate. Home despot use to have a very cheap Formica that looked very close to unitrak ballast, but not seen it for a few years,

 

cheers

 

jeff

[chadbag]

2 hours ago, cteno4 said:

 

downside is your really need access to a table saw to square up the laminated piece down to size. But it works wonderful, I’ve built 2.5m Long double wide viaduct stations like this. Very sturdy and flat due to the 3ply lamination.

 

 

 

Pics or it didn't happen 🙂

 

But seriously, do you have a picture of something like this so I can visualize what you are doing?

 

[cteno4]

It happened if you ever looked at our clubs layout Picts, it’s been our club’s 3m viaduct station the last 13 years! All the Picts of the layout use this. I’ll snap a picture of the sandwich, but it’s uber simple, bottom to top and no pictur is required to make it.

 

- bottom layer is 1/8” Masonite (from your local big box store)

 

- middle layer is plain old 3/16” foam core

 

- top layer is Formica or 040” styrene (I like Formica as it’s really stiff and hard to help the overall laminate be uber flat and stiff and resistant to warping.

 

glue all three layers together with contact cement (apply to both sided on each joint and let dry to tacky and press fit). Then just run thru the table saw to square up and trim to sizes needed. The middle layer of foam core is at just the right place to allow the viaduct wall’s side posts to sink into (just drill out with a bit where the pegs need to go in). The Masonite below is just the right thickness to allow the bottom lip of the walls to slip below and the Formica top lines up where the viaduct plate top would be on the walls. Overall thickness is the same as the viaduct plates.

 

I came up with the sandwich as on our original set up on the fly layout like 14 years ago it was a pain to collect enough plates to make a 3m station and a pain to setup and support. Wood alone would not stay flat and true enough on its own and a pain to sink the side holes for the walls pegs to pop into. I experimented first using wood strips for the center layer, making a waffle grid and gaps for where the wall pegs would fit, but a real pain to cut and assemble. Then it hit me that the center layer was the same thickness as foamcore. Bare Formica has been harder to get inthe last 5 years or so, now it usually comes prelaminated to backing countertop board. Check your local habitanfor humanity store as I’ve seen sheets there cheap.

 

btw Formica is a great material if you need something thin, flat and rigid. It’s basically fiberglass. We used to make scenery patches using it to plop onto our layout 1.0 temp setup. They stayed uber flat and stiff to apply scenery stuff on top of.

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/photos/0110boshow/pages/page_35.html

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/photos/0110boshow/pages/page_33.html

 

jeff

[kvp]

5 hours ago, Hayashi said:

I am considering a large viaduct station (4 tracks in with 4 sidings = 8 track width plus 4 platforms wide). It would be 7x 248 and 1x 124 long plus the turnouts on either end. Does Kato sell just the viaduct platforms without having to purchase the whole 23-232 viaduct platform extension set? I need some complete sets for outside walls, but mostly I just need platforms to build out the center. I'm only in planning stages now, but it's expensive enough without having to purchase sets that would give me more walls than I need.

Actually afaik the viaduct platforms themselves are just standard Kato platforms. The composite structure Jeff suggest is the professional solution, but that really needs proper tools. You could get away with just using plywood or if you really don't have any power tools, just around 5 mm thick foamcore in two layers, the same suggested by Tomytec for filling between tram/road plates. It could be cut with a hobby knife, glued with standard white wood glue and painted with almost anything.

 

Another alternative is foamboard, similar to foamcore but with molded on styrene outer sheets instead of paper. It's glueable with the same glues as any other plastic kits and essentially very similar material as the official station plates. The boards are often used as outside sign boards, so i think it's pretty sturdy on it's own.

 

ps: Personally i've build an elevated station using 9mm plywood plate and wood piers assembed with white synthetic wood glue, then covered it with 1 mm styrene (fixed with ca glue) and painted it with faller concrete color (it has some very fine sand in it to make a more realistic concrete texture, i use their road paint too). The platorms are standard Kato side platforms with the side walls built in.

[cteno4]

I would not term the laminate solution a “professional” solution at all, I arrived at it because it was the simplest and easiest as well as pretty inexpensive and fast to do (I made a few for the new layout for a temp setup in an hour, most of which was painting on contact cement). It does require a table saw but so does any wood platform solution. Wood is problematic for the platforms unless you put a very rigid support structure under it to support and brace it well. It starts getting very bulky fast. Plus aligning and drilling the holes in the side is not easy then and you have to over drill them and then use other means (ie glue or tape) to hold the wall in place well. Also hard to get the ply in the right thickness to work well.

 

formica is also nice as if you get matte textured it gives that nice rough texture rught away.

 

using ultraboard (styrene faced styrene foam core) is an option and a super rigid but unfortunately does not come (in the us) in a width good for the platforms 3/16” and 1/2”) to make it a Kato plate solution.

 

wood works fine if you want to build a dedicated platform but if you are trying to reproduce the Kato plates and make the walls work easily and be removable then he laminate is a better path.

 

the cool thing about the laminate is it replicates the Kato plate system perfectly and is uber simple to build. Only issue is you need a table saw (you could also use a band Saw or a hand circular saw with some care and straight edge guides clamped down), but as I said an all wood solution wound need that as well.

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

The 3-ply method will definitely be the most structurally stiff method. That's why composite aircraft use honeycomb 3-ply structures. 

 

Be careful cutting laminate if you want to have a chip-free cut. I haven't made cteno4's suggestion, but I have cut laminate before. I should have thought of cteno4's 3-ply method. I had a duh moment. That's why these forums are so great.

 

There are a few ways to cut laminate and people will debate which is best. In all cases, use a fine tooth saw blade. There are also blades made especially for laminate/melamine. The internet is also filled with methods and videos.

 

Method 1: Score the laminate with a sharp knife where you plan to cut. Flip the 3-ply over and cut, being careful to feed slowly.

Method 2: Place masking tape over the laminate where you plan to cut. Flip the 3-ply over and cut, being careful to feed slowly.

Method 3: Cut all the way through the laminate with a sharp knife. It will take a number of strokes before you will successfully cut all the way through the laminate. Flip the 3-ply over and cut. I think this is the best method to eliminate chips, but takes the longest amount of time, has the greatest chance of goofing it up by an errant scribe, and the highest chance of finger damage.

 

If you don't have a table saw, but plan to purchase a rip-style saw as a cheaper alternative, I highly recommend Festool. Festool makes track saws that can, in almost all cases, perform the duties of a table saw. You place one of their guides (they come in different lengths) on your material, then run the saw down the track. The guides stay afixed to the material via friction. No clamping necessary. You just need two things for this to work for the viaduct stations: (1) a wide enough piece of 3-ply for the track and (2) a sturdy work table to support the length of the 3-ply and keep it flat. Festool is the best equipment out there. They are German-engineered and available at high quality woodworking stores. They are more expense than the competition, but worth it. They also have a vacuum system to hook into your saw or sander and will allow you to cut materials in virtually any room with no dust (yes, even your living room).

 

Full disclosure: I'm not employed by Festool and I don't yet own anything by Festool, but I've spent a lot of time in a workshop with a good friend who is an outstanding woodworker. I've seen Festool in action. He has convinced me to dump my current equipment. When I'm ready to start building the layout, I'll go Festool all the way. Hopefully before year-end. Also, take a look at the Festool's Systainers and Sortainers. They provide a very clever method for organizing and storing tools and the multitude of model railroad bits that one accumulates.

[cteno4]

Here’s a shot of the laminated system with a wall attached.

 

Yep it’s very stiff via the lamination. One other factor that got me to lamination for these platforms is I was doing these the first time just after moving from central California back to Washington DC and started to watch wood, cardboard, chipboard, foamcore, etc warp like mad with the large humidity swings that happen here over the year and between shop and climate controlled inside the house. Just a different world using all wood construction for things that are not braced well. My first test of a piece of flat, clear fur 1m x 2 plate wide section that I planed down to the height of the Kato plate was a bit warped the day! It’s been interesting as it’s changed my design and engineering thinking and materials as well. I’ve also totally moved to the 7 ply Baltic birch as it’s so dimensionally and warp stable even when not finished, because of all the plys (and bit better quality wood than you get w.o going high end). Still cheaper than using even the cheapest big box dimensional lumber these days and better quality than cabinet grade ply as well.

 

actually Formica cuts very cleanly with a good carbide blade. I use to worry and use my acrylic blade (these have every other blade tip sloped to allow better clearing on the backside where the chips usually get made with the tooth coming out of the stock), but I found my plain old carbide 96 tooth cut it fine (on the new table saw it’s amazingly clean). You need to use a zero clearance if you are cutting it by itself as the cut edge will get too much pressure. Once laminated I’ve never had it chip. Softer laminate toppings like wilsonart and corion, etc can have more chipping issues and need to use top sacrifice board to cut super clean., but the cheap old Formica holds up well. Do use a mask and dust collection as the fiberglass is not good to inhale or get on skin or eyes. But overall once laminated it zips thru no issues with a decent blade on the Saw as it’s well supported. If using a hand circular saw or track saw I would suggest putting a top sacrifice piece of Masonite or thin plywood to avoid potential chipping as with a hand circular saw the blades don’t tend to be as perfect as larger table saw blades and the Saw can woble a bit even in a good track saw and this causes chipping. But always experiment as you can be surprised sometimes both ways! 

 

festools are wonderful, but they are very expensive. They are top end professional tools. I’ve used them quite a bit, but can’t really see owning them for my shop as it’s just a bit too expensive usually. If I were doing it for a living (I have at times in the past) I probably use a lot of festool would but that would require doing top end work and getting paid. They also are pretty non standard for most all their bits and you sort of get locked into them more or be ready to adapt things some.

 

In my opinion unless you are going to do a lot of very serious wood working or money is no issue to you I would highly recommend starting out with much more inexpensive tools. There are a lot of very inexpensive ones out there that do very good work and if you end up only using them a few dozen times or break something while learning it’s no big deal. Woodworking is part tools but it’s a lot just trying stuff and practicing. For the price of a festool track Saw you could set up a lot of nice small woodshop to play in. I’m a big fan of getting a decent but inexpensive tool to start out to learn on and if you really get into it then upgrade as you grow and learn what you really need the most to invest in for your interests. If you wait forever to save up for the really expensive stuff you miss out actually doing things.

 

im in the process of upgrading the shop here lately. I can better afford some nicer tools now and realize they will be with me the rest of my life. Even then I realized it was important to focus on what was the the most important for what I do in my shop most. Here table saw beat out track saw alternatives as most of my work is much more suited to table Saw. The big Bennie of the track saw are space, big cross cuts and safety of fingers not near a nasty spinning blade. So I went for a saws stop table saw to solve it all, get the table saw and save the fingers (all still there after 50 years around table saws from age 5). For me, I can do large cross cuts a $130 inexpensive track saw or even the old circular saw and a simple crosscut bed and no difference from a $600 festool. But if I were doing all my work using a track saw (ie no table saw) then I would think of a festool. But even then I would have a $150-300 simple small table saw as some things done there better.

 

Good tools are wonderful to use and make it a lot easier to do good, clean work, but I’ve been able to do good work with more inexpensive tools, just takes a bit more care and also research as I’ve found many times the inexpensive one can be better than a mid priced one, varies a lot. Yes you can’t usually do top end work with more inexpensive tools, but rarely do most hobbiests and beginning to intermediate wood workers do top end work and most are tight on money. Also you can usually do some mods to more inexpensive tools to help bring up their abilities. It’s very nice now when I can afford nicer tools and have the woodworking experience to really appreciate them. I wish I could have had them in my own shop 30 years ago but then I couldn’t afford them, but I did great with more inexpensive stuff and being careful and learning the tricks to make things work better.

 

So IMHO if you don’t have loads of money to pour into woodworking, you can do really well by researching out good inexpensive tools that you can afford and focus on doing stuff and learning and practicing. Then if you are getting more serious look at upgrading as you can afford it. If you can afford it great!

 

since you have been taught now on the festool it’s also probably a good option for you even with the price as you seem to be wanting to do more woodworking and getting training on the festool track saw way is great! YouTube is also your friend as a lot of great videos out there on how to as well as reviews on tools that are the best next to hands on usually as well as some great hacks on tools to improve them greatly (especially making more inexpensive tools do). Having a friend to learn fromis awesome also.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

Jeff,

 

Thanks. Photo is great showing the cross section. Your wealth of experience is greatly appreciated by this guy. I'm at the stage where I have the tools, now it's time to upgrade. Plus, I want the track saw as I start building the table and trim.

 

How did you handle Viaduct S-joiners in the 3-ply if you needed them at the ends?

[cteno4]

Hayashi,

 

great glad you are upgrading, always is great as you an do things better and faster and advance the skills to the next level then. if you have had a lot of experience on the festool track saw then its a good buy for you if you like it. i have a friend who loves it for his hobby work. he has had small spaces for his shop in the past and loved it for it not taking up a lot of room. the table system is also nice but very expensive as well, he had made his own for larger areas now. there are others around like the pegasus and kreg that are decently priced options. festool also have great box system to store all the tools and parts which is good for limited space of if you go on job sites a lot. 

 

i have a wide range of quality of tools. a few are cheapos as i use them once a year and a cheap one does the job and no reason to spend money for very little use. i now can afford to get good stuff for the things i use a lot and matter. i still have to get more use to not making due as ive done it for soooo long! so now i try to go nice but not go crazy silly, i like the quality but also like things to be practical and efficient. 

 

i didnt worry about the s joiners as the track connection held the viaduct up next to the platform. if you wanted you could glue a small piece of 3/8' into the top of the sjoiner pocket to mesh into the foam core layer if you want something to keep things carefully aligned. 

 

looking forward to you build. check out your habitat for humanity for formica. home despot use to have 2x4 sheets for like $10, now you have to order it and only 4x8 at $50. ive not shopped for it in a while as i had a few 2x4 sheets i got cheap on a closeout a few years back. i was able to make the 3m station out of two 2x4 sheets.

 

https://www.homedepot.com/p/FORMICA-8-ft-x-4-ft-Laminate-Sheet-in-Folkstone-Grafix-with-Matte-Finish-005071258408000/202833303

 

040-080 stryene would work fine as well and a lot cheaper from your local plastics or sign shop for a 4x8 sheet.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

Jeff,

 

Thanks for the S-joiner suggestion. Don't know if I'll need to do that. Still going back on forth on 1x viaduct station (4 track) and 1x modern overhead station (2 track) or 1x viaduct station (6 track or 8 track) and no modern overhead station. I'll have separate shinkansen and commuter/express tracks, plus an industrial track, but I still intend to link them all so I can switch things up. Separate shinkansen, commuter/express, and industrial yards too.

 

My tools are for DIY projects and hobby only, although I did a lot of car work in the past on my own vehicles. Used to have a machine lathe and mill at home too when I had a basement. Not many of those here in Florida. Not to mention they were big machines (6" throw and a 4' bed on the lathe). The movers hated me--moved it three times. I'd get Sherline now for hobby work if I were buying anything.

 

Regards, Mark 

[cteno4]

Mark,

 

ahh I did metal work when I was young but none for a very long time here, but at some point want to get back into it. I keep eyeing small mills too much...

 

LOL one of our club members moved back to Albuquerque last year and he had a metal lathe (he is a jeweler and pen maker so turns his own findings) and it was work making a crate and hefting the lathe into his moving container, and it was a small one! He got me back as he was the one who helped me unbox and assemble the 650lb Cabinet Saw the year before!

 

Cool thing with unitrak you can experiment a lot and play around with ideas. Make the 3ply in like 1x2 plates and connect with some dowel chunks to play with configurations.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

Jeff,

 

I was just checking the Archives section and saw the link to your website on building the viaduct station and supports. I didn't realize you are Sumida Crossing. Fantastic site! It's helped me a lot as I'm moving forward.

 

Regards, Mark

[cteno4]

Nope, sorry that’s ken, I’m Japan rail modelers in dc. Unfortunately ken is not around the forum these days.

 

jeff

[chadbag]

Jeff -- do you ever sleep?  I go to bed (and 1am in DC) and you are up.  I get up in the morning, you've already been posting...

 

[cteno4]

I’m a night owl! Time change makes it easy to beat the west in the am! Better to be a night owl in the east as you can always keep ahead with the spwest when working. Horrid living in the west working with folks east! 

 

Jeff

[chadbag]

1 minute ago, cteno4 said:

I’m a night owl! Time change makes it easy to beat the west in the am! Better to be a night owl in the east as you can always keep ahead with the spwest when working. Horrid living in the west working with folks east! 

 

I work with folks in Indiana, which is ET, and in India, which is 12 hours ahead of me (plus or minus 30 min, depending on if daylight savings time is on).  We have a lot of meetings that start at 7:30am my time (9:30am in Indiana, 7pm in India).   I kind of like that I can hit the guys in India before I go to bed, if I need to, which is hard for the ET time folks, but having 7:30am meetings is a drag.

 

When I lived in New Hampshire, I had a vendor I worked with in Arizona.  It was nice that I could call up to 9pm New Hampshire time, which was 6pm Arizona time, in the summer, and still get someone to place orders with etc.

 

I am off to bed, but luckily there is no meeting in the morning at 7:30.  First one is morning standup at 8:45am.

[cteno4]

I almost did an job witha production crew in India and figured I would just have to work in the evening to have the overlap as I did not want to do it early morning! 

 

When wording with folks onthe west coast I can swing into the office (down 2/3 flight of stairs) at 10am and be way ahead of those starting early on the west coast. Being a night owl I could still get stuff back out late at night past when most wouldmbe working on the west coast as well, so they just thought I was always up. Doesn’t work with my circadian rhythm the other direction.

 

jeff 

[chadbag]

Luckily my office is also just a flight of stairs down from my bedroom door 🙂

 

I don't know how many meetings I've been to in my skivvies and how many video conferences with my manager with the only "outdoor" stuff on being a t-shirt.   (IMPORTANT:  In all cases I am clothed, just not necessarily in out of the house wear).

 

Unfortunately my wife often has to get up at 5am for work and my son gets up at 5:30am for school and I sometime have to take him...  So I am working on regularly going to bed early and getting up early, though I too am a night owl.

 

 

[cteno4]

LOL, I know the “remeber to not stand up” I chat meetings!

 

i taught high school for a year (filling in). Being bright eyed and bushy tailed at school at 7am every morning was tough for a night owl. One of the hardest things about teaching is the clock, at school nothing stops that clock short of a dire emergency. Bam every 55 minutes on the button a new class flows in. Japanese trains are the only other thing keeping more on schedule.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hayashi]

I can surely relate to all this. Periodic China phone WeChat calls for business, plus my son was studying there too for his Master's. Russia and Africa for some other projects. Most people have a hard time grasping the concept of availability 24/7 at weird times. Luckily it isn't daily, but you get used to it. That's what got me into Japanese trains. I had been into model railroading off and on since I was 5 years old. But in the mid-1990s I was working on a JV with a Japanese company. When they found out my hobby interest they gave me a Tomix Series 0 Shinkansen; the same green and white one we all rode on together to Nara. I bought some Kato track and a few buildings, but hadn't really done anything with it until now. I even have a small amount of old Tomix brown track. This year I decided against another expansive garden layout (might still do a small G-gauge loop since I still have the equipment) and almost went circa 1920s On30 logging (the idea of taking the garden railroad theme indoors but in a smaller scale). Then I decided to focus more on track than scenery and when all out for Japanese. So, the weird call times and big time differences brought me to this forum.

 

BTW, sorry about the mix up between Ken and you, Jeff.

 

Regards, Mark