question about tomix finetrack slpoe

[Sep.]

Hi guys，

Hope you guys doing well.

Now I‘m running a little club with a friend and we are updating a new layout. There is one small problem that I'm not sure how to fix. The problem mainly comes from the slope, which means that I often don't know exactly how much slope I should be using to get these locomotives up the ramp smoothly. I'm currently using DS280 and DC465-428 to lay the ramps, and I know that the official Tomix recommendation for slope is to use one DS280 to raise two units. But since I need to service Chinese trains, so I extend the ramp and use 6 or 7 sections of DS280 or DC465 for the uphill. I don't know if I am doing this correctly or if I should use 5 sections of track exactly as Tomix officially recommends. My guests have reported that running a single motor Kato Shinkansen on the outermost loop will have trouble getting up the ramp. Here is my layout plan if you guys have any suggestions for improvement let me know as well. That would help me a lot.
Thanks guys.

[MeTheSwede]

I think we need some more information in order to help you. You want to make some adjustments that makes the incline on a section smaller? Were on the layout is the problem?

[cteno4]

Determine grades has a few factors in it. Yes it’s good to keep it as low as possible, like 2% or so and 3% or so max, over that and you will see something struggle and definitely need to play with the throttle a lot to keep a more constant speed (ie not crawl up the slopes and scream down them). I can t remember what grade the Tomix riser sets are, but there are no real set requirements/standards, just what is sold by the track manufacturers.

 

Some factors

- Room you have in the layout plan for your grades

- Equipment you are running (equipment performance on grades can vary a lot). 16 car shinkansens with one power car is hard on grades.

- Power supply (whimpy power supply may make it hard to go up steep grades)

- Radius of curves you are using (tighter radius curves tends to slow trains more on grades)

- How much do you care about speed changes on grades and/or how much do you want to actively run the throttles and maintain more uniform speeds (this one is a personal preference)?

- Is this a permanent layout or just temporary and will change a lot? If permanent the you really want to err on the side of lower grades for future equipment as once nailed down you are stuck with it.

 

if you use the standard risers for Tomix this will give you sort to the usual average performance grade, but it won’t be taking into consideration all of the factors above for your layout. You may find doing custom grade risers could give you better performance, but it is a little work to create something that looks good and is functional. I built a bunch of custom risers for a club member with a lot of grades from chunks of 1”x3” lumber with curved corners to look like the usual cement block viaduct supports and some fancier Y shaped ones. He would just double stick tape them in place on his layouts that would last 3-6 months at a time. Custom risers would be something perfect for inexpensive extrusion 3D printing where you could design in the track connector on the top, add details, and just make what ever set of heights for a desired grade pretty easily. For temp setups and experiments just hot glue together strips of cardboard to make a desired riser height or just cut blocks of wood. To get the rise heights just divide the rise height you want (ie 50mm to get over another track) by the number of track sections you have on the grade to figure out the riser increments you need for each track section. ie for 10 track sections to rise 50mm you would need 10 risers in increments of 5mm (ie 5mm, 10mm, 15mm, etc).

 

Lots of grades, especially steeper ones will wear out motor cars faster. The most blown motors, stripped drive shafts, and other maintenance issues I’ve ever experienced was on that club member’s layout that had grades in the 3-4% (and sometimes a tad higher) on his setups. All his equipment would end up growling eventually and some breaking. I finally had to say no to helping him maintain stuff due to the rate of repairs. Keeping grades reasonable at 2% or below will avoid a lot of this but still bit harder in equipment so need to monitor overheating and gunk and lubrication and clean and lube when needed.

 

Grade is an easy calculation of rise over run multiplied by 100 to get the percentage

 

Grade %  =  (Rise Height  /  Run Length)  *  100

 

Run length required for a desired grade is:

 

Run length  =  (Rise height  *  100)  /  Grade %

 

So to get a 2% grade for the usual 50mm rise needed to go over another track you need a 2.5m of run length for the grade. 

 

You can calculate the run lengths easily by counting up your straight lengths and doing the calculations for the curved pieces. Inner track on double viaduct will be the shorter length so the worst case or you could use the average of the two if you wanted,

 

Curve track piece length = 3.14  *  R  /  S  

 

where R is the track radius and S is the number of curve pieces it takes to get a 180 degree turn (ie 8, 6, 4) from those curve track pieces

 

You can also just cheat if the track is setup and put a pice of string down the center of the viaduct along a grade and measure the length of the  string.

 

Do set up and play with grades and your equipment and see how you like it. Doesn’t have to be the grand layout design, just try some experimental loops at 2%, 2.5%, 3% and see if you like the running with grades and your equipment will handle it well. Also put curves in the grades like on your layout plan to see how that effects it. Some hate grade running. It also usually presents a bit more issues with track and such for derailments and you need to create smooth vertical easements from level to the grade as some couplers can decouple with a sharp change and some strong couplers can lift up wheels on a strong change. So experimenting with some grades will help you see if these will be issues and then experiment to find acceptable solutions that you can be happy with.

 

with this complex of a layout and grades I would definitely suggest you look at making your own custom risers to get the grades as gentle as possible.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Sep.]

This has already helped me a lot, all I want to know is which grade I'm better suited for, I'm now going to adjust the overall slope to 2.5% to try it out, I've done the math, and the length of my track supports me down to 2.1% at best. I will continue to gather questions as I make subsequent adjustments. Thanks again.

Edited November 12 by Sep.

[cteno4]

@Sep. Good your now calculating it all out. 2.5% may work for you, but best thing is test things out with your equipment and parts of your layout mocked up to see how it feels to you. Again individual modelers have very different feelings about grades! Alway best to keep things as gentle as possible that will fit in your space (problem with grades is they take up a lot of space!) to make things as smooth as possible.

 

if you notice any issues on your grade transitions from level to slope give a yell. There are ways to bend tracks vertically some so you don’t end up with a vertical kink right at a track joint. I can’t remember if Tomix makes grade transition track pieces. We made a few for our club member’s layout with the extreme grades and were able to get rid of a lot of his uncoupling and derailment issues.

 

jeff