Switching Layout - Part 4 - Design of End Guides

Following are additional details regarding the design of the end guides in which the 2 inch nylon garage door rollers will travel:

Switching Layout - Part 3 - Storage Mechanism

In Part 1 I said that one of my criteria for this switching layout is that, when stored, it must not occupy a lot of floor space. I have come up with a plan that will occupy an area along one of the 11 foot walls in the den and, when stored, will protrude into the room a distance of no further than 15 inches.

In the following drawing, the various colours depict:

• yellow - hinged countertop
• blue - front edge of cabinetry (affixed to the front will be standard kitchen cabinet doors)
• pink - the layout top (to be made of solid pink foam insulation board, 1 1/2 inches thick
• light brown - the wood supporting structure underneath the pink foam insulation board
• dark brown disks - 2 inch nylon garage door rollers that will be mounted in 2 inch x 3 inch (nominal) dimensional lumber
• blue disk (barely visible in the top-right vicinity of the structure) - wheels that will be mounted in several locations along the top front of the front edge of the cabinetry; the layout will rest on these wheels when deployed to prevent sagging of the 11 foot long layout top.
• orange-brown - 2 inch x 2 inch (nominal) dimensional lumber to be mounted on 3/4 inch plywood fastened to the walls on each end of the room. This will serve as guides within which the nylon garage door rollers will travel when raising and lowering the layout.
• scale model buildings are depicted in various colours.

The following drawing shows the layout in its operational position:

This is a short video showing how the layout will be raised and lowered:

 

Switching Layout - Part 2 - Track Plan

 I have devised the following track plan for my switching layout:

Length = 10 ft. 11 3/4 in.

Width = 28 in.

HO Scale.

Turnouts (hand made):

• 11 x left-hand #5 Fast Tracks turnouts
• 4 x right-hand #5 Fast Tracks turnouts
• 1 x curved 36-24 #6 Fast Tracks turnouts

Crossings (hand made):

• Fast Tracks 30-degree crossing

Turnout control:

• 16 x Bullfrog (by Fast Tracks) manual turnouts

Buildings to be all scratch-built.

This is a larger image, turned on its side:

Switching Layout - Part 1 - Concept

On November 11, 2021 I wrote about my prostate issue and the need to have 33 radiation treatments. Those treatments ended on December 20, 2021 so Christmas 2021 was extra special for me. Roughly 2/3 of the way through my treatments I became quite fatigued and had very little motivation to do much in the way of model railroading, or anything else for that matter.

In the second week of January my wife and I drove to West Kelowna, British Columbia, to spend a couple of months in the two-bedroom condominium that we purchased in autumn 2021. As I have been preoccupied with obtaining and assembling furniture and going on a lot of long walks to enjoy the scenery and the (relatively) mild winter weather I decided to take a break from the blog.

The fatigue from my radiation treatments resolved itself by the end of January and I feel great. We return home to Saskatchewan in mid-March at which time I must have a PSA test and then a consultation with the radiation oncologist. This will be the "moment of truth" as to whether the radiation treatments were successful.

Our condo in West Kelowna has two bedrooms plus a den. The den is just over 3.4 by 2.1 metres (11 by 7 feet) in size and has no window.

After being away from my model railroading hobby for some time I put my mind to how I could build a model railroad in the den, while at the same time not permanently occupying much of the room and rendering it useless for any other purpose. I concluded that a shelf-style switching layout would be fun to try. I have never before built a switching layout.

Following are my criteria for this switching layout:

• HO scale.
• must be able to be stored in a space-saving way when not in use, taking up minimal floor space.
• manually operated turnouts, hand-made using #5 Fast Tracks jigs.
• Digital Command Control (DCC) electronics.
• All buildings will be scratch-built.
• Layout dimensions will be approximately 3.4 by 0.7 metres (11 feet by 28 inches).

In upcoming postings I shall share a proposed track plan and my plans for being able to store the layout in such a way that minimal floor space is occupied.

Here are three photos from the balcony of our West Kelowna condo:

The above photo, taken in October 2021, is facing north-west showing Shannon Lake and, on the right, the Shannon Lake Golf Course.

The above photo, taken in January 2022, is of the same view.

Night, taken in January 2022.

Animation - Part 2 - Design

I decided to take on the challenge of creating my own track system to create animation. You will note that this uses the concepts used by the Magnorail system referred to in Part 1 but is not an attempt to replicate the Magnorail system. As I don't have access to any Magnorail parts I designed my own parts, several of which appear to be quite different. I also don't know the dimensions of any of the Magnorail parts so I came up with my own dimensions.

I ordered a high-torque 12 volt DC motor from Amazon. The output shaft turns at 5 RPM. I then designed and 3D printed a drive mechanism to sit on top of the motor. Here are pictures of the drive mechanism:

motor mounted to underside of drive mechanism

top side view

with drive gears mounted (note hole the closest gear fits over the "D" gear shaft so it doesn't slip)

same as above but with retainers pressed into holes

Next I created 3D printed chain components which connect to each other and which have holes to fit round rare-earth magnets in a couple of places to move boats:

The track components look like this - each track piece is screwed to a sub-floor which which will reside underneath the styrene sheet "pond":

Here is a picture of the completed track, with the drive mechanism in place:

Here is a picture of the subfloor mounted underneath the pond cutout in the Free-mo module:

The subfloor is mounted with wingnuts to make it easy to remove the subfloor with the track in case adjustments or repairs are ever needed in the future. The motor is wired to a bridge rectifier which takes DCC current from the accessory buss running under the Free-mo module.

Here is a top-side view of the styrene sheet. The beaver dam will be built to disguise the front edge:

Here is a short video showing the boat moving (the rough brown circle painted on the surface is where the beaver lodge will be built):

I will not be sharing the design details or the STL 3D printer files, either for no cost or for a price

Next up......doing the scenery.