Changing levels.

IIRC BRAWA did so a few ago, may still be available. Pricey. It was a set consisting of the rack structure and one or two cars. Not obviously adaptable for mainline running.

Re multi-level layouts: you need about 18" vertical track separation for about 14" clearance below the upper deck. That comes to 45ft at 1:33. If you have a reasonably sized bedroom for your layout, and built the layout walk-in (shelf) style, that's once or so around the room. Not insurmountable.

HTH

Fleischmann

as seen at

I'll have to give them a call. Can't find any detail on either their site or Fleischmann. But that's what I was looking for, thank you.

It's actually going into a garden building about 5 x 3.5 metres so, as you say, quite doable in a once around. I was wondering what my options were. Having ridden a couple of lines using a zig zag, the last time only a few weeks ago, that one is in my mind at the moment. Of course, using one method does not rule out using another one as well. I know spiral tunnels do exist but pictures I have seen of helixes do not seem to be prototypical (yes, you can hide them) so I'm less inclined to that solution, at the moment.

Helixes (helices?) take up a lot of space. One obvious place to hide them would be inside a lobe projecting into the centre of the room. Make the lower and upper levels larger radii than the ones in between, and these looping curves can be scenicked quite nicely. You could just squeeze that into your space, I think. There'd be a bottle neck between the end pf the lobe and the opposite wall, but elsewhere you'd have adequate aisles.

But a rack road climbing from one level to the other would be way cool!

HTH

Fleischmann make an operating rack system in both HO and N. There's a Bo (4 wheel) steeple cab loco and a 2-6-0 tank. There's probably half a million of the previous 0-6-0 tank cast body locos around second-hand. They make a plastic rack rail whick mounts on plastic blocks which screw between sleepers. It will work on almost any Code 100 proprietry track.

Regards, Greg.P.

I have seen an HO "layout" at local train shows in the form of a conical mountain on a revolving base. A train climbs a spiral/helix of track on the outside of the mountain, disappears into a tunnel, then descends inside the mountain to re-emerge at the bottom. I believe there is also an aircraft on a wire revolving in the opposite direction.

MartinS wrote: [...]

Cute.

How about a train lift?

How fat's your wallet?

MBQ

Is there a prototype for that?

I suppose you could argue it's nothing more than a traverser; it just goes up and down rather than side to side.

Don't know

That's what I thought

Waterloo & City?

There were wagon "hoists" eg

See

Quite a few people have use vertical lifts. One such was described in an article published a few years ago (in Model railroader IIRC). The lift was a track board stiffened by a plank mounted edgewise underneath it. The lifting mechanism consisted of two threaded rods that passed through nuts mounted on the lift. A chain drive cobbled up from bicycle parts rotated the rods. Can't recall the locking arrangement to guarantee alignment of the track. Slow but steady, according to the builder.

HTH