# Multi layered layouts...



## afboundguy (Jan 10, 2021)

Looking to see if anyone has any multi layered layouts specifically a smaller track run several feet above the main layout... Also looking to see everybody's pros and cons to multi layered layouts...


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Not quite what you were asking, but I recently saw a club member's HO layout where he used N scale trains on an elevated track for a steel mill in the background. Helped to provide an additional sense of depth.


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

I'm planning a small HO L shelfie about 8' X 10' x 1' switching where main line will be highest making a 90 deg curve..
8' Leg on left will have a switch and a 3% grade down to town / industries below as a switchback move..Lower will have a wye in corner, 4-5 industries / small yard and interchange (I hope).
I generally don't go for multi level layouts / don't care for visual it makes..Mine is 2 levels but only because of the ramp up/down from town and thus a single layer with an incline, if this is what you're looking for...


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

You mean something like this?


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

I have a three level layout.

Two parallel main lines in a folded, unequal figure 8 passing over, and a third dual gauge line crossing over the second level of the main lines.

It is not several feet above the dual main though. Before the dual gauge became dual gauge it was standard gauge and interchanged with the dual main lines. There is not enough room for the third level to rise several feet and return to the same level as the main lines are.

The interchange is temporarily closed and that turnout has been removed until I replace the turnout with a dual gauge turnout on all three legs.

I never looked at the pros and cons very much. I had to make certain that the beginning and end of my third level grade would be in the right spot to interchange with the main lines that also needed to be in the correct spots for the terrain and scenery I would be modeling.

I guess one 'pro' is the visual impact created by three trains crossing over one another once in a while when the timing works out randomly.


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

My layout has two loops at zero level. A third loop goes from zero to 3” and a fourth goes from 3” to 6”. It takes some room to go from one level to the next. That’s the con. The pro is over/under meets.


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## afboundguy (Jan 10, 2021)

I was looking more along the lines of a second mainline with a raised second layout...


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

I'm not following you on that.


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## afboundguy (Jan 10, 2021)

Where you would need to use a helix to get them to the second level... Something like this...


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Ach so. There are many, many examples of those used in Europe because of the lack of space most home owners and renters suffer there. Helixes are used extensively for mountain lines in limited runs, but with plenty of width for the diameter of the helix.

They are not easy to design, cut, or assemble. They create an immense amount of drag for the locomotive, especially after the entire train is in the helix and the tighter the radius and steeper the grade, the worse it gets.

A 1.5% or less grade with a 24" radius is the minimum recommended. A lower grade or wider radius is better. Many European layouts use a 2% grade, but widen the radius out to 30" or 760mm.


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

* Nah, nah, nonny nonny*

Some are getting the nomenclature or concept wrong regarding thread title ...

~ If your most-main line begins at bench top, and, via a series of inclines even goes up and over its self one or more times, it's still a single deck MRR with the track climbing various ways through the system; trains always in view except for tunnels/structures/foliage/rock.
This, to me, is most like the 1:1 viewing experience....
~ A double or triple deck-ed MRR has separate benchwork atop benchwork, each usually with fascia board, and decks' track levels usually obtained via a helix, where trains can be out of view for, sometimes, long periods..Plus each deck's terrain will usually be different from the other (one bucolic / one urban / one Indus..). This type to me is less like the 1:1 viewing experience, but best for gaining over-all RR distance = more realistic running time between stations...

Pic in post # 4 is an rare 4 decker in that I believe the levels don't even connect via a helix.
Pic in post # 5 and post # 6 are single deck layouts with inclines in the system.
Pic in post # 9 is a true, *multi-layered *model railroad..

[This post carries no value judgement]


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## afboundguy (Jan 10, 2021)

I was just tossing around the idea of making a 2 layered benchwork to extend the mainline as I won't have full reign of the whole basement which would be ideal but I like being married so I'm looking into options and to see if anyone on the forums has done it and cares to share their experiences and more importantly pictures


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

*afbg*, 
You can certainly do that, but you'll have to learn how to build a helix..And that can be very complicated....


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

The problem with a helix, beyond the construction challenges, is they take up a lot of space. Lets do some math. In OO scale you may want a vertical rise of 4", rail head to rail head for clearance in the helix. If the grade is 2% then it requires a 200" run of track to rise 4". A helix is a stacked circle so we divide by pi (3.14) to get the helix diameter, which is about 64". So you need a space 5'-4" X 5'-4" just for one helix in OO scale. If the grade percentage is increased the diameter shrinks. A 4% grade, which would be way too steep for my 20 car trains, would only require 100" of run for 4" of rise. That makes the helix only 32" in diameter at the cost of a likely unclimable circular grade.
I model in S scale so my minimum vertical clearance is 5.5". My layout is 4 levels. The interconnecting tracks are about 250" long and most are hidden behind/under scenery near the walls. the total vertical rise from the lowest to the highest level is 18". No way I could have fit a 2% grade helix into the room. The layout is around the walls with a center peninsula.


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

Mr. dude, I didn't need/read all the calculations. Been with this 5-6 decades. I'm just saying. 
If you bluntly add a second layer atop of first how else will you get track to/from it ? You can skip second layer and reconfigure trackage to go up/down a long grade. But then it's not a double-decker. It's a regular MRR with a long incline..A true double-decker requires a helix.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

A helix is merely a spiral incline ramp.....


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

I am personally familiar a number of multi level layouts where the levels appear truly separate. Most of these layouts had about 18" between the independent levels and lighting for the lower level hidden under the fascia of the upper level. 
There are four ways to connect the levels. First and easiest is don't. Use the H.O.G. method to move trains between levels. Second, and most common. is a long sloped interconnecting track hidden behind lower level building fronts, scenery or backdrops. Two of the layouts I ran on were in private homes, one was in a long closed train store. All three were HO. Third is the helix. Not very common. I have seen three, one layout had a 10' diameter helix, the other two were 8' diameter. All were three rail O gauge These were in basements that had the available space. Fourth is a vertical elevator. A very elegant solution but expensive and challenging to build and make operate reliably. I have only seen one of these successfully implemented. The separation between the yard area and the ceiling suspended layout was 4 vertical feet. The elevator tracks were 4' long so moving a trainload of cars requires switcher engines at both elevations to put cuts of cars on the elevator.
I like Old Hobo's description of a helix. I apologize if my elementary math offended other readers.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

afboundguy said:


> I was just tossing around the idea of making a 2 layered benchwork to extend the mainline as I won't have full reign of the whole basement which would be ideal but I like being married so I'm looking into options and to see if anyone on the forums has done it and cares to share their experiences and more importantly pictures


afboundguy;

I have a two level N-scale, "Bookshelf Model Railroad" based on an old Model Railroader Magazine article. I don't use a conventional helix. Instead, my entire main line is a continuous grade, and forms a sort of "stretched helix." There is a track plan of my layout in the "Layout Design" section of this forum. It is at the end of a thread titled "Here are the layouts of some forum members." I don't have an overall photo of the whole layout, but I do have some photos of sections below. Oh, by the way, my layout is made up of sections, something I highly recommend for any layout.
The first photo shows one of my "standard" sections, which are each 4' long, 16" high, and 16" deep. I mount some sections back-to-back and/or have larger sections at both ends to hold the turnback loops for continuous running. The largest section is 4' long and 3' deep.
My sections have a shelf on the top, supported by three arches per section. The shelf is very strong, and holds my collection of train books, a TV set, and loads of other "stuff" I have accumulated over the years. The open front side of all the sections allows an uninterrupted, panoramic, view with no vertical posts in the way. The removable, curved, backdrops conceal a back track which lets the train pass through the visible scene only once, instead of showing an obvious oval of track with the train chasing its tail. The backdrop is the curved white thing on the right, in the first photo. 
The back track also continues to climb, so the length of the grade is doubled, and the percent of grade is held at 3%. This lets a train climb the necessary 16" between levels as it passes across the width of the garage, and back. The third photo shows a finished, painted, backdrop behind the trestle.

Traction Fan. 🙂


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## gregc (Apr 25, 2015)

multi-tiered vs multi-deck

a multi-deck layout has two or more distinct levels connected by either a helix (or some other mechanism) or spiral around the room. one issue is the space required between decks (~ 18") and the run length to go between one deck and another with a reasonable grade.

multi-tiered layout do not have separate decks. the trackage spirals around the layout but only needs to gain a height of ~6".


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

Five levels of track passing by here, three loops that intertwine, passing over, under and alongside one another at different parts of the layout.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

I'm 6'1" tall, and I often find I have trouble seeing the lower decks of mipulti-level layouts. Lighting them adequately can also be a challenge.

Also, I're realistic. I don't have much time to work on a 12x17 single level layout as is. More decks would make the project overwhelming.


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

This is probably going to sound like rambling, but … anyway…

You can do multi-level without a helix, as @MichaelE has shown.

Had I had more foresight I would have done similar.

Check the video in post # 453 here. 

At the 10 second mark the loco is 4” above the base level of the layout. So the loco is already “up one level”. At 25 seconds, when the loco is coming out of the mountain/tunnel is when the climb starts. The 360° climb from there is ~ 11’ of track (4 pieces of flex, minus what’s hanging out in space at the end of the loop/climb) and you gain ~ 3 ½” of elevation. So at the top of the loop you’re 7 ½” from the layout base level, or “up two levels”.

The grade isn’t consistent throughout the 360° climb. After the first tunnel portal @ 90° it flattens out some (after you cross the hump), then gets steeper past the 2nd tunnel portal – at 35 seconds, as the loco is passing 180° you can see some wheel slip. So, while the grade averages 2.5%, its < 2% in some places and probably as much as 3% in others.

So what’s my point? Although nothing like the pic in post #9, you can go multi-level in a smaller space if you plan for it. And you can have it look reasonably realistic. Although I do have a 360° loop, it isn’t what I would call a helix.

Speaking of planning. The yard expansion I’m thinking about was never planned. Now I’m trying to figure out how to get from the top of the 360° loop, over to the yard so I can do an elevated reverse loop over the yard. And that’s why that piece of track is hanging out in space.

Yard Expansion


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## afboundguy (Jan 10, 2021)

@Stumpy thanks for the post and sharing the video I like that a lot!


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