# question on woodland scenic's



## little fat buddy (Jan 14, 2011)

hey guy's i am starting my layout soon and i have some rolling stock here and i took the boxxe's and put the track on top of it and like the elevated look of thing's made it have more depth to it my question is how hard are the woodland scenic's riser's to use how do i determine how many i need and so forth thank's yall lfb.


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

Do you mean the grade risers that are pre-measured to raise the track to the proper elevation using a steady grade or just a plain riser? I had pink foam insulation left over from a project that I used to build a hill with some spray foam. To make the grade to get up to the hill I cut pieces of wood block and painted them. The grades that WS makes would have been much easier and faster to use. I just prefer to use what I have at hand and do it myself.


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## Reckers (Oct 11, 2009)

LFB, it really comes down to how much time you have and how much you like to work with your hands. The WS risers are precut to elevate your train to a specific height over a measured distance. The greater the number of degrees, the steeper the hill your locomotive is trying to drag it's consist up. Steep = harder climb, shorter consists (everything behind the locomotive or tender) and the slower it runs. If you have a long, straight stretch, you want a long, gradual (low%) climb. Your maximum height (overpass) is enough to clear everything below with a slim margin of extra clearance for stupidity (forgetting and loading a gondola with a tall load, for example). So....start at ground level, the top of your pink foam sheet or whatever your grass would grow on. Add the height of your track + the height of your tallest locomotive, car, crane, searchlight, cargo---in other words, the tallest item that will pass under your overpass. With HO scale, I'd add in an extra 1/4" to 1/2", but that's up to you----it's the I-forgot-margin I talked about. That height is the starting point for estimating.

Now....let's pick a random number of 3" as that height (I run S scale, so I don't know how high it really should be). In our discussion, anything to do with your overpass has to start 3" above the grass and go up, not protrude down. For example, you cannot say "the top of my track is now at 3", so I'm good" because you're ignoring the vertical thickness of your track, the ties, and any roadbed you're using. Everything has to be above that 3" line (more correctly, above the height you actually calculated).

So, if you need 3", you need risers that will lift your train and track and roadbed 3" before you reach the crossing point. A 1% rise will lift your track 1" high over 100" of forward movement; a 3% rise will lift it 3" high over 100" of forward movement. A 6% rise will lift you 6 inches over 100" of forward movement, or 3" over 50" of forward movement. You can see this takes a lot of track length, so you might want to experiment, first, and see what you can haul and at how steep an angle. This is where the hand-skills come in. Get a thin piece of panelling, plywood, stiff metal or stiff corrugated board and cut a strip 33" feet long for a roadbed. Slip it under your track. This is 1/3 of that 100" distance, so you can calculate your rise. If you put a scrap of 2x 4 under one end (use the 2" height), you have roughly a 6% grade. If your train can't make it up this incline, you know you need a lower % grade and a longer stretch of track to climb to finally reach the height you need.

Finally----back to hand skills. It's a choice of build-or-buy, and both are respectable choices. Both work equally well, but some folks like to build and some don't. WS has a good reputation and I'm sure their product is good---but then, so is a board cut to length and angle to do the same thing, or a mound made of hydrocal and newspaper. It comes down to what you like to do.

Best wishes on your project,


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

Remember also that if the rise includes a curve that effectively is increasing the grade. It take move energy to pull a train through a curve than along a straight.


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## little fat buddy (Jan 14, 2011)

okay thank's for that info i was more or less asking bout the standard riser's the flat 2 inch tall riser's that they sell to raise my whole layout thank's zach.


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