What grade of an incline is best for the new train sets?

[Ludzik]

Hello,

Recently I got hooked again on an old hobby/fascination and my wife started me right :) There was a train set (3677) waiting for me under the Christmas Tree :) It ran fine under the Christmas Tree but then after the holidays it was time to move it elsewhere.... since it didn't fit on my old bench I bought a table and now there is a dedicated Lego City area... anyways I digress.

With the new "home" for my slowly starting Lego City I ran into an issue of building a train "overpass". I"m trying to raise the tracks so that in one spot vehicles can drive underneath the tracks. I've been playing with various inclines and now I'm at 1 full size brick height increase for every five cross beams on the tracks. It seems that it's almost a struggle for the train to climb that. Of course I could crank the speed but there is a turn involved there so I figured there must be a magic number someplace out there ;)

[JopieK]

http://www.ngltc.org...ot/inclines.htm

Quote:

"At first glance it seems that the obvious way to make an incline is to raise the track by one LEGO� brick for every straight or curve piece. This sort of works and indeed the #4563 Euro Freight Line has no trouble climbing this slope but if you try the #4558 Euro Express or add more wagons to your train you will find that the driving wheels start to spin, especially if there are any curves involved in the incline. You will also find that trains go down this sort of slope at an outrageous speed! Ideally, you should raise the track by only one plate (a third of a brick) per piece of track for a nice gentle incline. The trouble is, you need a frightening amount of track, supports and floorspace to achieve this.

A better solution is to only raise the track by two plates for each piece of track (i.e. 2/3 brick), all my trains can climb this slope. Another tip is to make the change in angle only gradually at each end of the slope by only changing the height by one plate for each piece of track. To put this slightly more mathematically, I have two rules

• Rule 1: The steepest slope should change the height by no more that 2 plates per piece of track.
• Rule 2: The angle of the incline should change by no more that 1 plate per piece of track.

To start an incline immediately with 2 plates violates rule 2 because it goes straight from an angle of zero plates per piece of track to an angle of 2 plates per piece of track. So you need to go from level to 1 plate to 1 brick. This will become clearer in the diagram further on."

[kyphur]

The above post is spot on but I would add the following:

You'll need additional traction to get any train that is more than a couple pieces of rolling stock up the incline.

To do this simply replace the o-rings on the wheels of your powered bogie with #35 plumbing o-rings (available in a 10 pack for about $2.30 at both Home Depot & Lowes in the US, Menards seems to only carry this size in individual packs at 60 cents a piece).

Note that your incline will take 20 - 22 sections of track on either side of the highest point to raise the track high enough for a train to run under the elevated track.

[Ludzik]

Thanks guys! So I'm almost there... it seems that with my 1 block then 5 cross pieces I"m at 1 plate too much ;) I also think I need a bigger table :) Or I need to add another table to make an L Shaped town with a track curving around ;)

You'll need additional traction to get any train that is more than a couple pieces of rolling stock up the incline.

To do this simply replace the o-rings on the wheels of your powered bogie with #35 plumbing o-rings (available in a 10 pack for about $2.30 at both Home Depot & Lowes in the US, Menards seems to only carry this size in individual packs at 60 cents a piece).

Cool! Great tip. I"ll try to get them today :)

[kyphur]

Here is a link to the video of my Super Chief with 2 Engines (1 A and 1 B Unit) and 6 cars (the 5 official cars and my Modded version of James Mathis' Pleasure Dome) going up one side over the bridge and down the other side.

My B-unit has 2 PF Train Motors and the o-rings are upgraded.

The incline is 2 plates for each section of track (16 studs length).

[JamesP]

1 plate per section results in huge required track counts. 45 pieces of track up/down to clear. (15 bricks clearance). 2 Plates is much easier to acchieve- 30 pieces to clear. Anything much above 2 plates/ piece is going to be...operationally challenging. Experience speaking here...Operationally Challenging means trains are going to go flying across the room & self dis mantle. Perhaps not fixably self dismantle.

Recommendation: 1 plate/section, 2 if you need to get it done in less space. 45 piece spiral takes around 9x3 ft to make.

James

[kyphur]

BTW, the limit for a single PF Train Motor with the o-ring upgrade seems to be:

Maersk Loco, 5 Maersk Container Cars & 9 Maersk Containers.