Lego Monorail spiral?!

[bowen179]

Not sure if this goes here but i've been getting into the monorail scene and started to collect a bunch of track for a layout. What I was wondering is how would some one achieve a upward spiral? Like this one:

Is this possible with the long curved track?

[Pierre_Cochereau]

The only way I see this could be achieved is by adding a plate per curve. Since this monorail can handle much steeper inclines than your usual train could handle on normal track, maybe even raising each curve by one brick per segment would be possible.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Pierre_Cochereau

[Phoxtane]

My LUG did a monorail that spiraled up one building and down another once. Try experimenting!

[Saint]

So, Yes it is possible !

I did some experimenting myself ( sadly not with the monorail stuff ) and from the picture you can see the incline a bit.

I think you can always trying E-mailing this person through the site, perhaps he can narrow it down for you, or even specify everything you need. ( I guess this is not big scary secret nobody knows about )

I for one think that that kind of info should be a bit more "open sourced" , who needs it, can get it. Perhaps a section here on EB ??

grtz Saint

Edited July 12, 2013 by Saint

[JopieK]

yes, if you have enough curved track it is possible as you can see... b.t.w. the train forum is also ok for monorail trains, so this is the right place :)

The monorail train has good traction so you could definitely try this out!!!

[1974]

Not sure if this goes here but i've been getting into the monorail scene and started to collect a bunch of track for a layout. What I was wondering is how would some one achieve a upward spiral? Like this one: http://www.carolinat...irport-shuttle/. Is this possible with the long curved track?

Don't use the ramps, just the curved pieces .. exactly like the link :

Monorail tracks is quite flexible but needs to be attached firmly (much better than in the link, imo). Since the track will be curving both up/downwards and inwards some trickery needs to be done. I use Technic pieces for this

Don't worry about tracktion

You can also take a look at this :

So, Yes it is possible !

I did some experimenting myself ( sadly not with the monorail stuff ) and from the picture you can see the incline a bit.

I think you can always trying E-mailing this person through the site, perhaps he can narrow it down for you, or even specify everything you need. ( I guess this is not big scary secret nobody knows about )

I for one think that that kind of info should be a bit more "open sourced" , who needs it, can get it. Perhaps a section here on EB ??

grtz Saint

You can easily tell what's been build just looking at the pic(s). It's hardly a secret

Btw, I think Mike Walsh is a member of EB

[Gioppa]

yes it is possible...look at this...

it is long but there is what you need!

[Saint]

Well "1974" , I reguraly see questions like this popping up, so a small section of the forums for explaning stuff like this isn't a bad idea.

I see a lot of stuff I want to see upclose , or a little bit more explained .

grtz Saint

[Mike Walsh]

The pictures of my 6 Car Airport shuttle were taken at a NCLUG meeting one afternoon when we quickly put together a spiral layout. A number of new people had never seen the monorail so we had a request to set it up and what you see was the result of a quick 15 minute build.

The monorail spirals were a prominent feature in early NCLTC layouts (circa 2000, 2001). It was Cary Clark's idea and he had enough monorail track to go around our entire layout. The distance between each curve section was the same and was based on the 6168a Support 2 x 2 x 11 Solid Pillar. To account for the incline he used a 2x4 brick with axel pins attached with 1x2 Technic bricks so it would pivot. You can see it in the top of the picture below.

Here is an overhead picture where you can see the double set of spirals right near other. We didn't always do this, sometimes they were spaced on opposite ends of the layout.

If anyone wants to build a multi-car monorail, I actually put together a set of instructions a couple years ago. They're not perfect, the aspect ratio when the whole thing is put together doesn't lend itself well to a single page but the individual cars work fine.

[bowen179]

Ahhh!! Thanks for the reply's! I was a little worried about "streching" my track up and down but I get the idea now hopefully have a nice set up soon!

[GunnersGarrison]

OK, very late to this post ... But after searching for such spirals with original LEGO monorail curves (and not finding, not even here on EB  but long forced delays between searches doesn't help - Until after posting my own YouTube video someone kindly pointed me to this post ).  I finally figured out the ratio and mounting (based on other brick built track designs and some trial/error) to design and build my own.  I used the Fibonacci ratio of 2,3,5,8 bricks per quadrant for the initial rise, then basically built up each stanchion identically from there until I ran out of curves in my collection.

 

Edited March 11 by GunnersGarrison

[ivanlan9]

Nice.  I wonder if I have enough track to do that. ...