Reach

[rpierce000]

When you are designing a track plan, what reach do you design for? Does it matter what height you are reaching for? Whether it is scenery or trackage? Do you use access hatches?

Thank you for any input. I am looking at being able to make some areas of my layout as much as 40" deep, but I am concerned that I would be unable grasp things that far away without damaging something.

[bill937ca]

Most adults can only reach about 18-20 inches. Access holes get harder to use as we get older. Going down may be easy, coming back up may be another matter.

The height of buildings will also determine how far you can reach into the layout.

[KenS]

I made my old HO layout 38" deep, and it was way too far to reach without leaning over (and often snagging things at the front).  My current N-scale layout is 24" deep, and even that can be a bit awkward at times, but it's workable.

I think 30" is about my limit, and I'm 6' tall so my reach may be longer than some.

If it will be accessible from both sides, then 40" would work as no part would be more than a 20" reach away.

I don't think height really matters, it's your waist/torso that's going to hit the near-side scenery if you have to bend to reach too far.

You can make deeper layouts by planning access holes (lift-off scenery), but I've never done that.

[rankodd]

36" is considered the absolute maximum for one sided access, but I think that's just for "I have to pick up a derailed train". Layout construction is pretty much impossible at that distance.

[cteno4]

if you do want to go deep you can do a couple of things to make up for lack of reach

a) make a lift out portal at the back areas that you can pop out to work on the far items as ken suggested. these are a mess to engineer into things and require you to not have track running over them unless you want to get really fine on your engineering. also then faring the scenery in around the edge of the hatch can be a challenge. also squiggling under and up through can be a real challenge

b) make your layout in the fat areas more modular in two chunks like 24" deep so that with some unclipping/bolting of the front module you can then pull it aside to get to the back module. if you are careful you can figure out a locking mechanism for the front module that would line all your tracks up, but this can be tricky.

c) buy one of those lean out ladders. they are not cheap at $225, but can get you out and over the layout well. curt got one of these for his layout to reach into his back corner. his did not look like it folded up into the smaller size in the ad though. they are bulky, heavy items to move around, but look pretty sturdy from what i saw of curts.

http://www.micromark.com/Topside-Creeper-Step-Ladder-Support-System,8854.html

d) if you are in a basement with good, solid floor rafters overhead you can make your own trapeze type hanger you can clip on to eye rings bolted into the rafters. the trapeze would just need to be a piece of 1x4 with some padding on it. you then stand on a small, sturdy foot ladder and you can then lean over with the trapeze across your chest and sort of hang your top end from it. this sounds pretty ridiculous, but i had fantastic success with it when i built a 3/4" scale model of the monterey bay aquarium years back. it was so huge (like 30' x 30') there were areas in the center we really could not crawl into so i did a trapeze like this from the rafters to hang from above the model. this was a really extreme case and i was pretty much horizontal in it, but it should work fine for a small application where you just need to lean out a bit and dont want to store a huge mechanism to do this.

personally im working on the design of my basement layout and plan to have everything in larger modules that can pretty easily come apart either for major work on the hard to reach areas or for that house move that is bound to come from murphy if you start on a large layout! but im also in the basement so doing some small trapeze points will probably be a good solution for the smaller stuff.

cheers

jeff

[rpierce000]

I really like that lean out ladder, I will have to see if I can fit one of those into the budget.

For some reason when you said a sling I had this idea of a system like an overhead crane that would do a full XY axis over the entire room. You could use a 1/2 ton chain hoist, an I beam and some old rollerblades from garage sales...

OK, that one is crazy, but for some reason it sticks in my head.

I think I will also have to consider that my wife, um, sticks out more in front than I do. This will affect how far she can reach.

[cteno4]

Bob,

LOL sure a good ceiling rail and you could have something to zip all over the layout! the sling was pretty funny at the aquarium. the rafters were like 20' up in the warehouse we were using for the planning office so i had quite a bit of play in the trapeze line. i had this big old heavy metal cart i would push up next to the model and then lock the wheels and then a few blocks to lock my toes in to get purchase. i could then swing around quite a bit with the long lines. was always worried i would loose control at some point and go spinning into the model, but never did! i did try attaching a 18"w x 5' long piece of ply wood and hang it with 4 lines to lie on and be more stable, but found it very limiting and the simple trapeze under my chest and my feet against something solid at the side of the model gave me a lot of flexibility.

i must say it would get great looks from folks when they saw me the first time hanging from the rafters! Mr Packard said very loudly (he was not a loud man) "whats that kid doing now!" when he saw me the first time! was quite fun and worked well.

check with curt to see how he is liking his lean out ladder, ive not talked to him since he got it. it is quite a big piece of equipment so you will need a bit of space to store it. it also needs some maneuvering room as well.

cheers

jeff