A figure 8 with O-54?

It is simply a matter of scaling up the 0-31 plan. Since each 0-54 section is 30deg (12/circle) and each 0-31 section is 45deg (8/circle), you must keep in mind the equivalence needed to achieve the crossing. (e.g. six 0-31sections per half of figure eight = nine 0-54 sections per half of figure eight). With this, any angle crossing could be made to work, just add straights as needed and build towards the total angle you want to achieve.

Oh, so you are saying that you will always use a 90 degree crossover.  I'll just have to stretch out the figure 8 until everything matches up?  See I was thinking more along the lines of using the appropriate crossover (45 or 21.5) to keep the figure 8 more compact and also matching the O-54 curve divergence.

However, I'm not following part of your statement.  If I use only the two halves of the loop that just gets me a loop.  I have to go past the loop with additional curved sections to head into the center and subsequently the crossover.  One additional curved section on each corner of the loop provides a certain amount of divergence from straight and then another would increase that divergence.

On an O-31 figure 8 you use a circle of track plus 4 additional curved sections to send you into the 90 degree crossover.  This works because an O-31 curved section diverges from straight 45 degrees.  This allows to meet in the middle (when you add your straight sections) at the 90 degree crossover.

When using the O-54, they don't diverge from straight at 45 degrees, so I can't simply use straight pieces to meet at a 90.  I would have to use some partial length of an O-54 curved section to get to that 45 degree divergence, which would allow me to meet in the middle at the 90.

Am I missing something?

Jon

In a figure 8 with a 90 degree crossing, the train turns through 270 degrees at each end. For O31, that is 6 pieces, and for O54, it is 9 pieces. The straight legs need to be the diameter of the circle (roughly 54 inches), minus the length of the crossing, and then divided by 2. 

Rough guess, but each straight leg would be somewhere around 21.5 inches. That would be a 10", a 5.5" and 2 3.5" straights times 4. But, as I said a rough guess. Play around with it.

I did oversimplify a bit. As indicated, half of an 0-31 figure eight takes 6 curves to get to 270degrees, so an equivalent 270degrees in 0-54 is achieved with nine sections of 0-54. Thus, a complete layout with a 90degree crossing would need 12curves in 0-31 or 18 in 0-54, plus the right number of straights to achieve track continuity at the crossing.

Since a figure eight is essentially two 360degree loops connected by the crossover, think of it as total degrees of curvature of each loop. The total deviation of each crossing piece must always be 180degrees to the other loop (360 in total) to achieve the desired directional reversal of the figure eight, so any crossing angle should be feasible as long as the proper number of curves to achieve the selected meeting angle is maintained. That is, a 90degree crossing has 4 angles of 90 (90+90=180), a 45degree crossover has two angles at 45 and two angles at 135 (45+135=180) and a 21.5degree crossover contains two 21.5degree angles and two 158.5degree angles (21.5+158.5=180).

As such, a 45degree crossing would either need 5 or 7 0-31 curves per loop (10 or 14 total) depending on which way the crossing is oriented. This translates to 7.5 or 10.5 (15 or 21 total) 0-54 curves per loop.

It does get messy with the 21.5degree crossing, where around 4.5 or 7.5 0-31 tracks (9 or 15 total) would be needed per loop depending how the crossing is oriented. This translates to around 6.75 or 11.25 tracks (13.5 or 22.5 total) per loop in 0-54.

Jon,

here it is - cut four 5" stock pieces to 4.5" and use a 90° cross. No flex needed.

This is great information all, thanks!

Noticing that the picture shows the required length as 137 inches, do you have anything that would show how much the required length would be if a 45 or 21.5 degree crossing was used.  I like the 90, but I have to keep this at or under 120 inches.  Either of those would "scrunch" it together, but obviously change the geometry.

Carl, I'm assuming you used software to generate the picture?  If so, may I ask which software you use.  I need better software than what I'm using.

Thanks,

Jon

Uberstationmeister, your explanation is excellent and I see how it does get messy with the 21.5, which really would be best accomplished with flex track.  I will play around with each and see how it works out.  As I said 137 inches is more space than I have.  I need to see how much that is reduced by using the 45 or 21.5 if I use flex track.

I'll let you know what I come up with.

Thanks again!!

Jon

Try SCARM for your track planning software. It's free and some folks have posted here some very nice layout drawings done with it. Moonman uses it quite frequently and that is possibly what he used for the plan above. I'm guessing, but I am sure he will be along soon to clarify.

Jon,

Requires 2-O54 curves cut in half for 4 - halves. A couple of slightly misaligned joints will connect ok when built. The 22.5° cross makes it longer horizontally - with balloons instead of circles - so I stood it up vertically. It appears like the length will fit now.

I am using SCARM- Simple Computer Aided Railroad Modeller - Windows only

Sorry for the late reply- I've been watching b-ball - just retired from officiating last year-still can't get it out of my blood.

Mine is an 054 layout with a figure 8 together with an inside loop connected with the outside main line by a Ross 0-96 crossover.  I did a  bit of fudging with an 0-72 curve and a hacksaw on some straight tracks.  The key was using a 45 degree crossing.  Here are some photos that I hope give an idea what I did. I was forced to utilize the Figure 8 because of the space available when I expanded the layout into the next room . Lew Schneider

Perfect!!!!!  Thank you so much. This is exactly what I needed.

Moonman, when I laid out my track on the floor, it looked exactly like what your software came up with.  I just had two loops touching (overlapping) each other and I was holding the 22.5 degree crossover above it saying, "that looks close but I'm going to have to cut something."  I will get that software.  It looks like it does a really nice job.

Lewrail, thanks for the picture of your layout.  It looks great! You sure got a lot of operations into your available space.

I feel much better now about this project.  I will post some pictures to show everyone how it turns out.  That will be a while though.  This is going to be a three level Christmas layout.  I just have to convince the wife to let me stretch it out to 10 feet .

Thanks again, you guys have been immensely helpful!

Jon

Oh, I forgot to mention.  In my actual layout, I have planned to put 4 O-54 turnouts in place of the bottom four curves.  This will lead up to the second level and allow a complete bypass of the figure 8, if desired.

I'll post a picture when I get it put together in the software.

Jon

Jon,

You could actually purchase 1 piece of flex track and make all of the 1/2 curve from that with some to spare if that costs less than 2 O54 curves.

Here is what trying to get to 6.5" looks like. This creates a steep slope of 4.4. Not unreasonable, but near the limit.

it doesn't fit on the table.

Here's the file to help you. Right-click it and save as.

Have fun!

I did this two years ago for Christmas, but used O-31 curves and switches for this bottom layer.  I'd actually like to go with O-42 to keep it smaller, but MTH, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to make any O-42 stuff in Scale Trax.

I could do this with another track system that has O-42 available, but then I would have 3 different track systems (already have some tubular).  Scale Trax looks the most realistic in my opinion and as a result I have acquired quite a bit of it for building my big permanent layout, when I get the space.  So, I really don't want to buy another system just for my Christmas layout.

What I may have to do is just use the O-54 switches and then use flex track to get the O-42 loops.

Jon

Moonman, that is a great rendition of my concept, except there will be an additional O-54 turnout on the left with a curve to the second level on the left end as well.

You are obviously very fast and familiar with the software.  I am still just trying to figure out how to use it.  This is going to take a while.

If I use O-42 loops in the figure 8, I should be able to get the end curves on the table (in the allotted space).

Thanks again for all your help.

Jon

Carl,

I'm making progress with SCRAM, but can't figure out how to make the grades from one layer to the next.  Do you have a brief description of how to make a grade in this program?

Thanks.

Jon

Better yet; is there a tutorial or users handbook for SCRAM?  There are a lot of other things I need explained, like how to use the flex track.

Jon

I am not a SCARM user, but I believe there are tutorials at the SCARM website. I'm sure Moonman will probably have more info when he comes back through here.

I'll check it out.  Thanks!

Help/Documentation/How to set heights and slopes.

Thanks, I finally figured grades out.  Now I'm working on how to view one layer at a time.  Being a three layer plan, it can get pretty cluttered if you can't view one layer at a time.

Jon

Just highlight the layer you want to view and uncheck the others.

That works for layers 1 and 2, but it will not allow me to uncheck layer 0.  I'm not sure why.

Jon Henshey posted:

That works for layers 1 and 2, but it will not allow me to uncheck layer 0.  I'm not sure why.

One layer will always be active. That is the one to click on and it will highlight. All others may be unchecked.

EG., select layer 2, it will be highlighted, then uncheck 0,1.

It's always fun when adding new item or changing something on a layer and one forgets to change it first. So, go through layers as you work on the layout to confirm that the items are correct.

3D view always displays everything. layers have no effect.

grades will always challenge one's patience. It's the nature of the beast. Use ctrl + left-click and select the tracks for the grade. The set the start height and finally the end rise height or vice-versa. Note the percent when finished or the track info has to be changed in settings to display slope. There is a toggle combination for this, but I never remember it.

Help-SCARM Blog has some advanced technique tutorials.

If you get stuck, post the file and someone will correct items for you.

If you created a Baseboard, you cannot make it disappear.

If you select Layer 1 or 2, then uncheck Layer 0, and things don't disappear that you think should, then they are on one of the other layers and not on Layer 0. To correct that, select those items, Cut them, highlight the layer they should be on, then Paste them on that layer. Like Carl said, it's easy to forget to highlight the correct layer when making changes to the design. I though I had fixed all mine and just found out I had some still wrong from the last time I made changes.

If that still doesn't seem to work, then post you file and one of us will take a look at it.

Fantastic, thanks Dave!!!

I will try that and see if it takes care of it.

Jon

P.S. Sorry if it takes me a few days to reply, my grandson was born this morning!  I may not be on the forum for a few days.

Thank you, sir.

Gentlemen, here is my track plan.  I'm still learning how to connect gaps and I haven't figured out how to make sure a flex track curve ends such that the straight away ends up parallel to the table edge, but hopefully you all can help me with that.

The layout is in three layers starting on layer 1.  This allowed me to look at each layer without having anything on layer 0 that I couldn't make disappear.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Thanks for all your help.

Jon

P.S. not sure how to attach the layout file, so if it doesn't work let me know and I will re-try.

Jon, I don't know how you ended up with straights that are not parallel to the edge of the table, but I don't think the problem is your flextrack sections. The key for me when doing things like this is to place the turnouts and connecting straights first so they are parallel to the edge and then fill in with the flextrack curves. For example, the 1st photo shows your Layer 2 where the bottom straights ended up at a slight angle. The 2nd photo shows my version where things are now parallel. The 3rd photo shows the complete layout and the 4th photo is a different 3D view so all the tracks can be seen.

I'm not too happy with how the curves in the yellow sections turned out, especially the one on left. However, I didn't try to clean them up because I've got some concerns with the amount of flextrack you're using and how tightly it appears you'll have to bend it. If you're assuming O scale flex is as easy to bend as HO scale flex, you'd be sadly mistaken. As others have pointed out, one of the biggest problems with ScaleTrax is a lack of a curved sectional pieces in the 42"-45" range. Unfortunately, too many think they can bend FlexTrack to fill the gap. I'm not saying it can't be done, but before you go too far, I encourage you to buy several sections of FlexTrack to see for yourself.

One of my concerns is your flextrack connects to turnouts and my very limited experience suggests you should first anchor a 5"-10" section and then bend the rest. I did buy some to prove to myself that it can be bent as tight as O31, but there is a lot of tension when doing so and it really needs to be anchored a lot. MikeCT is pretty much the expert on bending GarGraves and I encourage you to research some of his posts where he shows his process to get successful bends. Bear in mind though that I think he only bent to something like O60, not as tight as some of yours seem to be. And unless you make templates, etc., it's very easy to bend flex too tightly in places that will cause problems.

Another concern I have is how you plan to support all the raised tracks and how many turnouts will be covered. Then there's the issue of landscaping because so much space is covered with track, again going back to how you envision supporting things and what space will be left for landscaping.

hey Jon,

I work a little differently. I place the lowest height track in Layer 0 and higher levels on up in 1, 2 and so on. I also color the levels at times to prevent "select all" moves from selecting the whole layout.

Spend some time on the flex track tool help. I messed around a little the other day on your layout.

When you look at other track systems, I used Atlas O, and hover the cursor over a track piece in the library, the radius and arc angle are shown. The exercise was to create ScaleTrax O45 curves from flex to fit on the 10' long table and leave room for the climb runs in O54 on the outside.

You will see that an O45 track has a radius of 22.5" on the center rail. You enter that in the flextool R box. Next you can make the curve the arc that you need by entering the degrees. In the degree section, a left curve requires a minus sign in front of the arc. Otherwise, it will always turn right by default.

Having only O54 switches, means you have to fudge a piece of flex track when building to transition from O45 to the O54 divergence of the switch. The software will do it and connect, but building it will be interesting. Not difficult, but just the last piece to fit to close that section.

Back to the track - once you create one O45 curve, you can select, copy, paste and move like it is a sectional piece.

Anyway, I just messed around with O45 on bottom, O36 on 2nd level and fudged the third level. I am not sure how you would scenic this. Lots of flex shaped to those diameters, used for straights and in between diameters on the third level.

Thanks guys!  You all are so much better at this than I am.  There is definitely a learning curve.

Dave, you are correct when you say that not having O-42 is making this very challenging to say the least.  I will tell you that as far as scenery for this layout is concerned, it is fantastic!  I can tell you that for sure, because this layout is actually a blending of two previous Christmas layouts that I have built in the past.  I am simply putting my all time favorite Christmas layout on top of the bottom layer (the figure 8 layer), which was part of a layout I built for Christmas two years ago.  I did build the top two layers with tubular track and K-line O-42 switches and it was wicked simple.  I have pictures that I will scan and attach, so you all can see what I'm talking about.

Carl, my first attempt started on layer 0, but the program would never let me uncheck zero to make it go away so I could see layers 1 and 2 without the clutter.  When I started on layer 1, I could then make all layers disappear and thus view them individually.

As for the bottom layer, Dave is correct in his observation.  The only part of the bottom layer that is visible is the front 12 inches of that table.  There are four tunnel portals where the switches allow you to enter the figure 8, but the figure 8 is completely under the second layer.  This serves to add play value by giving you two reverse loops and lets face it; who doesn't like watching a train go into and come out of a tunnel?

The second and third layers are where all the scenery resides.  A rather quaint town with town square and tree (all Dept. 56) and the top layer is a country setting.  The pictures will show you everything once I can get them scanned.

The one thing that Carl added was the set of switches at the top of the figure 8 that allow you to bypass the crossover.  I left them in for consideration, because I always like a layout to have "rout options" because that is what adds the play value.  It isn't much fun to watch a train traverse the same route over and over, always in the same direction; we want to make it go different ways.  I do, however, acknowledge the pitfalls of placing switches under a table out of reach.  Yes, that violates one of the basic rules of our hobby, but I do leave the back of the layout open, so I can reach in from behind if absolutely necessary.  I'm not saying I will leave them in.  I'm just looking at them trying to decide if I'm willing to take the risk.

Dave, I noticed that your rendition has the second layer coming too far forward and does reside over the front of the bottom layer.  Keep in mind that the bottom layer is 5'x10' and all the track on layer two MUST fit on 4'x8'.  When you do that it works out perfectly.  That give you your 12" out front on the bottom layer and the space on the ends for the curved ramps to the second layer.

When I can get a couple pictures scanned I will post.

Thanks again guys!  You really are being a big help on this.

Jon