Rickenbackerman
New Member
Hey guys, name's Rob, I'm 43. Dad had lionel trains when he was a kid, came home from college one day to find that his mom had given them all away. Sad story, but lucky for me since he swore that'd never happen in my case. We went to train shows all the time when I was little, I'd come home with a new loco or car or part almost every time. He built me a pretty awesome layout when I was a kid, two separate mainlines, a yard, mountains, tunnels, remote switches, buildings and scenery, the whole thing was probably 8'x12' but I'm going from memory on that...
So I've got boxes of my lionel trains in the attic. We busted them out over Christmas since everything had been stored for 30 years to see what we've got and maybe play around with them some. Now I've got an idea in my brain to build a permanent layout in the basement. I'd like to build it over my pool table and put it on a winch/cable/pulley system to hoist it up to the ceiling when we're not playing with it or working on it. I'm a mechanical engineer so I can handle that part no worries.
So here's my layout idea - I need a hole in the center to clear the High Life light hanging over the pool table. When it comes down it'll just sit on top of said table. Just need to be able to run 1 train at a time (at least at first) to get me going. I need a kinda large yard since I have at least 40 pieces of rolling stock and I want a turntable since I have 8 or 10 locomotives (I'll probably scratch build that). Reverse loops are fun too so I added two of those. I've got a couple of bridges that Dad built that I'll likely incorporate but I don't want too much elevation change so it'll tuck up close when I raise it.
I modeled this in the free version of SCARM so most of the yard track is missing as is the turntable but it should be pretty obvious where that's going. Oh and this is all old school lionel rail with 031 curves. This layout is about 7.25' by 11.25' and the OD of my pool table is about 4.5' by 8' (it's an old Brunswick coin-op bar table but no more coin-op) so it'll overhang by about a foot and a half all the way around.
Rob
So I've got boxes of my lionel trains in the attic. We busted them out over Christmas since everything had been stored for 30 years to see what we've got and maybe play around with them some. Now I've got an idea in my brain to build a permanent layout in the basement. I'd like to build it over my pool table and put it on a winch/cable/pulley system to hoist it up to the ceiling when we're not playing with it or working on it. I'm a mechanical engineer so I can handle that part no worries.
So here's my layout idea - I need a hole in the center to clear the High Life light hanging over the pool table. When it comes down it'll just sit on top of said table. Just need to be able to run 1 train at a time (at least at first) to get me going. I need a kinda large yard since I have at least 40 pieces of rolling stock and I want a turntable since I have 8 or 10 locomotives (I'll probably scratch build that). Reverse loops are fun too so I added two of those. I've got a couple of bridges that Dad built that I'll likely incorporate but I don't want too much elevation change so it'll tuck up close when I raise it.
I modeled this in the free version of SCARM so most of the yard track is missing as is the turntable but it should be pretty obvious where that's going. Oh and this is all old school lionel rail with 031 curves. This layout is about 7.25' by 11.25' and the OD of my pool table is about 4.5' by 8' (it's an old Brunswick coin-op bar table but no more coin-op) so it'll overhang by about a foot and a half all the way around.
Rob
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