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Hmmm, Lot of meat here. I'll try to be brief:
I've done about 4/5 complete iterations on my roundhouse and turntable over
the last five years. The latest was completed for the PNLTC show at
LEGOLand California. Gallary Pictures are at:
http://www.pnltc.org/Gal_LLCA_0801/TrainYard/Gallery.html
The turntable rides on rails (old style 4.5v gray rails) with a large
technic turntable in the middle. The turntable is about 5 track lengths
long. The length is necessary for the larger steam engines and tenders I
have. The best picture of the turntable is at:
http://www.pnltc.org/Gal_LLCA_0801/TrainYard/Gallery.html?PIC00136
Everything is built up five bricks from the base of the table. The table, a
standard 30" x 60" table is five bricks lower then the surrounding tables.
The entire turntable and roundhouse fit almost entirely on the one table.
The five bricks gave me a decent amount of depth to mount the drive motors,
some magnets for track alignment and running electrical wires.
I originally built everything as two large structures each consisting of 96
studs square with a combination of baseplates. Still a little difficult to
transport, I later broke them down into smaller sub modules anywhere from 16
x 32 studs up to 32 x 48 studs. Each little sub module connects to
adjoining submodules by placing bricks in key places. Where electrical
connections had to be undone I used electrical plates to connect the
circuits. The whole things works pretty well. At some point, I plan to
revise the drive mechanism for the turntable to beef it up slightly.
One other point, I used 4.5v gray rails to support the turntable on the
perimeter. I used the small 9v train wheels with flanges to ride on the
rails. I learned, just about two months ago, that real turntables have
flangeless wheels. Why? Because it is very difficult to keep the circle of
track around the perimeter perfectly circular. And if it isn't circular,
the flange will bind against the side of the rail. This is one of the
reasons I had a few problems with the drive mechanism for the turntable. So
the real roundhouse I've seen (located in Portland, OR with two working
4-8-4 Northern class engines inside, an old rusting F7 chassis and another
smaller steam engine), has very wide (~6") flangeless wheels that ride on
top of the track. The center pivot keeps them on top of the track.
Further Points:
My red and yellow roundhouse has technic pins on all four corners. It comes
apart in seconds and can be tranported very easily. In fact, the whole
module, (not including the table) fits in a 18" x 24" x 18" box. It takes
about 20 minutes to set everything up.
I used 9v polarity switches to manually control which roundhouse tracks are hot.
In general, I very much like the submodule idea. It allows a lot of
flexibility and eases transportation significantly.
Hope this information is useful to people.
Ben Fleskes
PNLTC
[1] a PNLTC 30" x 60" module is actually (30.24" x 60.47" or 96 x 192
studs), we just call it a 30x60. If you actually made them the shorter
length things wouldn't fit right.
In lugnet.org.us.lucny, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> In lugnet.org.us.lucny, Wayne Sardullo writes:
> > I've been putting a great deal of time thinging about an idea I had a while • ago
> > when I first made an attempt to make a Roundhouse Yard for my trains. After
> > some issues I gave it up. I recently thought about it again with some better
> > ideas on how to truely make it work correctly without help from hands so to
> > speak. I'd love to hear what some other people think or can contribute to • ideas
> > on making one. Here's some of my napkin written ideas.
> >
> > #1 Turntable itself - RCX controlled per bay. Since Track CANNOT be • interlocked
> > extra power cables must be used.(The two other houses I see use this system)
>
> Dear Wayne,
>
> I have some (mainly bad) experience in building a roundhouse. So I will try to
> comment some of the weak spots, that I found. This has been the first version
> of the roundhouse in late 1999:
>
> http://www-public.tu-bs.de:8080/~rbeneke/lego/fgltc/4te072.jpg
>
> I try to give some comments on some of the topics further down, but on RCX i
> cannot provide with any help. My roundhouse has been using hand power and
> simply electrical remote control later. For the moment the turntable (and the
> landscape around) has been destroyed once more (it will be the 4th one when
> rebuilt again)....
>
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=170804
>
> > #2 Lining up the tracks. I'd love to use magnets underneath the tracks similar
> > to how the cars hold each other together. They can create a temp locked
> > position for issues such as under or over shot RCX controls due to gear slack.
>
> I think I have been the first to invent this method. That solution has always
> been highly satisfying.
>
> > #3 Geometry- this one is my only real restriction since its the most important
> > factor in the design. 1/4 or 1/2 round house with at least 6-8 bays
>
> Wow... My 4-bay roundhouse needed all the space of two 48x48 grundplates...
> Since the track was (of course) not running under 90° angles and therefor clear
> lines to divide it into submodules were not given , I have built the hole thing
> (turntable + roundhouse) as one big module of 96x112 studs. Next to this
> another 112x96 module has been placed.
>
> But these have been not sturdy enough (the buildings on top began to break when
> the modules were moved to the car. So in step 2 I have thickened the complete
> modules from 2 bricks height up to 5 bricks. (Additionally I won space for a
> better motor drive hidden under the turntable). The weight grew from 8 kg per
> module to nearly 15 kg.... :-(
>
> I was able to handle that in my appartment, but through doors it had to be
> tilted under at least 30° to pass through. Carrying it into my car was
> impossible without help of a second person. The module did not fit into the
> cars of most other persons of the FGLTC. :-((
> So this thickend version never made the way to any exhibition at all....
>
> > #4 Layout- For reasons of placement I figure this will have to be a raised • area
> > since I do not have the luxury of sinking the gears and linkages underneath a
> > table.
>
> Same argument was valid here. But the consumption of bricks was horrible, the
> handling too. And the hole layout became quite static. Every building on my
> modules were standing in its place and there was no chance to move it.
> Due to big amounts of needed bricks it was not possible to me (at least at that
> time) to build it in other colours than yellow or red. I began to dislike it
> after a while. I spread more "colour" dots (from a mosaic) into the yellow and
> added more
> details here and there to keep it on my level in art of building.
>
> Still this module has never made it way to any show. :-((
>
> > #5 Hinged Bricks are your friend in this design in front but, other methods
> > are needed in the back such that of the watertowers I see using 1x3's and 1x1
> > round bricks to form a curved walls.
>
> The real roundhouses I know about are not using curved walls. They have the
> shape of a polygon. So you can use the hinged bricks in the back as well, if
> you want.
>
> > #6 Module building. I would love to try and make this modular say in sections
> > of 48 stud x 48 stud building grey plates. Is it worth the time to over design
> > it to make in more portable or just build it without baseplate restriction.
>
> I only can recommend to divide the module into sub-modules. I think, since you
> will always add your sub-modules to a complete module, the sizes of
> the sub-modules might be chosen in any way you like. Dividing the walls (all of
> them under none-90° angles) at any 48x48 border will be nearly impossible.
>
> > Off the top of my head, it obviously will be harder to use the 48studx48stud
> > baseplates say verse individual 16x32 stud building plates.
>
> Can't agree more.... Concider even the use of 16x8 plates!
>
> > Most of this is still in brainstorming stage however, any input would be
> > fantasic.
>
> Due to the negative experience with my two 112x96 modules I have never
> continued to keep on building further modules in that (or even smaller size).
> I owned the probably only roundhouse in Germany, but despite of lots of work I
> spent into that model, it has only been displayed 2 times at local train shows
> (and only in the "light" and bending version (which afforded some rebuilding
> after each transport).
>
> That is the reason I continued building in a much more flexible style. I really
> love the way the GMLTC has done its layout (out of thick 3-D modules), but I
> learned that for a smaller club the "PNLTC-layout style" is fitting much better
> You can arrange existing buildings everytime in a new way. Just put the
> roadplates and track inbetween (each time in another way) and add trees and
> vehicle to that. You can spontanous bring in any new building of any
> none-expected-guest and you can easily close gaps (that are there, because
> someone has become ill or has had a car breakdown on the way to the show
> place).
>
> Of course I can just speak for our small and highly chaotic FGLTC. I have
> learned out of my experiences in nearly 10 shows that a table layout out of
> lots of single buildings (directly built on groundplates) offers the best
> possibilities for an always fresh and surprising layout. And you can put enough
> stuff for several squaremeters into your standard car (I think not too many
> clubs can afford trailers), which is important if you have long ways to drive.
> With the modules I was not able to put more than ONE (out of two) modules +
> some boxes with track and rolling stock into my car. Now I carry 1 box with
> sturdy trees, one with track, one with groundplates, one with rolling stock and
> the rest of the car is filled with as many buildings as I am able to put into
> it. Then it's time to turn the key and drive to the show.
>
> In the end my roundhouse modules have been destroyed a short while ago:
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=170803
> (lots of spare yellow bricks at hand right now, haha)
>
> Now I plan to rebuild the roundhouse surroundings with a thickness of only 1..2
> bricks. The roundhouse will be a sub-module of 48x96 (less than 5 kg in weight)
> and another submodule will contain the turntable (this is planned to be motor
> driven and in total not more than 2.33 bricks under the track). Will be a
> challange to realize that. The colours of the "landsscape" is planned to be
> tan, brown and green. Both sub-modules together are NOT planned to give the
> shape of a rectangle. The free spaces on the edges will be free space for
> baseplates or additionally buildings instead = more freedom in planning fresh
> layouts.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Ben
>
> P.s.: what are other clubs experiences with modules in the meantime?
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Advanced Design Train Roundhouse
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| In lugnet.org.us.lucny, Ben Fleskes writes: [Snip after reading it twice] (...) Thanks Ben (from PNLTC), for posting your basical design rules for the PNLTC roundhouse. I have been working some more on my roundhouse redesign yesterday night and have (...) (22 years ago, 16-May-02, to lugnet.org.us.lucny, lugnet.trains)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Advanced Design Train Roundhouse
|
| (...) ago (...) ideas (...) interlocked (...) Dear Wayne, I have some (mainly bad) experience in building a roundhouse. So I will try to comment some of the weak spots, that I found. This has been the first version of the roundhouse in late 1999: (...) (22 years ago, 14-May-02, to lugnet.org.us.lucny, lugnet.trains)
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