Early in the New Year i cut out the trackbeds for the open framed sections. The continuous run has been screwed down on the level for some time now, but I've had to wait until the double junctions were in so that the start of the incline was fixed. So now I had to tackle the incline.

The start of the incline.

Because the baseboard section for the junctions and the start of the incline are one board, raising the incline route by bending the ply up means that there is a transistion into the incline.

One of my aims on this layout was to have the inclines no steeper than 1:60. When I laid out the trackbeds and measured the distance to the base of the junctions it was 180". Given that the required uplift (already built, so no way back) is 3", I am very lucky that it worked out at 1:60. Or maybe I just worked it out well!

Soon after the start of the incline it has to pass over the lifting flap. There are 2 cuts, one straight over and one on the curve. Note that it passes through the open bracket on the inside of the flap. The inside hinged pillar sits between the continous run and the incline.

I will need to pack up the trackbeds on the curved cut because they are slightly out of true, but overal I am happy with the outcome.

The incline leaves the continous run and climbs up to Newton Purcell.

To set the supports for the incline I started with the junctions and then fixed the top onto the Newton Purcell board. I then fixed the 1" high position and 2" high position and made supports which I screwed in. Using a steel yard length on its edge to help avoid dips and bumps, I screwed T pieces below the trackbed and onto each cross member of the baseboard.

Upon advice from my club members and Ray of Sixties Snapshots on RM Web I made sure that none of the supporting cross members were more than 11" apart. It seems that 9mm ply can bridge that gap with very little risk of sagging. I have to say that so far that seems to be correct. The downside is that 11" is too small a gap to get my driver in to tighten the screws!!!! What a pain!!!

Using the steel length and lining up by eye along the surface, I adjusted the heights of the T pieces and as far as I can currently tell I have a pretty even incline with transistions at the top and bottom.

At the top of the incline it passes over the continuous run on an S bend before running into Newton Purcell. This makes for a rather long and diagonal bridge. Apart from working out how best to deal with that scenically (I will no doubt have to trim the width of the trackbed once the track is laid), it was tricky to get the supports for the upper trackbed.

Before that though, I had my fingers crossed that there would be enough clearance to allow stock to pass below once track and the 3mm foam underlay was in place. Was my maths good enough? I could not increase the height of the top track as it connects with Newton Purcell. I could not lower the continous run because it is the base level of all the baseboards. As you can see, it all worked out ok.

I am really happy with how this has turned out. I just hope 1:60 will not be too steep for the locos to pull the trains. The maximum rake of coaches is 5, but one of the locos needed to haul that is a Bachmann City. I have a Hornby County that will need to pull 4. The few 4-6-0s should be fine. Time will tell, but I guess I may have to alter the timetable and roster that I already worked out.

Next, onto some more track laying.

Rich