Tim Horton's Helix

[rsn48]

Well, second time trying to post this, first time I've posted a pic here so the sailing hasn't been so smooth..lol.  A number of us meet roughly once a month in a round robin system of viewing [and in theory - working] other folk's layouts.  A number of us met in the early summer when I took this picture, I thought Tim's helix turned out well.  This was a somewhat artsy pic, I'm almost standing on my tip toes with the camera pointed down, the camera is to high up to look through the view finder so its a kind of Hail Mary kind of shot:

[lock4244]

Subject line had me thinkin' it was a new doughnut 

Helix is such a fascinating piece of model railroad architecture, and back in layout days I almost enjoyed watching trains on my helix as much as I did running on the layout. They are one of the eight wonders of the model RR world.

[rsn48]

Maybe in a way it is a new doughnut.... no honey glaze however.

[peteski]

Honey glaze? In the helix? Hmmm... that might dampen or possibly fully eliminate the Micro Trains coupler slinking! 

[jagged ben]

The construction is pretty awesome.  Threaded rod definitely seems like the way to do a helix.

With that said, I wouldn't have done the track buses the way they are done.  I would have run them vertically at 3 -6 spots around the helix, red on the inside and black on the outside, and saved a lot of wire.  Also clearance would not be affected.

Just a tip in case anyone is considering their own helix.

[Bendtracker1]

The construction is pretty awesome.  Threaded rod definitely seems like the way to do a helix.

Just speaking from experience, and not wanting to start a thread war of which way is better.  A few years ago I helped a friend who built an HO layout that had two helixes.  We seen another guy's layout where he had used this same idea with the threaded rods.  The only thing he mentioned to us was that he was glad that he had drilled oversized holes for the threaded rods so that he had room to fanagle the rods and roadbed to line up.  Keeping this in mind and being a woodworker, I asked a customer of mine who had a CNC router to help us cut this stuff out.  My friend used Micro Station to draw out the entire layout sub roadbed and then he converted it so that my customer could import it to his router.  One minor thing that he did which turned out rather nice and handy was to draw the track center lines.  The router used a "V" bit to cut a follow the center line so we didn't need to manually draw the center line on the entire layout roadbed.  This included the mainline, sidings, yard and helixes.

Our thought was that it would be as perfect as perfect could be.  Everything should line up perfect with no need of oversized holes.  Not surprising, it did.  The only thing that was out of whack a bit was that the some of the 1/2" plywood warped a little after it was cut out, but not enough to worry about.  We cut the roadbed in quarter circle sections with the router and this is where we noticed where it had warped a bit.  The quarter circles warped to a slightly larger or smaller radius and the adjoining ends didn't line up perfect, but when we attached them together with screws and glued scabs on the bottom, we kind of let the threaded rods line things up for. 

But what was a PIA was the threaded rods and ALL THE NUTS that needs to be threaded down the length of all the rods and then two nuts and two washers for each level of roadbed.  I forgot how many boxes of nuts we went through.  After doing the first three of the ten levels for the first helix, we decided to take a large rubber grommet and attach it to threaded bolt and then chucked that into a drill and used it to run each of the nuts down to the rough location on each of the rods.  That still took forever.

Yes once they were in place it was nice to adjust the nut to the desired height and lock them down tight above and below the plywood so it wouldn't move.  But it took forever.

About half way through the second helix, we decided that using wooden blocks ripped to the correct height and glue and nail them in place would have been faster and easier and we would have ended with just about the same effect.   Not too mention at a cheaper cost.

Now that was our experience that we will never repeat.  Unless we missed something or there was an easier way to do it.

With that said, I wouldn't have done the track buses the way they are done.  I would have run them vertically at 3 -6 spots around the helix, red on the inside and black on the outside, and saved a lot of wire.  Also clearance would not be affected.

As for the wiring, I agree with you Ben.  Don't run it along each of the layers.  That's way too much wiring.  I would have dropped it down from level to level but I would have kept it close to each of the rods to keep it out of the way.

What my friend did was kind of nice.  He used a couple sets of the threaded rods as the BUS WIRES.  Each level the wires were soldered to the track, drilled through the plywood and attached to the rods.  He pinched the wires between the nuts and washers.  At the bottom of each of the rods he did the same thing and those wires connected to the bus wires for each level.

His layout was wired for DCC.

[superchief]

I built a 9 tier helix using the wooden block method, I ripped all the blocks on the table saw all at the same time to ensure they were all the same( I had a few left over but thats fine) and it went together nicely. The only problems with the blocks is there is NO adjustmant after installed, which means the first level must be PERFECT or it will telegraph up the rest of the helix! I double tracked my helix with atlas code 80 and ran the wires under the track where the ties do not connect about every 10th-15th tie, gapped the helix every level on both mains, and i run 3 blocks on both mains for detection. will take a photo and try to post later. Gordon/ Santa Fe - all the way

[craigolio1]

Not that it's needed, but I'll defend Tim's wiring here a  bit because I know he won't. 

For those who are interested, have a look at his website  http://bcrdawsonsub.ca/, go to the construction page and scroll down to helix.   Theres more wiring detail in the Design page under control and wiring.  He ran a bus up one rod and then a sort of sub-bus for each turn, with feeders every 15 inches or so.  It is so well organized that any adjustment or trouble shooting he will ever do will be easy. 

There are lots of ways to wire things, all of them great, but in my opinion this is an excellent example of good design and execution.

Craig

[Scottl]

Tim's build and wiring are meticulous.

[lock4244]

Tim's build and wiring are meticulous.

Yet even the above doesn't do his work justice.

[Van Horne]

Having had the privilege of seeing Tim's layout in person, I can tell you that everything he has done is meticulously thought out and executed.  My layout, on the other hand . . .

[Lemosteam]

About half way through the second helix, we decided that using wooden blocks ripped to the correct height and glue and nail them in place would have been faster and easier and we would have ended with just about the same effect.   Not too mention at a cheaper cost.

What would have worked well also would have been to take the ripped spacers and drill a hoile thru them or use conduit tubing and slide them down the rod above and below each raodbed.  Then you would have only needed a nut on the top and bottom with everything sandwiched between.

[davefoxx]

What would have worked well also would have been to take the ripped spacers and drill a hoile thru them or use conduit tubing and slide them down the rod above and below each raodbed.  Then you would have only needed a nut on the top and bottom with everything sandwiched between.

Genius!  Set up a stop block in your chop saw and you would be able to crank out similar sized pieces of conduit in no time.  This would save a huge amount of time and material as compared to using a ton of nuts and washers.

DFF

[Scottl]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how does that avoid the tedious spinning on of so many nuts on all the rod?

[Bendtracker1]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how does that avoid the tedious spinning on of so many nuts on all the rod?

As Lemosteam said: "Then you would have only needed a nut on the top and bottom with everything sandwiched between".

The conduit or pipe would act like the wooden spacer blocks except you would need to glue or screw them.
That makes a lot sense, great idea!