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| Let me start out by saying, this has turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the railroad!
I take great pride in the trains I work on and run on the layout and it is unthinkable for me to leave the trains out overnight. I also didn't want to carry all the equipment out each time I wanted to operate the layout. Plus, most of the trains are very detailed and it would be easy to break things off by picking them up frequently. So, I needed a solution.
My plan was to run the trains off the layout behind the outdoor fireplace to a door cut in the train room. It was going to be semi-permanent with two lift out bridges. One bridge runs from the layout to behind the fireplace. The other bridge is from where the tracks end to the building. This will make much more sense with the pictures below!
A unique feature is that I split the track behind the fireplace so that one track ascended and one track descended to the heights of the shelves inside the building. Each shelf has four tracks with 21' of storage per track. This way, I can run out almost 170' of stored trains to the railroad. After the trains run out from the building, they can go to Main 1, Main 2, or the RhB tracks. Enough talk, here are the pictures
Let's pull out the Maintenance of Way train. The 2' X 3' door was built into the building specifically for this purpose. The train I want is on the top storage shelf.
I have built two shelves on which the track can flex to the desired track position. These shelves are stored in the building above the tracks.Here the train is backing out to the layout. The lower track serves the bottom storage shelf View from behind the fireplace  Here is the second removable bridge. It is made from two pieces of angle iron that have been welded together. When I'm done moving trains in or out, I can slide back the clamps and pull the bridge out. This process is much easier and much safer than carrying out thirty highly detailed cars. I have also found that people are more interested watching the trains come out than actually running on the layout.... go figure! More shots of the transition track... | |
| In this picture, you can see the shelf suspended above the trains on the storage shelves. The shelf is removed and in position to move trains out. You can see the hardware that supports the shelf. | | This is how I switch between tracks. The shelf sits level to the storage shelf. I secure the end of the flex track with screws and rail clamps. Most of the ties are removed except for a few that keep the track in gauge. With this set up, I have more than enough flex to reach all the tracks. The ends of the rails in the building were bent and cut to match the flex track. | |
| And one more train to take out....
Four Dash 9's and 19 intermodal cars would be very difficult to carry out, especially the 5 packs.
Almost to the mainline
Pretty cool
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