Project Segway – The Olympia Helix Tests

(Occasionally, other events do occur and so I will from time to time go off-topic to discuss another railroad related project or event that is going on currently – we will get back to our regularly scheduled programming…)

So, as mentioned previously ( Project Segway –Introducing Olympia iN the Office ), one of the critical components of the Olympia iN the Office Design is the helix. In particular, the ruling helix between Deck 1 and Deck 2. With a ruling grade of between 4.3% and 4.9%, this is clearly a potential problem. The helix is designed as an oval, with 55mm straight sections on opposite sides and end radii of 170mm. In order to test out the feasibility of this design, I built a helix out of foamcore and Styrofoam using Rokuhan sectional track. The test helix consists of 2.5 turns.

Olympia Helix for testing.

Testing of the helix proceeded with several different mechanisms, including a Rokuhan “Shorty”, a Microtrains GP35, an AZL GP9, and an AZL F59. Each of which I am considering as candidates for mechanisms for the layout. I used several Microtrains Nn3 boxcars for to test the ability of the mechanisms to push and pull trains up the helix.

Unfortunately, the results were not very satisfactory. The “Shorty” was able to only move 1 car at a time reliably up the helix. The other three mechanisms were able to reliably move three cars each up the helix. None were able to move my target of five cars, and none were even able to move four. Three cars is simply not satisfactory, particularly since the helix will be a major obstacle in the layout. Furthermore, I found that in the event of an uncoupling, the trains would rapidly accelerate down the helix and given the tight curves at the ends, the resulting derailment was inevitable and typically were catastrophic. It became clear that the helix was just too tight, too steep and in this case, too inaccessible to satisfy my operational desires. If it were not for the combination of tight curves and steep grades, the helix was more workable. It is clearly the combination that is the problem.

This is a show stopper in my mind. So, the helix is out. Fortunately, the solution appears to be fairly obvious too. The car ferry could be used as the means of connection between the decks, much as Mark Dance does on his Columbia and Western for his branchline operations. But, that will take some redesign work on each deck to make it work a bit better. The lesson to be taken here is that critical elements in a plan need to be tested and confirmed as being viable. I should have tested out the helix concept sooner, and certainly before completing the entire track plan. Based on the erroneous assumption that the helix was viable, I designed in similar curve and grade conditions in other parts of the layout design. These need to be addressed as well in the revisions.

Cameron Turner