TheRailwire
General Discussion => N and Z Scales => Topic started by: rsn48 on December 21, 2012, 12:51:53 PM
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Some will read this and say - "what's a nolix" - and others will be familiar with the term. A nolix is a modified helix which is dedicated to running as much visible mainline as possible. So a nolix can take many shapes, for example a peninsula, some will call around the room inclines "Nolix's."
I had another space in a room that was designed to be a small bedroom, then was changed to a study, so the "closet" area was never completed to look like a closet. Below is the room plan. My nolix is close to what you see in the plan, but slightly altered to create more room inside for the comfort of service access.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ioSoOyXpKQ4/TwDTQLkP2WI/AAAAAAAAee0/6ir2lOlojUE/s800/CRW_4528.jpg)
And without realizing it, I created a problem for myself; I knew how to build two levels which I did, but I procrastinated on the nolix since I had no idea as to how I was going to construct it. By completing the two levels first, I didn't realize I had a problem in computing the incline (grade) for the roadbed since in my nolix design, all levels are offset, except for level one which is directly under level two. So without anything up, how many feet did I have as a total run, to compute the grade I needed; the problem sounded easy to solve, it wasn't.
My two levels, the top one not attached but built and stored in the hall (much to the joy of my wife) while I complete the work on the first level in the area furthest away from the edge, before level two goes on, restricting my reach slightly.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5s4c82qbvcQ/T34ecp_DKyI/AAAAAAAAef4/jPWPD2lQI2U/s800/CRW_4537.jpg)
My "bare" table work created from my nolix. As you can see a lot of area inside the nolix for access and servicing of electrical, track and train.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F70eugzxm6E/ULZ6ku4qzZI/AAAAAAAAewk/C_yQu6RC4Cs/s800/IMG_0724.jpg)
And where I am at now, still in construction but getting near the end, more work than it looks I can guarantee you; more problem solving than anything else. So again looking at the pic, the first level (bottom) won't be visible, number two and number three level will be visible with a canyon between them (Thompson River area in BC the inspiration for this scene). The fourth level hasn't been started yet, nor the third finished yet; I'm trying to get it all done for my son who will be home on the 27th using his leave from the Canadian military.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GttxZPJ3j4U/UNSb8nLg0yI/AAAAAAAAew4/w6bg_jzs_ZQ/s800/IMG_0737.jpg)
Well my buddy, Graham Stokes is coming in half an hour to help me with the completion of this project.
Merry Christmas everyone. Hope your layout projects go well for you.
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The greater viewable area is a nice change from the hidden belly-of-the-whale design, offering a lounge-area viewing scenario and the larger radii more of that unconfined look. I'm curious to see how this will present after scenery is added.
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Neat, Rick!
Did I inspire any of the plan? Thinking of your yard within the loop-around and my yard for the "plutonium research reactor."
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Pete, we're getting older. I'm not sure when I drew the benchwork plan for this layout, but it was sometimes ago, at least 2002 possibly a year earlier. It is possible I took some inspiration from your layout, but we both know how long ago, those many years at Trainboard. I'm embarrassed to say the nolix area was one of my projects for one of the layout parties I used to throw, but my hips deteriorated before I could go on and the nolix area sat undeveloped for too many years I don't want to admit. Needless to say I didn't complete it for the layout party.
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Rick:
Congratulations to you and Graham on the progress - well done. As someone who has built a helix, I can say that the reward of seeing trains reach the upper deck will be well worth all the effort. I look forward to seeing photographs of further progress.
Tim
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Thanks Tim, was over to see Doug Hick's layout again last night and his use of LED lighting, he's having problems with the lights reflecting off the track so you see these shiny spots, I guess he needs to put some type of light diffuser over his lighting to soften the lights.
Wonder what happened to my pics not showing since my photo album is still active on the web? Hmm, now the pictures are back, is there a forum Christmas Nome at work here in Railwire?
By the way, I did receive one question about the forth level; it will not be above the third level but recessed further in, behind the supporting beams for the mountains so it will definitely not be visible.
Yesterday completed the last of the third level; one last one to go, starting to get impatient to complete the structure and move on. Fortunately I still have AMI left over from my initial purchases for the layout so track work will move very quickly once the road bed is in.
So I thought I'd edit a pic to show the slow progress we've made in one day, the third level was only installed in its first picture by clamps and by golly, so support beams were attached permanently, two more to come, and the third level and front and back permanently mounted. And when the fourth level goes in, it will be behind the support beams on the inside:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_GeZPCzP5Ow/UNYNa1aRgkI/AAAAAAAAexM/7iuEyK4cVQo/s800/IMG_0738.jpg)
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I am fascinated by how you are doing this "nolix", it should be very interesting to see develop. I think I can see how you might make the scenery work and it is a totally new concept for me.
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Now THAT is how to change levels on a layout :drool:
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Scott,
The idea is to create a canyon between the second and third level, a relatively "deep" canyon, much as you will find along the Fraser and Thompson river canyon areas. However, I'm thinking of not naming it after either of those, was going to call it the Frazier Canyon but I've been thinking of naming it after an N scaler locally here who was going to be my ops partner in crime working this layout. Unfortunately he suffered a stroke in his mid-50's and won't be running one of the largest Kato collections in North America on the layout; he didn't survive.
The purpose of the nolix is to move the trains outside of the slinky and to try and incorporate parts of the grades as part of the railway, not just a "blob" over there.
Another purpose is to provide viewing area so that the trains don't disappear for a longer period of time and you either grow impatient and look, or require some kind of detection system, whether mirror, spy hole, tv cameras, electronic detection, or a narrow window up the helix. Instead you get to see the trains after the first loop hidden on the second level, then round again but not full loop as the consist is visible on the third level so again you enjoy the scenery and know where your train is.
I just finished measuring the fourth level for length, it's 19 feet so the trains won't be visible on the fourth level, but its a short run, then on to the top deck.
So the nolix allows grades to climb to the next level, my rise is 19 3/4 inches, the trains are visible and can be seen in a "believable" scenario of mountainous scenery and in my favourite location.
Here is one of my favourite videos of one of my favourite locations, that helped inspire my nolix - enjoy:
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It has been suggested I add any postings about my nolix progress to this thread. I can't believe its been nearly a year, but after a very concentrated blast of work lasting to about the end of January, not much has been done to the nolix. I have been at work on it recently but almost all track related so a before and after picture wouldn't reveal any changes.
I decided I would add this photo, its the most complete image I have of my almost completed - structurally but not sceniced - nolix. I added more supports difficult to see in this pic, but more mountain ribs (those high rising wood supports in the front) and if you look closely at the far left you can see my fourth run has made it to the next level. Also more support in the corners which combined with the extra ribs I add, created a stronger structure less subject to movement.
To complete the first level and nolix area, I am also in the process of adding a couple of tortoises and hare so that I will have an autoreversing and auto throw area into my large reversing loop.
I am using a somewhat wide angle lens so some distortion is present, for example the piece attaching to the second level (fourth level in the nolix) looks quite steep but it reality its almost flat, just an illusion created by the lens and where I am standing. And again distance from one level to another is uniform though in the picture, particularly in the front, the illusion is off greater distance seperating the runs compared to the back runs.
Here is the pic with the most completed work so far, just taken today Nov 5, 2013:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-oqVZvNMnIIA/UnlpOGZb7fI/AAAAAAAAfl4/vHNvJyp6EuM/w958-h639-no/IMG_0830.jpg)
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That's quite possibly the coolest helix/nolix/whatever its called I've seen. What a great way to incorporate it into the layout without hiding the trains. Good work!
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Hmmmm. I like it.
But I always thought of a no-lix as an attempt to raise elevation without a helix.
But a helix goes round and round--- which is what yours does.
But yours is definitely NOT traditional.
So why not invent a new term and call what you did an....
UN-lix
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Or mine could be called a fourlix with 4 levels. But it doesn't go round and round, it goes snakey run, corner, straight run, corner, straight run, corner, another corner into the next snakey run..... lol! 8)
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That's quite possibly the coolest helix/nolix/whatever its called I've seen. What a great way to incorporate it into the layout without hiding the trains. Good work!
While rsn48s nolix is a clever idea, there are other alternatives for unwinding a helix and to expose track connecting multiple levels of a layout.
One such idea was utilized by my friend on his layout. Here is an excerpt from his blog:
The layout is a two deck design in a 15' by 30' room. It is laid out in an 'E' shape. Oneonta, Sidney , Bainbridge and Nineveh are on the lower deck with Binghamton, Cobleskill, Owego and the staging yard on the upper deck. The staging yard has three tracks leading into it so it represents Buffalo, Schenectady and Scranton.
The decks were originally to be connected by a three track helix. The tracks were Oneonta/Binghamton, Oneonta/Schenectady and Oneonta/Scranton. Of course Ernie Poole and Dan Boudreau hated it. The helix would hold the longest length of track and you could not see anything that happened in it. Dan had a couple of ideas for a "tipped" helix that would expose tracks here and there while Ernie just said to make a long run along the back of the layout. I was pushing back because I did not want to expose three tracks going to different places running parallel to each other. So after sufficient abuse I got the idea of just combining the three tracks into a two track main. The three tracks merge into the two track main at the bottom of the hill, and then three tracks diverge from the two track main at the top of the hill. So now the worst aspect of the railroad (the helix) has been transformed into one of its most interesting. A 2 scale mile long double track main with a 2% grade cut into the cliffs along the back of one of the walls of the railroad. It will have a lot of traffic because it represents three different hills; Belden Hill, Richmondville Hill, and Mt. Ararat. Almost every mainline train will have to go up and down this same section of track. However their schedules will list it by different names. It will just be up to the dispatcher to keep everything straight.
For more info, and the track plan, see the blog (http://albanysusquehanna.blogspot.com/2008/04/plan.html).
BTW, his layout is open for Tour de Chooch (see the sticky thread in this forum).
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Good work, Rick - keep it going!
Tim
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Very nice work ,but isnt this really still a helix?
I'd always been under the impression and seen in practice that a nolix gains height by linear distance with grade, such that you have a 1% grade over say 33', so that when its at the other point of the room its at the height needed for the next deck over the begining of the room.
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Very nice work ,but isnt this really still a helix?
I'd always been under the impression and seen in practice that a nolix gains height by linear distance with grade, such that you have a 1% grade over say 33', so that when its at the other point of the room its at the height needed for the next deck over the begining of the room.
Hmmm... then that sounds like the unwound helix on Rand's layout (I presented couple of posts earlier) is actually a nolix.
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I have copied and pasted this from another thread. Our train show begins on Friday with set up and layout operations and since I'm on the committee things are getting busy, but I didn't want to ignore this thread.
Some when I used to flog the word nolix, assumed it meant I thought I had created the idea of a variety of ways for trains to gain elevation and they reacted to that. I have never claimed I invented various nolix construction, some modeler's when layout designing have used their ideas of how to get trains up to the second level (or third level, fourth....etc) for decades, they were the early "in" on the notion of a nolix. And as you will see below, John Armstrong coined the word. What I have been doing is trying to bring a word into our hobby usage so that we can better communicate what it is we are doing in a track plan.
Back in roughly 2000 I had read the article of an Armstrong plan Jim Money's Athabasca RR in the 1998 edition of MODEL RAILROAD PLANNING. In it Money recruited Armstrong to create a layout plan and was adamant he didn't want a helix, he was so adamant that Armstrong drew up an initial plan with three helix's. Jim asked John to draw up another plan doing away with helix's which Armstrong did. Armstrong in a moment of humour decided to call the "place" (not the thing) a nolix for no helix. What John A created was a peninsula that allowed maximum visibility of trains but also, like a helix, allow them to gain elevation.
Also in roughly 2000 I became the moderator of the layout design forum at Trainboard which I was part of for roughly five years. Since the forum was my suggestion and the other moderator added to that forum quit after three months, I was basically on my own. The independence gave me a public forum for ideas which influenced others. The idea I flogged the most, particularly for N scaler's was the idea of a nolix.
When I read the planning article of Money's Athabasca RR, I decided the word "nolix" was useful to the hobby; we had a word to describe a "standardized" circular incline to move trains from level to level, but we didn't have a word for non-standardized construction to move trains from level to level. What also became apparent to me when looking at Armstrong's plan was the trains were visible, much more than in any helix with a window or what have you, and the visible area was incorporated into the scenery. So I decided - "a nolix was a non-standardized helix with the purpose of moving trains from one level to another creating as much visibility of trains as possible, incorporating these visible areas into the scenery."
I then preached this concept near and far, from Model Railroader mag to the Atlas forum, to obviously the Trainboard layout design forum, the layout design sig, etc. The problem for me was that helix's tend to be a large blob with not much sceniking options, pretty much a big circular mountain. In N scale because of our lesser requirements for "broad" curves, you could have a peninsula only 40 inches wide and you could have a nolix, or a corner area such as I have used and have a nolix. The peninsula that Armstrong created for Money was very large as you can imagine it would have to be in HO.
I became inactive in the hobby with severe hobby burnout, all my activities on the net (being moderator and an active participant, particularly on the Atlas forum) died out, and with medical problems I kind of drifted away from the scene. Currently I am seriously playing with the idea of writing an article on "Nolix's" for one of the RR mags.
Where I have changed over the years is that I have decided the word nolix by itself isn't that useful; the reason being is that if I say helix, because of its standardization, we can visualize one. But, if I say nolix, because it is not standardized, visualizing one is difficult. Or what you have visualized may be different than what I produce, so confusion can result as it has in this current thread (I edited this in for this thread) thus helping back up my assumption that the word nolix needs to be expanded.
So my conclusion is that other words need to be paired with nolix for us to get a better idea of its usage. So if I say Lee has a "peninsula nolix" we can draw some rough conclusions about it in our head, if I say Rick has an L shaped nolix we can have a better understanding of nolix, or again I can say Bill has an around the walls nolix, and we understand the concept.
When I took English 101 in Elmhurst College in Illinois I can still remember discussing how words evolved out of need an usage. For example, the text illustrated the word "bluff" (geography) that the English used to laugh at, but the problem for the English was they needed a sentence to describe what the word bluff conjured. So we can do away with the funny word nolix but then we are reduced to trying to describe this area on the layout that isn't a helix and need a sentence or more to do it. All I am really flogging is clearer communication in and around layout design.
So do I have a nolix, I say yes, this from the guy who made the word popular.
Here is a link to me talking about the concept of a nolix at Trainboard back in 2002 when I was a moderator there:
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?68709-Another-Nolix-(track-plan)
Here is me talking and Andy Sperandeo responding in a thread in the Model RR forum, back in 2002:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/3517.aspx
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I'm still baffled by how the scenery is supposed to look when complete. Right now it looks like the tracks spiral up a steep peak, but you have also invoked the Fraser Canyon as inspiration. I don't think I see what you have in mind yet.
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I took this photo with the paper covering what will be the mountains. The blank space between the two tracks will be a short "valley" with a river running down it. This isn't a great photo but I took it because some one else almost a year ago asked the same question.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-bvz4E273-mY/URXIj-sppEI/AAAAAAAAey4/NRtdJ9M4W-4/w958-h639-no/IMG_0767.jpg)
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There is a stretch near Lytton, BC in the White Canyon of the Thompson River like this, with the CP line higher on one side and the CN down near the river, backed against a sheer wall. They have some interesting and varied rock sheds on the CN side. I can see how this would work.
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The White Canyon is definitely my inspiration and hanging out at the Cisco bridges drove my desire to see unit trains slinking along the edge of a mountain and that's what I'm after, though I'm not going to call it the Thompson Canyon but I will try to do as much justice as I can. I elected not to have a snow and avalanche shed to keep the trains visible throughout the run. The location is definitely the railfanning area on my layout, virtually no operations on this section except for the siding.
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This is going to look sharp!
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Here is a look at the inside, you can see the fourth level better and see it is on the inside of the mountain ribs so the fourth level won't be visible at all. To who ever said this is a helix it just goes round and round, no it is not standardized like a helix. If I use the word helix, everyone conjurers a structure like an expanded slinky with just about all of the helix hidden, I know there are some small exceptions. In my nolix, roughly 20 feet of track is exposed on the second and third (total) levels, which is much more exposed than a helix.
This before the track went in:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5k28k-RkrQw/USF1SnoyVgI/AAAAAAAAezQ/KkTzTa1ws60/w958-h639-no/IMG_0772.jpg)
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Ok, that helps - it's a bit hard to tell from the photos how much horizontal clearance there is between levels. Are you going to have the scenery rise in front of the auto rack?
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The space between the autorack and the cars on the other side is a river valley so it will go down roughly 4 inches or so and if I can pull it off be a raging late spring early summer river. In the link below you will see White Canyon in BC with the Thompson river flowing strongly in the late spring. Although you can't tell in the pics, there is another RR on the other side of the river.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=white+canyon+bc+images&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:%7Breferrer:source%7D&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=dj57UprHA-mKiAKci4HYDA&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=933