# Super elevation



## Dan Pantages (Jan 2, 2008)

I have started the outside loop on my railway and wanted some input as to whether it’s worth putting in super elevation. I was once told for Gauge 1, half a level bubble is correct. When I built the club’s portable I put in super elevation only to find that no one even notices it or if they do, they ask why I put the Popsicle sticks under the track.


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Dan
Watching an Accucraft GS4 running at 200+ smph on trackage without super elevation, not sure what purpose it would serve other than to give you some additional work and maintenance. Then there is the entrance and exit taper necessary to ease the engine in and out of elevation to the curves. What if you had a reverse curve coming out of the elevated curve woud you have to have a long straight to allow for transition to level trackage?


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## derPeter (Dec 26, 2010)

Good evening,
we had on our track elevation made ca. 7mm at the outer track and ca. 1m from zero rising to elevation at the end of the radius, perhaps pics say better than my description
greetings from Peter


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## derPeter (Dec 26, 2010)

Behind the green bridge is the plain track and to the foreground the outer track is rising
Peter


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## ChaoticRambo (Nov 20, 2010)

Super elevation adds a lot to any model railroad. My dad and I have super elevation on our scale S layout which makes it look very nice. We also use super elevation for our 7 1/2" gauge equipment at the club we go to since we haul the public, it provides a more stable feeling.

Really, it all comes down to what you like. If you have nice wide curves, super elevation is going to look great.


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## Ding Dong (Sep 27, 2010)

Dan, 
You should invite Tony Dixon up for a run. If his Britannia stays on the track after a couple of laps, then you know you don't need it. 
I could be wrong, but I don't think the large track at the NSS is super elevated and nothing has come off yet! 

Rob Meadows 

Los Angeles


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

Dan, 
I reckon that anything over 12 foot radius really doesn't NEED it. 
It may look good, but it adds an extra dimension of problems. 
Besides, as you didn't add it to the first circuit, it will look funny to have one super elevated while the other is not. 
I don't know about in North America, but in the UK some of the full sized railways did not use it at all. 
But like most CEO's, I'm sure that you will do whatever feels good. 
All the best, 
David Leech, Delta, Canada


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## JEFF RUNGE (Jan 2, 2008)

It will lessen the wear on wheel flanges and rails ??


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## Dan Pantages (Jan 2, 2008)

"It will lessen the wear on wheel flanges and rails ??" by the time this happens, I will be buried beside it. I like the answer Rob gave about the large track at the Summer Steam-up. I like the reasoning David gave about the inside track not having it and it adds an extra dimension of problems. So being a good CEO and wanting to save the railroad money, I have decided the surveyors do not have to put in super elevation.


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

Oh good, 
That means we can come for a 'two track' steamup next week!???? 
In fact, AFTER the next lot of rain that is coming tomorrow, why don't you invite the 'crowd' over and give us each some track, screws and screwdrivers and we can help you get it finished. 
David Leech, Delta, Canada


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## zephyra (Jan 2, 2008)

I looked into this in some detail after my 232U1 broke its coupling to a fine rake of J&M Wagon Lit coaches, accelerated to a scale 300 mph (a guess) and came off the track at the next corner doing substantial damage. Curve radius is 3M but I suspect it was the transition into the curve rather than the curve itself that caused the problem. 

The bank angle required to prevent any sideways force can be calculated fairly easily - it is tan-1(v^2/gr), where v is speed, r is radius and g is gravity. For a scale 200 mph this works out to approx 15%. Of course some sideways force is OK, just not so much as to topple the locomotive sideways. This, in turn, depends on how high the center of gravity is above the track. I guesstimated the center of gravity of the 232U1 and calculated that with a flat track, the machine would need to be doing just over 4 m/s or just under 300 scale MPH. 

In the event, I decided it was easier to fit better coupling to the J&M coaches that try to super-elevate the track in a way that would survive the Seattle weather!


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Dan 

In reality, super elevation for model railroads in any scale is cosmetic. Looks great. The physics does not justify the design and maintenance. If you have sharp curves [less than 15 ft radius], a transition spiral from tangent to the minimum curve radius is far more important. I put transitions in on my first IE&W because I had curves as tight as 16 foot radius. The current layout has 24 foot radius and the transitions are almost non-existent.


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## Jim Overland (Jan 3, 2008)

Agree with Stapleton. 
I have looked at the math and it is not necessary. We played around with it on Gaston's layout, and even a small amount has the trains running on the inside drivers 
jim


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

With superelevation, besides the horizontal transition/spiral in and out of a curve, you also need a vertical transition in and out of the superelevation, or you can run into more problems. 

Many large scale locos do not have a compliant enough suspension to handle abrupt vertical transitions. 

I vote for cosmentic and difficult to do right. 

Regards, Greg


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## Dan Pantages (Jan 2, 2008)

OK, OK, you guys have convinced me, no super elevation. I do have transition curves and I do have tight radius curves, ruling radius is 12’3” on one inside curve, the rest being 16ft to 26ft. What I do have going for me is the level smooth track work. A lap is 265ft and David has an old Aster coach chassis that rolls very well. He can give it a push and it will do a lap and a half or more and that’s through 4 switches.


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Dan 

Much more important; how well do long rigid wheelbased two axle cars do on the track. I am thinking of some British and German coaching stock and "utility" or freight vans. I found that their sometimes unforgiving suspension will find ANY fault in my track work. That is usually how I find rails that have a vertical bend in them from a "black walnut" assault from 40 feet up.


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

OTOH, superelevation reduces the diameter of the curve... I think the idea with the popsicle sticks is a good one, you can keep your superelevation nice and smooth, and it's small enough it shouldn't cause any problems. It may not reduce the diameter much, by the time you get to trains the size of ours, yes, physics do matter to an extent. I used toothpicks in HO, and just the improvement in appearance was worth it. 

Thanks! Robert


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Interesting discussion. May I add my personal experience? (Tough, I'm gonna dood it anyway!)

My track was 150-ft in a double-loop-back configuration with about 50-ft in the straight section before the curves of the loops. I "tried" to make the straight section have about 1 percent of grade down to the center and then 1 percent up to the other end. Each loop was about 50 ft of track with about 1/2 percent grade back to near the middle of the straight section. This was so that I could "Highball the Mainline" down-hill and HOPE that the uphill section would help slow the train before the curve of the loop-back. I ran only Live Steam with radio control.

I found that because the elevated structure of the layout was merely standing on concrete pavers laying on rather sandy ground, my attempts to maintain the specific grades were a futile effort as the ground absorbed and drained rainfall. i.e.: sometimes the grade would almost be the reverse of what I wanted (higher in the middle than the ends!)

It was fun to back a short train most of the way into one curve and then open wide on the throttle to peel out and fly at breakneck speeds 3/4 of the way through the straightaway and then close the throttle, slam the reverser the other way and open wide on the throttle again (well, sometimes the throttle was not moved at all!) in an attempt to slow the train BEFORE the curve of the loop-back. Watching the wheels spin backward while the train moved forward was quite entertaining.

I timed certain sections of the straight track and hit a scale 210 MPH near the middle! At the curve I could get the speed down to under 80 (S)MPH.

I wanted to superelevate the curves but found that without firmly attaching the track to something of the desired shape/form, the track tended to warp in any corkscrew shape it wanted and the amount of warp varied as the seasons changed. As it turned out, the curves tended to hold a superelevated form most of the time. I have no idea why, nor did I ever actually measure the amount of superelevation attained, but it was definitely a noticeable amount. A guess at this time (the track is all stacked in the garage at present, waiting on me to get around to rebuilding the elevated structure after a winter freeze/thaw/freeze severely damaged it) would be about 1/2 the rail height or maybe .1 to .15 inches. The track was pretty much fully floating in the ballast and it would tend to hold this amount of superelevation when the train went through because of the ballast. Over time the track could move the ballast enough to change its position, but it tended to hold a superelevated condition most of the time.

I never had a problem with transitions into or out of the curves and/or the uncontrolled superelevations. Only ONCE did it derail from the track because of irregularities and that irregularity was a total separation of the rails at one point in the curve (dumping a $4000 engine 4-ft to the ground!). (I did derail one other time, but that was blamed entirely on the ignoramus Switch Tender being too distracted by pride to notice the switch from the yard to the mainline was in the wrong direction! He should have lost his job, but the CEO would not fire himself!)

I will say that when the curves had a superelevated condition, it sure "felt better" to hit them at speed, as opposed to when the curves were "flatter".

A friend ran an "uncontrolled" Ruby around the track at adrenaline rush speeds a few times and it never derailed either.

I have posted this image before and I think it is possibly apropos here:


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## JEFF RUNGE (Jan 2, 2008)

All I got from this thread so far is: the Laws of Physics don't apply to gauge one trains...... hehe


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By JEFF RUNGE on 11 Feb 2011 12:37 PM 
All I got from this thread so far is: the Laws of Physics don't apply to gauge one trains...... hehe 

Not true... they do apply... but they don't scale.


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

All I got from this thread so far is: the Laws of Physics don't apply to gauge one trains...... hehe 

You try to convince my kids of that after they've been racing their propeller driven locos around our track and sent them flying off into the rhubarb at about 400smph! 

Keith


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

They do apply just fine. 

But the suspensions of our trains are not scale models. The weights are for the most part, not. The curvature of our track is not. 

You get a locomotive with a working suspension, and a prototype curve and I think you will see you can do prototype super elevation. 

Regards, Greg


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## xo18thfa (Jan 2, 2008)

Watching a live steamer leaning into the curve with that gorgeous deep throated bark in the exhaust is really cool. Other then that you don't need it.


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Some useful academic discussion but the application is not necessary to our purposes. Given the high speed run on Dr.Rivet's track for the live steam GS4 with all the oil, wet rails the 200+smph did not become a "flying Aster." The situation was also played out with Scott McDonald's Zephyr which is even faster. So, if you want to put the time and effort into a more prototypical trackage for high speed traffic trains then do so, otherwise highball on a good level track can be done without super elevated rails. 





This video shows the GS4 running at high speed though a variety of curve arrangements with no super elevation or problems


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

Just for the record, the trackage of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad was superelevated: Just not always in the right direction and not always on the curves... ;-) 

Robert


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Keith 

Just for information, "Crazy Jeff" Redeker's GS-4 freight train made the 560 foot circuit on my layout in almost exactly 60 seconds. At 165 ft to the mile in 1:32, the layout is 3.4 miles long. 3.4 x 60 = 204 MPH!! 

JUST PLAIN STUPID!! IF you asked me what I thought. Most fast passenger trains take about 3 minutes which is 68 MPH, freights 3 to 4 minutes [ 51 to 68]. Most narrow gauge trains "putt" around in 4 to 6 minutes. Since in 1:20.3 the layout is only 2.15 miles long, this equates to 21 to 32 MPH, which is actually pretty reasonable. 

On the old alignment, the track was 528 feet [0.1 mile] and the speed record held by an Aster B&O Grasshopper [running light] at 46 seconds for one full lap. 

BTW, races are NOT actively encouraged on my track.


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## Shay Gear Head (Jan 3, 2008)

So that must be Alan's GS-4 that Jeff is running at light speed!? 
"Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead!"


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

Where is your layout located, if you don't mind me asking? 

Robert


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## Dr Rivet (Jan 5, 2008)

Robert 

Northern Virginia, almost to WV.


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## Alan in Adirondacks (Jan 2, 2008)

Jim, 

Agreed on the statement at the beginning of your second paragraph (with the benefit of my 20/20 hind sight). Especially after seeing what a 40 scale mph toe-stubbing with a heavy train can do to trackwork. 

However to live up to your name, counting seconds instead of rivets, the circuit was actually made in 57 seconds = 214 mph...... Insanity definitely NOT to be repeated. 

That GS-4 is one that you have to watch carefully. Pulls like a horse at low speeds -- but if it is running at a prototypical high speed passenger 65-70 mph rate, it can get very happy and take off! 

BTW, Jim's track is beautiful and carefully looked after. And I was standing on the sidelines with a camera during the high speed run so I guess that makes me guilty too.... 

Best regards, 

Alan


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## rdamurphy (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm just curious... 

Was the GS-4 radio controlled? 

If not, how do you stop it!?!


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By rdamurphy on 14 Feb 2011 08:44 AM 
I'm just curious... 

Was the GS-4 radio controlled? 

If not, how do you stop it!?! 
No RC, so either hand brake or close the throttle...


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## zephyra (Jan 2, 2008)

I'd love to have a kill switch that would get activated if the machine exceedes a certain speed without having to go to radio control. I've had multiple accidents with my Aster 232U1 which is the most powerful machine in my inventory and seems keen to shed it's load whenever it has an opportunity. What I need is a speed sensor that would trip pulling the throttle shut if the machine exceeds a certain speed. With the talent availbale on this forum, I'm sure somebody can come up with something! 

Robert


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By zephyra on 14 Feb 2011 10:49 AM 
I'd love to have a kill switch that would get activated if the machine exceedes a certain speed without having to go to radio control. I've had multiple accidents with my Aster 232U1 which is the most powerful machine in my inventory and seems keen to shed it's load whenever it has an opportunity. What I need is a speed sensor that would trip pulling the throttle shut if the machine exceeds a certain speed. With the talent availbale on this forum, I'm sure somebody can come up with something! 

Robert 

Just "blue skying" here:

You need a speed governor of some sort, maybe like the old "flyball" governor. That would require an attachment to a powered axle via gearing or belt with the steam to the engine passing through a valve held in position by the spinning flyballs. This would work, but that is an awful lot of mechanicals to add to the locomotive and one small enough to fit might not have enough weight to the flyballs to work well.

You say it, "sheds it's load", by this I assume you mean the engine uncouples from the remainder of the train and thus accelerates to an unacceptable speed. In this instance it might be a bit simpler. Through a system of levers or a pulley or two and a thread tied to the car immediately behind the locomotive, if the car uncouples and slows, the thread would pull on the throttle lever, closing the valve.

Another method might be a spring capable of closing the throttle. A ratchet and pawl could hold the throttle in position until the pawl is pulled allowing the spring to close the throttle. The ratchet could be a gear with a pin inserted against the teeth as the pawl. If the pin is attached to the 1st car (via a thread), if an uncoupling occurs, the engine pulling away from the consist would pull the pin.


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## benshell (Oct 1, 2008)

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of a kill switch or a regulator that isn't just RC control. If you hook the throttle up to a servo you could use a small microcontroller like an Arduino to monitor axle rotations and control the servo accordingly. You could have a kill switch mode that shuts off the throttle if the speed increases suddenly (derailment or lost load). And you could also adjust the throttle to better handle grades (that's the main reason I was thinking about this). With a million projects going on this one hasn't been a priority, but if I ever get around to it I'll definitely share it on MLS.


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

Easy...like a trailer hook up just add safety chains to the frames.


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## steveciambrone (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By zephyra on 14 Feb 2011 10:49 AM 
I'd love to have a kill switch that would get activated if the machine exceedes a certain speed without having to go to radio control. I've had multiple accidents with my Aster 232U1 which is the most powerful machine in my inventory and seems keen to shed it's load whenever it has an opportunity. What I need is a speed sensor that would trip pulling the throttle shut if the machine exceeds a certain speed. With the talent availbale on this forum, I'm sure somebody can come up with something! 

Robert 
You might try Radio Control, it can tame the wild beast.

Steve


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## du-bousquetaire (Feb 14, 2011)

My experience is with track that is screwed down every foot or so with brass wood screws through plugs in the concrete sub base. Most of it by the way has been around in my clayish soil sinver the late '70 and has not moved except where a tree root wrecked havock. The concrete sub base was made using prefabricated sidewalk borders about a foot wide and 3 to 4 inches thick, these can then be leveled with a level. As my original main line (now over thirty years old) uses oak ties ( 1cm X 1cm section) I found it a good idea to raise the lower side of the ties from the concrete in our extremely humid climate so that they would get a chance to dry. I used regular annealed bayling wire for this. This led me to find some rather thicker wire for creating some superelevation using say 3mm. diameter wire on the outside and 1mm. diameter on the inside. This did produce a superelevation and kept the ties hi and dry in the ballast. I then noticed that this superelevation created more drag on my 11' radius curve than without, with long trains. However I have kept this superelevation nevertheless being a very visual person. With this steel wire it is quite easy and cheap to make. The thing to do though, is to remove all the kinks in the wire by bending it with your fingers before installation. Once it is relatively straight I unscrew slightly the brass screws and slip it under the ties. This has been kept for my outer circuit made from Tenmille prefab track. It doesn't cost much and is really easy to do. I have most of the original wire still in use, so much for the longevity in our very humid oceanic climate.


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## du-bousquetaire (Feb 14, 2011)

My experience is with track that is screwed down every foot or so with brass wood screws through plugs in the concrete sub base. Most of it by the way has been around in my clayish soil sinver the late '70 and has not moved except where a tree root wrecked havock. The concrete sub base was made using prefabricated sidewalk borders about a foot wide and 3 to 4 inches thick, these can then be leveled with a level. As my original main line (now over thirty years old) uses oak ties ( 1cm X 1cm section) I found it a good idea to raise the lower side of the ties from the concrete in our extremely humid climate so that they would get a chance to dry. I used regular annealed bayling wire for this. This led me to find some rather thicker wire for creating some superelevation using say 3mm. diameter wire on the outside and 1mm. diameter on the inside. This did produce a superelevation and kept the ties hi and dry in the ballast. I then noticed that this superelevation created more drag on my 11' radius curve than without, with long trains. However I have kept this superelevation nevertheless being a very visual person. With this steel wire it is quite easy and cheap to make. The thing to do though, is to remove all the kinks in the wire by bending it with your fingers before installation. Once it is relatively straight I unscrew slightly the brass screws and slip it under the ties. This has been kept for my outer circuit made from Tenmille prefab track. It doesn't cost much and is really easy to do. I have most of the original wire still in use, so much for the longevity in our very humid oceanic climate.


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