Access Door Into Layout

That's awesome Dave!  Beautiful layout too.

Art

Suave.  Touché!

Pete

Impressive!

Outstanding Dave!!!! Can you come to the sticks in Texas and play with my trains and help me build such a great swing piece for me??

I promise to serve you great fried chicken, bar b q, fried potatoes, sausage and steak. 

Ron

Such a great idea, Dave.  Looks great!

Very cool Dave and the best part is it looks indestructibly medieval.

Paul

Dave, 

It was great talking with you the other night. Thanks for sharing this incredible idea with Mike and myself. We are already in the planning stages of incorporating two of these into my layout reconfiguration. Drop me a line when you have a moment and we'll start talking Notch 6 stuff. 

Good idea Dave 

Mine as been working for five years now. Only mine splits my town in two. I even have a turnout on it.

Clem k

WOW. Looks great with the bridge and I love the grab iron for the handle.

Serows1 posted:

the best part is it looks indestructibly medieval.

Yep, if any O scale armies lay siege to that layout, I think things will be just fine!

David Minarik posted:

Many people make lift out bridges or just have duck-unders.  I had this idea brewing in the back of my brain for some tome now.  It has operated flawlessly for two years now and has allowed me to run my layout around the perimeter of the room.

Here is a short video.

 

Really great idea Dave!  Good video.

Very Cool! 

I thought it was really nice just looking at the pics, then when I watched the video to see it's motion is motorized, that's even better!

(edit: OK, even if it was gravity (saw Dave's post later on), it is still very cool!)

-Dave

David,

That's awesome.   How did you motorized it?

Really nice door. I like that better than a lift out and certainly better than a duck under. 

Fantastic!

Peter

Well done Dave! Is the riveted plate real steel? I can tell the grab iron is, installed many of those in my train repair days. I would suggest putting some corrugated plastic conduit around the supply wires to help protect them.

Don

Incredible! 

Very cool bridges. 

As clever as it ever gets.

And that landscaping look great, too. May we see more?

FrankM

Is that motorized or was it just drifting shut?  When it closes what holds it in position?  Magnets, spring force?

Thanks for the nice comments!

This is all TIG welded 1" square tubing.  It is lag bolted into the floor joists and tied into the layout at the top, so it is VERY secure.

It is not motorized but rather set to drift shut to a magnetic latch.

The fascia is just masonite.

Dave

Glad I sold you that lift bridge, David. That is really cool!

The GN Man posted:

Glad I sold you that lift bridge, David. That is really cool!

I had to cut part of the bridge away with a die grinder.  I haven't fixed it yet.  Most people don't notice.

Absolutely amazing !!!!

Alex

Awesome workmanship Dave. Thanks for posting.

Really nice work, I love the riveted look it's a nice way to hide the screws and no chance of warping. Thanks for posting.

Dave great job and glad to see like me you are not the only one to take that darn beam off the end of the towers to allow scale equipment to pass thru the bridge. Lionel when bringing the bridge out should have changed the original prototype they based it on to accommodate today's scale operator like us.Again very impressive!

Don,

I should clean up the crooked cut I made....oh well   in time