What gradient can i lay track too

Tjbkitchens

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Hi all,

Previous g gauge set up I had was a lab starter set,and almost level but I have moved up north and now live on a hill haha. I have lots of track I kept in storage but just a basic piko br80 loco to run with steam and sound and I am getting ready weather permitting to start my new layout but my gardens on a slope, what angle or what difference say over a metre can I achieve safely without my engine and a few carriages struggling? And I need to purchase a new controller as the old one was only a 1 amp that came with the starter set. Will I need alot more power to combat gradient and to supply alot more length of track?

Many thanks
Tony.
 
I've no idea where the notion came from, but there seems to be a convention that 1:40 is the maximum workable gradient for a garden railway. That would mean a rise of 2.5cm in a metre. You can of course go steeper but you will reduce the hauling capability of your loco.

Rik
 
Yes, this is one of those old chestnuts that usually creates a lot of excited debate. I thought my gradients were fairly gentle, nothing like 1 in 40, but it's still quite easy to get some locos to come to a halt with their wheels spinning - the only loco I have with traction tyres is an Aristo Rogers 2-4-2, but with only 4 drive wheels, it's as good at spinning as any other!

It's worth looking at ways of reducing the gradient without re-engineering the entire garden o_Oo_Oo_O using similar ideas to Brunel and his buddies. At the lower end of the garden, you can run the line on a raised section, and at the higher end you can create shallow cuttings. I did this with my original line in Sussex because the difference in level over about 30 ft was 2ft, and I planned to have the track more or less level, as at that time, the only garden railway experience I had was with a Mamod (underpowered and high friction).
 
To answer the question exactly (tongue, very much, in cheek):
'Any gradient you like'.....
BUT, you won't get a train up it!


Aim for 'flat and boring'.. - It won't end up like that. You will need cuttings and bridges, or switch-back backwards and forwards across the slope..

Your first thoughts must be 'what type of railway am I aiming for?'
Once you know the type of line you want, mainline, branch, logging, quarry etc. then you can survey the garden, and get some idea of what is possible..

Oh, and unless you are going to pay someone to dig, or can get a machine in.. Bridges/viaducts/raised-beds, are easier to construct and keep operational, than cuttings!

The adventure begins! :):nod::nod:
 
Well.....
When I first ventured into the abyss that is garden railroading, I have had to do it with a garden that had a complex gradient but rose about 3ft at its peak at the back of the lawn/beds area.
I wanted big wide radius curves for the main line to facilitate the longer American locos and rolling stock that I wanted to run and the line would not be able to cut through the middle of the lawn...on penalty of death.... I also did not have the room to build a wide curve helix.

There was a two and a half foot wall that was between the patio and the lowest level of the lawn, so I could not use trestle bridges to bring the low level lawn to the same level as the apex, otherwise the conservatory would have had an over 5 foot barrier running across between it and the lawn!
I also did not construct any deep cuttings at the apex of the lawn due partly, to the fact that the roots of a large tree at the apex would have caused problems but also that it would have meant that the trains would have had to be running out of sight in a cutting, about 2 to 3 foot deep at maximum, for about 40 to 50 feet. Also the cutting would have been a huge collector of leaf little etc...

So.... I decided to just build the line with the gradients in place.........
Obviously I tested it as I built it...but I didn't test it very well... I could see that my newly bought steam 2-6-0 mogul LGB loco was going around the layout with maximum 1 in 10 or 1:10 gradients, in a perfectly respectable manner....... bad move... I didn't test it, at first, with any rolling stock attached...imagine my disappointment when I saw that the little loco could just about pull just one box car as well as its own tender!

So... I had to overcome the tortuous gradients with grunt. This came in three forms:
1. first the introduction of early era diesels to my, at first designation, only steam era layout...these had twin powerful motor blocks with traction tyres and where an immediate improvement.
2. secondly the use of multi heading and/or helper locos in a train... again a great improvement and it meant that even the steam outline locos could now haul longer trains without problems
3. fitting 'invisibly motorised' bogies into boxcars and passenger cars...this meant that one steam loco could look like it was overcoming the gradient hauling a train on its own, when in fact there would be two or three 'motorised' wagons/cars in the rake behind it.
4. finding the joy of geared locos like shays and climaxes... the shays just literally pulled their weight and did what they did in their prototype form.... they didn't need multi-heading except for the times when I wanted to see them 'lashed-up' behind each other!

One drawback was that, going up was fine with enough 'grunt' but coming down could have its own problems with the force of a heavy train on couplers etc sometimes forcing derailments.
This was largely overcome, when multi-heading, by having the slowest 'helper' loco at or near the back of a train to 'restrain' the train on the way down.
Also making sure that I standardised the couplers on a train helped. I used aristocraft knuckles for mainline freight and streamline passenger as they are strong and resist buckling well. Bachmann knuckles for my shorter 'local line' trains were also fine.
LGB 'hook and loop' were okay as long as there were hooks at both ends on each car/wagon.

Live stream came to the layout about 9 years after the initial start of the build, and I found that, again, geared locos were the way to go. Excellent performance and great plumes of steam as they toiled up the hill!

The layout does have the appearance of the Rockies and Utah about, it so it does look okay especially with the trains winding around tortuous cliffs etc.

So the upshot, in answer to the question, is that you can build layouts with heavy gradients but you then have to do things to enable trains to run on them and to overcome the problems that gradients pose going down as well as up.
Would I do it again without levelling the garden.... hmmm, I'll have to come back to you on that one!

EDIT
Yeah, I forgot to add, when I first wrote the post, about adding weight to locos.
It really works BUT be careful with any that have traction tyres.
Locos without the tyres will, even with sensible weight added, slip their wheels when a gradient outweighs the tractive force ( yes, before I am corrected, I know that is not the correct scientific terminology)
BUT the axles with traction tyres will not slip until there is probably too much force going through the gearing system or connecting rods or both, so bad things can happen......
I haven't had it happen yet but there must be times on my layout when things have been close...

0.0 Long shot LS shay climbs the incline.jpg

1 long shot LS shay by high line.jpg

1.5 LS shay passing high line.jpg
 
Last edited:
Well.....
When I first ventured into the abyss that is garden railroading, I have had to do it with a garden that had a complex gradient but rose about 3ft at its peak at the back of the lawn/beds area.
I wanted big wide radius curves for the main line to facilitate the longer American locos and rolling stock that I wanted to run and the line would not be able to cut through the middle of the lawn...on penalty of death.... I also did not have the room to build a wide curve helix.

There was a two and a half foot wall that was between the patio and the lowest level of the lawn, so I could not use trestle bridges to bring the low level lawn to the same level as the apex, otherwise the conservatory would have had an over 5 foot barrier running across between it and the lawn!
I also did not construct any deep cuttings at the apex of the lawn due partly, to the fact that the roots of a large tree at the apex would have caused problems but also that it would have meant that the trains would have had to be running out of sight in a cutting, about 2 to 3 foot deep at maximum, for about 40 to 50 feet. Also the cutting would have been a huge collector of leaf little etc...

So.... I decided to just build the line with the gradients in place.........
Obviously I tested it as I built it...but I didn't test it very well... I could see that my newly bought steam 2-6-0 mogul LGB loco was going around the layout with maximum 1 in 10 or 1:10 gradients, in a perfectly respectable manner....... bad move... I didn't test it, at first, with any rolling stock attached...imagine my disappointment when I saw that the little loco could just about pull just one box car as well as its own tender!

So... I had to overcome the tortuous gradients with grunt. This came in three forms:
1. first the introduction of early era diesels to my, at first designation, only steam era layout...these had twin powerful motor blocks with traction tyres and where an immediate improvement.
2. secondly the use of multi heading and/or helper locos in a train... again a great improvement and it meant that even the steam outline locos could now haul longer trains without problems
3. fitting 'invisibly motorised' bogies into boxcars and passenger cars...this meant that one steam loco could look like it was overcoming the gradient hauling a train on its own, when in fact there would be two or three 'motorised' wagons/cars in the rake behind it.
4. finding the joy of geared locos like shays and climaxes... the shays just literally pulled their weight and did what they did in their prototype form.... they didn't need multi-heading except for the times when I wanted to see them 'lashed-up' behind each other!

One drawback was that, going up was fine with enough 'grunt' but coming down could have its own problems with the force of a heavy train on couplers etc sometimes forcing derailments.
This was largely overcome, when multi-heading, by having the slowest 'helper' loco at or near the back of a train to 'restrain' the train on the way down.
Also making sure that I standardised the couplers on a train helped. I used aristocraft knuckles for mainline freight and streamline passenger as they are strong and resist buckling well. Bachmann knuckles for my shorter 'local line' trains were also fine.
LGB 'hook and loop' were okay as long as there were hooks at both ends on each car/wagon.

Live stream came to the layout about 9 years after the initial start of the build, and I found that, again, geared locos were the way to go. Excellent performance and great plumes of steam as they toiled up the hill!

The layout does have the appearance of the Rockies and Utah about, it so it does look okay especially with the trains winding around tortuous cliffs etc.

So the upshot, in answer to the question, is that you can build layouts with heavy gradients but you then have to do things to enable trains to run on them and to overcome the problems that gradients pose going down as well as up.
Would I do it again without levelling the garden.... hmmm, I'll have to come back to you on that one!



View attachment 248919

View attachment 248918

View attachment 248917
Big Hill - Wikipedia

:clap::clap::clap:
 
You can overcome wheel spin by increasing the amount of weight in the loco. I cram as much lead into my loco builds as I can to ensure they will cope with the 1:40s on my layout. This one weighs in at 2kg

and even this little IP Engineering Simplex weighs in at 650g - but that's mostly from the whitemetal body.

Rik
 
I've no idea where the notion came from, but there seems to be a convention that 1:40 is the maximum workable gradient for a garden railway. That would mean a rise of 2.5cm in a metre. You can of course go steeper but you will reduce the hauling capability of your loco.

Rik

I think 1:40 is taken from full size railway practice as being about the maximum gradient that doesn't require "special measures", as it were.. The gradient out of Robin Hood's Bay on the Scarborough-Whitby line was 1:43 going north to Whitby and 1:39 going south to Ravenscar. Five coaches was the maxuimum for a train on this route. More than five required a second or pilot engine at this station.
 
my actual, and the layout before this are/were both multi-level affairs.
a lot of try & fail investigation brought me to the following results:

any normal (unaltered) loco should be able to manage grades of 1 in 50 = 2cm per meter = 2% with five or more cars.

the steepest, i could manage with one of my LGB-stainzes pulling three cars (6 axles) was 1 in 12.5 = 8cm per meter = 8% on a straight.
that included weighing the loco to a total of nearly 3kg, light LGB-cars and sideways sanded rails with coarse sanding paper.

now i am using Stainzes plus motorized tenders to pull 5 cars of 2 axles or four cars of 4 axles (or combinations of these)
the locos and tenders each are weighted to just shy of 2.5kg.
the maximum grades these trains could manage on straights are a little below 1 in 14 = 7 cm per meter = 7%

for practical reasons i settled on 1 in 16.6 = 6cm per meter = 6% - on straights. that came out to nearly 2cm/20mm grade per piece of rail (30 cm/1ft)
as curves make more frction, i restricted grades on LGB-R1 curves to 1cm per piece, and R2 curves to 1.5cm per piece.

the powerpacks i use have 1Amp minimum per motor that could run simultaniously on the stretch they power.
 
Yeah, I forgot to include in my previous post about the adding of weight to locos. It really does work BUT be careful with any that have traction tyres.
Locos without the tyres will, even with sensible weight added, slip their wheels when a gradient outweighs the tractive force ( yes, before I am corrected, I know that is not the correct scientific terminology)
BUT the axles with traction tyres will not slip until there is probably too much force going through the gearing system or connecting rods or both so bad things can happen......
I haven't had it happen yet but there must be times on my layout when things have been close...
 
What is your ruling gradient and what type of layout do you envisage, roundy round or point to point ? If a point to point you could take a leaf out of a lot of "hill" and "logging" lines and employ switchbacks to minimise the effective gradient.

Keep in mind tight radius (or any radius) curves and points, with gradients, compounds issues - they create more friction and drag. It would be sensible in fitting a more powerful controller, if only because you are probably going to look at stronger locos to haul your trains. I would suggest you try and work out some longer term plans now to get some idea which way your garden railway interest may be headed before buying or building anything.

I started out with some pronounced gradients and in the end decided they were limiting my enjoyment of my layout. My answer 4 years ago was to raise the front of the garden. Bit extreme, I know, but it was to resolve some other issues beyond the railway. I run DC track powered, battery and live steam. Tip - simple 0-X-0 wheel arrangements have much better adhesion than others with pony trucks. Max

Rebuilt railway -

railway rebuild 004.JPG

railway rebuild 006.JPG
 
All good advice.

By now you hopefully have come to the conclusion that steeper grades = more locos pulling the same train, or more locomotive wear or both.

If you can keep to 2% or less, that is great. If you have space restrictions, I'd consider 4% as an upper limit, but remember that is on straight track, 4% on a curve can be more like 6%.

My advice is like I give most people on curvature: take your plan, and work very hard to increase the curve to the next "slot".... i.e. if you have a design with 8 foot curves, rework your plan to 10 foot.

Likewise with grades, try to take what your first design gives you and work it over to lower the max grade by 2%...

It's rare when, given a good bit of thinking and help from others, that you cannot improve a marginal plan to a reasonable one.

Greg
 
Wow, thankyou all for you're replies, so much information to now digest and think about. Although I am a general builder it never crossed my mind to form shallow cuttings at the top of my garden to help reduce the amount of fall needed to overcome. I had figured on raised supports only but must admit I needed inspiration and we'll, I got it... I've lots of rocks/ materials laying about the place.lots of slate as I live in maryport, Cumbria now. I've suddenly got my lightbulb switched on and lots of ideas flowing. It'll be a fairly simple large rectangle with couple of sidings but from there I can continue the build at a later date. My lgb 1 amp contoller had no issues with the starter set loco but just before I ripped it all up to move here I purchased the piko br80, this didn't smoke or sound at first until it was running for a while on max it would suddenly kick in, I was told I needed more power for this to work properly. If I lengthen the track do I keep more amps or does it not work like that. Electrical not my game as you can tell haha. I'd estimate 40 metres of track to start with. Appreciate all advice and replies, cheers
 
Don't need more amps for more track, but perhaps more feeders. The connecting of track, joiners, rail clamps, feeders, etc. are all nice long discussions.

Bottom line, given good connections between sections, not many feeders are necessary.

The track is the foundation of your layout, do it right and things run well, do it poorly and you have never-ending problems and frustrations.

I am DCC outdoors, went for zero maintenance, stainless steel rail and stainless steel rail clamps, and #10 gauge wire.... never an issue, once every 2 years I might have a loose joiner..

Same can be done with brass, but some more care to anti-oxidation compound in the joints.

Greg
 
Get a long plank. Stick your train (not just the loco) on it and see what slope it can do. then remember that curves increase drag (go large on curves if you have space).
If you like long trains you need to keep it fairly level. I use 1:50 as a max.
DSCF2703 _Small_.JPG
 
Just a couple of photos to add to my previous (apologies for length) to show the garden before the layout came into existence and why the raising of the layout by wall across the patio from the conservatory (top left in first photo) couldn't happen due to it restricting the garden view from said conservatory.
The second photo shows the gradient apex point (although as it is taken from above it doesn't show the gradient at all!)

These were taken in 2005 and the shrubs etc have been hacked away to give space underneath for villages, townships and track. the last photos show the gradient and a little of what is there

old garden in total.JPG

old garden towards arbour.JPG

gradient.jpg

gradient 2.jpg
 
"The track is the foundation of your layout, do it right and things run well, do it poorly and you have never-ending problems and frustrations."

Greg sums it up for me. I run live steam (not very good with gradients) and battery (eats gradients, unless there's frost/ice/snow), but the general principles are the same. If you can ease any gradients and curves, do so. Also look at how flat your track is across the gauge; I've still got a ridiculously sharp curve that looks like a rollercoaster ride at the foot of a gradient. Trains approach it much too fast and go round it as if they are on rails :wasntme:; it shouldn't work, but it does. Five years on I've probably re-laid 1/3rd of my 90ft line, smoothing curves and yes, reducing gradients. You learn as you go; get some track down, try to avoid the biggest errors and then see how you go. Get something running, and then try to get it running better. It's a hobby: enjoy the challenges!
 
To the OP (Original Poster)..
Beware of deep, narrow cuttings! - They will fill with leaves, be damp (unless you are a very well-drained site) and if too deep, be really awkward to reach/sort that derailed train.

If you are in the building trade, you should be able to avoid most of the topological errors, and know how back-breaking moving tons of fill can be!
 
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