Adding a second deck for the narrow gage - Part 1

 

There's going to be a new narrow gage town on the Burrlington Northern soon! This just shows a mock-up, but there is more to come. The square hole in the backdrop, in the upper right hand corner of the photo, shows the current "end of track" where the narrow gage winds up a helix between some heading ducts. A short stretch of trestles and bridges will get it over to this proposed shelf, made of 1" Gatorboard. At the moment I am mocking up the proposed new upper deck, to see how it will affect lighting on the deck below and other considerations of feasibility and desireability. Here's a photo of it from below:

Of course we will paint the bottom sky blue to increase reflected light on the lower deck, and give it a backdrop, but as you will see in the photos below, thanks to the low angle of the already existing track lights, the effect of this massive shelf on the lower deck is surprisingly minimal. Here's another shot, taken from even higher than my 70" eye level:

This deck, at about 68" above the (slightly sloping) floor, will be visible at eye level to tall people like me, and operable by anyone with a suitable stool. It's an important strategic addition because it gives the narrow gage line "someplace to go" beyond the already exising intermediate towns of Paradise and Hope. In addition to this new town, I also plan to wrap the line around the corner to the left and build a combination staging yard and stock pen(s). There couldn't be a better time to work on this, because in Sept 2022 the National Narrow Gauge Convention will be held in nearby Tacoma and people from around the world might want to come egg me on. Or, maybe I could take one of the removable modules down to the convention for viewing. But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

Here's a final shot (for today) of that further addition mocked up - note how little it interferes with the lower deck lighting. The next step is to finalize the supporting brackets. One of my goals for the project is to have each of these shelves easily removable so we can do most of the modeling at the workbench rather than up that close to the ceiling. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated! I am really liking the dimensional stability of these 1" Gatorboard panels, but this is the first time I've tried using them for a layout base. Will keep you posted...