Raising the Western Hoosic Division Layout
Lou SassiDescription
One interesting thing on Lou Sassi’s Western Hoosic Division layout is that he raised it 8 inches from 32 inches now to 40. One would think this would be a huge job that required a lot of help, but for Lou it wasn’t. For him, it was the worrying involved that was more of the problem, not the actual execution. The whole project took about 5 hours.
One member of his group of fellow modelers known as the Tree Group is known to come up with all kinds of handy ideas for layouts. This member was at Lou’s house one evening and Lou was telling him that for the past decade he had been thinking about raising the layout. Lou asked him how he thought he could go about raising it. They started discussing how it would be built and counted up the number of legs on the layout.
The layout is on L girders and has 32 2 by 4 legs. His friend’s suggestion was to use threaded rods mounted alongside the 2 by 4 legs with brackets, running a nut up the threaded rods and turning the nuts against the mounts on the legs. This way he could use the rods as jacks to lift up the layout. For more tips for planning your layout, visit the Model Railroad Academy website.
One other interesting thing I think about the layout, you raised it eight inches. From 32 inches to now it's at 40. Why did you do that? And that had to be a huge job. You had to get lots of help and, you know, carjacks or No, actually it wasn't. It was, I think, worrying about it was more of a problem than actually doing it. The whole project took probably about five hours, believe it or not. One member of the tree group is Biaggio Pace and he's a pretty handy fellow. He comes up with all kinds of ideas about all kinds of things, not just model railroading. And I had him down here one evening and I was telling him that for about the last decade or so I've been thinking about raising a layout and I asked him how he thought I could do it. So, we got to discussing how it was built and we counted up the number of legs we have on it and being L, it's it's on L girders and it has 30 two by four legs. And his suggestion was to use threaded rods mounted alongside the two by four legs with brackets and running a nut up the threaded rods and turning the nuts against the mounts on the legs to use the rods in essence, as jacks.
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