Making inclines

A small but useful bit of progress on my latest module...

The Mt Adams Railway is, surprisingly enough, a mountain railway. That means there are grades. In the past I have used Woodland Scenics incline sets, which are very good for quickly building up gently inclining railway grades. The problem is, they aren't sold in Masterton. I also have a lot of spare polystyrene, and a hot wire cutter. So why not make my own?

So I clamped my hot wire cutter in my WorkMate portable workbench, and marked out a 1 in 22 grade on a piece of polystyrene with a piece of masking tape. Then I carefully cut along the line on my cutter, making sure it was all nice and square. The masking tape makes it easy to cut straight as it acts like a ruler, stopping the wire from wandering too much.

Then I cut out a zig zag template on my laser cutter:

... taped it to the new incline, and traced each bite with the hot wire cutter. Here I am part way through:

Very easy, quite peaceful work really, if you like polystyrene fumes that is.

End result:

Works exactly as expected!

Now to be fair, the real Woodland Scenics inclines are only $10 or so for a whole set, so this really isn't saving me anything. However:

• I can cut them to any grade I like,
• I can cut them to any length I like,
• I can cut them to any height I like,
• It uses up otherwise scrap polystyrene, and,
• I can make them whenever I like.

Now I just need to a few more and start gluing them down.