mattmagic2009 wrote:

> Has anyone tried to model the following attractions because some
> suggestions would be appriciated if you have had any experiences.
>
> Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Wdw0
> Splash Mountain (wdw)
> Space Mountain (wdw)
> Expedition Everest

The big challenge to all of these is that they are gravity-powered
attractions. This means that any model, no matter how accurate, will not
run at what looks like a reasonable speed. Of course, if you're just
building static models, this doesn't matter, but if it does, you have
several options:

1. Build it as is and let it roll fast.*

2. Build it with a powered chain drive that keeps a constant speed.

3. Build it with a series of chain drives that go slowly uphill and
faster down.

4. Built it with powered ride vehicles (and probably some form of cog
drive) that lets you control the speed based on the location along the
track. I have control circuits to make this happen if you can build the
vehicles.


All of the above can still have brakes for station stops. If you plan to
run more than one vehicle at a time, you'll need not only station
brakes, but section brakes as well to avoid collisions. The circuitry to
make this automatic is pretty simple, consisting primarily of photocells
and relays.

Expedition Everest has that nasty reverse section. Turns out this can be
modeled very simply with no moving parts at the switches (unless you
really want to model them as well).

The term "chain drive" above could also include flywheel motors (a la
Matterhorn) or linear induction motors (a la TTA).

* You can film a free-rolling model to look realistic by setting your
camera speed to the square root of the scale ratio. Thus in 1/4" = 1',
the scale ratio is 1:48, the square root of 48 is about 6.9, so if you
run your film about 7 times faster than normal, the resulting film will
come out looking right. Be sure to speed up your lift ramps by the same
ratio!

Do keep us informed if you elect to build one. There's lots of data and
advice available on this forum, and we'd like nothing better than to
help you figure out the sticky points.

Bruce
Lake Buena Vista, FL