graduated pier set for On30 village sets

[Barbara Landino]

I have a Christmas set that I put in a Dept. village (engine, tender and two passenger cars). I saw a graduated pier set on Amazon that looked perfect for me to use in a village for a month or so. The reviews on Amazon are mixed on whether it can support the engine and cars and that getting the grade correctly can be problematic. Can someone comment on how to avoid slippage, etc. and go into some detail as to how to achieve the right spacing and gradient? One of the reviewers suggested two sets combined would be better.  I am less than a novice. When Bachmann came up with E-Z track, they were thinking of me. Thank you.

[mabloodhound]

Barbara, they WILL support your engine if you're using the EZ track.   But don't get the track so steep that it causes the engine to slip when running.  And remember, if the track goes UP it must come down; so yes, you will need two sets.

[Len]

The EZ-Track graduated  pier set includes the pieces to go up and come back down. The problem is, it's a fairly steep grade that some locos have trouble climbing.

The suggestion of combining two sets of piers, if you have the room, is to ease the grade for the EZ-Track. Doing this makes the distance to go up, and then back down, longer.

Measure the height difference between adjacent piers in a set. Find another use for the tallest piers in one set, then make shims half that thickness of the height difference and put them under the remaining piers of that set. Starting from the tallest regular pier, alternate regular (R) and shimmed (S) piers using the standard spacing. So you end up with: Top of Grade R-S-R-S-R-S-R Bottom of Grade until your level again.

Len

[Barbara Landino]

This is great information. As it happens, today I found a train shop that had the pier sets and they had several set up in their display (which was full of Dept 56), they showed me how the pieces went together and talked about the gradient.  I bought one specifically for On30 and some  extra EZ track. Thank you for that ratio of shimmed to regular piers.