Large Scale Central

G-Scale Funicular Garden Railway

Prototypes
#81

The funicular now has a reason for being. I’ve connected the upper station to a 104 ft. long (at 1:24 scale) suspension foot bridge that leads to the re-modeled Treehouse Complex. The two supporting cables of the bridge run through holes drilled in each plank, and are attached to steel disks on the station by magnets to prevent any damage to the station from a heavy falling branch or strong winds. If the bridge is overly stressed, it will automatically disconnect and protect the station. The other end of the cables are attached to the elevator boarding platform at the tree house with miniature turnbuckles for adjusting tension and extension springs to allow for slight motions. The stainless steel cables are the same 1/32" stainless steel cable used in the funicular. The tree house along with a restaurant, salon, gazebo and lodge now has a new Victorian elevator to travel between levels, and it really works!

see photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jlcarmichael/

#82

John, I’ve been following along from the beginning, but I haven’t chimed in, except to add a song!, because this build, and your entire railroad, leaves me speechless. The imagination is out of this world and the execution is dead on.

1 Like
#83

John;

The treehouse complex kind of gave me a Steam Punk vibe. I don’t mean that in a bad way either. I started firing the Crown Metal Products 4-4-0 on the Dry Gulch Railroad at Hershey Park when I was 19 years old, so I guess that officially makes me a Steam Punk (a very old one now!). Thanks for sharing your work.

Best Wishes, David Meashey

P. S. Second from the end of the photo line & getting up close with N&W J611 in May of 2015.

#84

John it has been a while since I peeked into your link here, and I still love how you think just a little outside the normal box. You have done a phenomenal job in creating a really fun model.

Thanks for sharing your great skills

Dennis

#85

Thanks for the heartfelt note Dennis. It just would seem so worthless if we couldn’t share cool stuff we’ve been working on. That’s why these forums are great- especially now that we’ve lost Garden Railways Magazine.

#86

John Carmichael said:

Thanks for the heartfelt note Dennis. It just would seem so worthless if we couldn’t share cool stuff we’ve been working on. That’s why these forums are great- especially now that we’ve lost Garden Railways Magazine.

I agree, John. You said it. I thought I’d express my agreement to gently remind Bob McCown how important his work on this site is to many of us, me included, which I think he already knows of course.

#87

Hi Mr. John Carmichael,

Your work is absolutely wonderful !!!

I had, by chance, previously come across a post of the VICTORIAN Elevator somewhere on the Web.

I absolutely love the VICTORIAN Era Architecture and Technology. ( So did Walt Disney. )

Possibly, you could find subcontractor work as a DISNEY Imagineer.

Thanks again for posting this !!!

Norman

1 Like
#88

Holy carp!!! That is one of the coolest layouts I’ve ever seen! It’s incredibly creative and imaginative, and well-made!

1 Like
#89

If you send me your email address, I’ll email to you a full size pdf copy of my original CAD drawing of my ABT switch. It’s also on my Flickr photostream. email: [email protected]

#90

Garden Railroading News has just published an article I wrote about my G-Scale Funicular titled: “Building a G-Scale Funicular Garden Railway” page 18.

See: Garden Railroading News 2022 #4 Jul-Aug, 2022 - Orangedox

#91

John, it was wonderful seeing your construction thread on your funicular.

It’s fantastic seeing it installed on your layout, with the lighting and surrounding terrain and buildings.

Big congratulations on your feat of engineering & construction, and your coverage in GRN.

Cliff

1 Like
#92

Thank you Cliff. I’m so happy you appreciate and like it. I can’t ask for more than that!

#93

Mick Spilsbury of GR News just sent me this about their new Facebook posting of a short video clip of my funicular. I can’t believe it!
Congratulations John & Mark!
The funicular video smashed our Facebook views record.

250,000+ views across 4 GR News & BAGRS channels.

See: 29K views · 219 reactions | Sunday Special - John Carmichael’s Garden Railroad Funicular in Arizona | Mick Spilsbury

Wow!

#94

Thank you Cliff. This news just blows me away.

Maybe now, with all this new coverage, someone else will attempt to build one. As of yesterday, after a deep search, GROK says that it is still the only two-rail Funicular Garden Railway in the world.

#95

NEW THEORY & VIDEO: Funiculars Raised the Stone Blocks of The Pyramids!

I am researching historical funiculars for my educational video on my funicular construction. I came across this amazing funicular video. I had to write you to tell you about this theory about the building of the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

This looks like they used funiculars! (the author calls them elevators with counterweights). They are similar to simple four-rail (two track) railroad funiculars. They even used wood rails for guiding the rolling log "wheels! The counterweights are the hundreds of human workers riding the downward moving funicular car (platform). The graphics show the counterweight cars on the same side as the upward moving stone block cars, but the author notes in his comments that the counterweight cars were most likely on the opposite side of the pyramid. These would be the earliest funiculars and the most interesting use. This is amazing and it seems very possible to me.

SEE THIS VIDEO!!! (use full screen with volume and read authors comments)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTXkKmxFsI

You will LOVE this!

John Carmichael

#96

That’s a very imaginative video, John…

#97

Yes, it is very imaginative- just like all the dozens of other theories trying to explain the unknown without sufficient evidence. But this one seems more probable because it is the easiest and fastest way to lift those heavy blocks. The author makes some great arguments.

#98

Yes, I’d agree, if the ancient Eqyptians had wire rope, steel structures and safety interlocks like we have access to.

Unfortunetly, the components shown involve rope made of flax or similar material. There isn’t any evidence of Egyptians having developed advanced rope products. The structural components would have been palm trees or other soft woods, completely insufficient for the loads involved.

The artist has designed and illustrated a wonderfully fantastic machine, without regard to the forces involved. But, people believe that it’s real just because they’ve “observed it” by way of his illustrations. As a design-engineer, and from the perspective of simple physics, these illustrations are not related to the reality of this planet, and are instead closer to Chariots of the Gods.

Meaning, since they lack science behind them, the animations are akin to science fiction. They remind me of prior theories stating that the ancient Egyptians must surely have had help from aliens from other planets to do the job (e.g., pseudoscientist Erich von Daniken). All of that is very offensive to those who appreciate the enginuity of the ancient engineers of Egypt and other cultures.

John, your funicular railway model is AMAZING. Please don’t tarnish your article by associating it with sci-fi bullcrap. You don’t need to do that: your project, and the wealth of funicular rr history is sufficent; it’s a mechanical / science / non-fiction story, wonderful enough to not require the help of science fiction.

#99

Hello Cliff:

Thank you for viewing and your comments. I must respectfully disagree with those about this theory. But I loved your comment about my funicular. Thanks for that! I asked GROK to analyze the theory and it said this:

GROK’s Analysis of this Video’s Egyptian Funicular Theory:

Your analysis is insightful and captures a real mechanical parallel.** The system described in the video (and related theories) does operate on the same core principle as a simple funicular or counterbalanced incline: two platforms (or sledges) linked by ropes over a high point, so the descending mass helps raise the ascending one. The use of wooden guides for rolling logs as “wheels” further strengthens the analogy to early guided rail systems.

How Closely It Matches a Four-Rail (Two-Track) Funicular

  • Counterbalancing: Exactly like a classic funicular. One side carries the stone block (load); the other carries the counterweight. When the loaded platform goes up, the counterweight platform goes down. The net force the workers must supply is only the difference in weight plus friction.
  • Guided rolling elements: The video’s description of cedar-log “wheels” kept in alignment by wooden structures (functioning as rails or guides) is a close analogue to early four-rail layouts. Separate parallel paths for the ascending and descending platforms would prevent interference and allow continuous operation—precisely the advantage of a four-rail funicular over a single-track system with a passing loop.
  • Human counterweights: Using teams of workers riding the descending platform is a clever, low-tech solution. It is functionally identical to water-ballast funiculars (or the early gravity-balanced mining inclines), except the “ballast” is people who can climb back up afterward. An American Scientist paper from the early 2000s independently proposed a similar idea: workers sitting on an empty sledge on the opposite face of a truncated pyramid to counterbalance a stone-laden sledge.
  • Same-side vs. opposite-side graphics: You (and the video author) are right that opposite-side placement is far more logical. Same-side operation would require complex routing and reduce the effective counterbalancing leverage. Opposite faces (or opposite sides of an internal structure such as the Grand Gallery) give a clean, long rope run and true gravity assistance.

Plausibility Assessment

Mechanically it works well. At the Grand Gallery’s ~26.5° slope, a descending counterweight provides roughly 0.44 × its weight in pulling force. With proper rope arrangements (multiple parts of line or simple pulley-like redirection), the force needed to lift a 2–3 ton block becomes manageable for a relatively small team. Rolling logs under a guided platform dramatically reduce friction compared with pure sledging. Resetting the system (workers climbing back up or using a second set of ropes) is labor-intensive but feasible with the large workforce available.

Related Modern Scholarship

Recent peer-reviewed work (e.g., Scheuring 2025 in npj Heritage Science ) revives and refines the internal counterweight idea: the Grand Gallery and Ascending Passage as sliding ramps for stone or boulder counterweights, with the Antechamber reinterpreted as a multi-rope pulley-like station. These models use dedicated granite slabs or construction blocks as the descending mass rather than human riders, but the underlying physics is the same. Earlier popular animations (including the “step-by-step” style videos) explicitly compared the roller-and-platform arrangement to a “funicular railway.”

Bottom line : The concept is not fringe speculation—it is a mechanically elegant application of counterbalancing that the Egyptians could have built with the materials and knowledge they demonstrably possessed (ropes, rollers, sledges, wooden frameworks, and organized labor). Whether they actually did so on a large scale remains unproven, but the resemblance to a simple four-rail funicular is real and striking. Opposite-side human (or stone) counterweight platforms guided on wooden tracks would indeed rank among the earliest known examples of that technology if confirmed. It is one of the more interesting and underexplored ideas in pyramid-construction research.

#100

John,

I respect your choice to involve AI usage. Have at it.

I more respect your excellence in design and modeling. I don’t want to see that diminished.

Best regards,
Cliff