[Richard Johnson]

QUOTE (wolverton bloomer @ 1 Feb 2009, 16:28) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>>>>Snip
Ive found that as far as track is concerned Peco is best in terms of looks and availability. I use streamline code 75 which is fine scale but code 100 is available too, which is closer to hornby set track. (OO and HO) They are both compatible with Hornby track and are nickle plated so stand up to "damp" conditions much better than steel track (hornby set track) which will rust. You say you are using the garage for your model railway, is it heated or does it get damp?
>>.Snip

**** Steve, if only you hadn't said "best looking" - it took me ten minutes to pick myself off the floor and stop laughing.

Peco (and Hornby for that matter) track is/are perhaps the most inaccurate model of anything ever produced.

Wrong in sleeper width, length, spacing, position and size of turnout timbers relative to frog and other parts etc etc... wrong check rail spacing, wrong check rail length... and it goes on.

However it is indeed the only readily available track so they get away with it.

*** Chris.

C&L is a far more accurate track than SMP but as DWB said it is bullhead rail and not so appropriate for anything much after WW2. The difference is in the sleepers and chair detail - SMP is a lump, C&L has a proper chair and wedge and also the C&L rail profile is much more accurate.

Re both C&L and SMP, there are no RTR points for it so you would have to make your own unless you buy SMP or C&L made to order...

As far as ready to lay track systems... There really isn't that much choice readily available in UK so Peco really is it unfortunately. Hornby and set-track in general is toy track and best avoided if a realistic model railway is your intent..

If you have mainly models which are less than 20 years old use Peco code 75 as Steve mentioned, ( however a small correction, it is solid Nickel Silver, not plated).

Code 75 looks better and is actually easier to lay well than code 100 as the finer rail profile bends more naturally and doesn't try to kink on curve joints like code 100 does. (BTW the word code refers to the height of the rail in inches - code 100 is 0.10 " high, code 75 is 0.075 " high). Code 75 is closer to the real thing than code 100, but neither are really accurate.

ALl the odels you list will be OK on both C&L, SMP and Peco 75. If the odd item doesn't like the lower rail profile sell it - it'll be old and tired anyway... Better to have a better looking track than toy-sizes rail to run old badly detailed models.

Joining 75 and 100 is easy - just solder them together.

Use Electrofrog turnouts and modify/wire as per the very frequent advice on this list... this will give best running and best reliability. Where possible use large radius, use medium where large won't fit and avoid small radius totally.

regards

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

QUOTE (wolverton bloomer @ 1 Feb 2009, 20:47) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>****
Ive pointed out in the past that Im not a "rivet counter", near enough is good enough. Regards

*** Nor am I really, but do notice when they are missing.

But... I always raise an eyebrow when I see modellers carp about the shape of a window or the curve of a nose or a tumblehome or the thickness of a windscreen wiper on a loco, then happily run it on track thats "sort of totally not right".

My negativity to Peco isn't for any other reason than they could do better if they bothered trying, but simply show no respect at all for the UK modeller by ignoring scale accuracy when all around them go the extra mile to make loco's and stock ever better all the time.

(Yet they very quickly totally retooled to make the US market happier with their code 83, which is not bad at all for US prototype track.)

I do often wonder whether modellers have a vision filter that cuts out all below the chassis rail.

regards

Richard

PS: Yes, I know I over generalised re the dates for Bullhead - I was trying to keep it simple. I photographed a lot of it still in use in UK when I visited relatively recently!

 

[Richard Johnson]

***That'd be fine as a thought if the geometry and engineering of the turnouts was anywhere near accurate for anything anywhere in the world, but it just isn't! (the two may be similar amounts but I don't think it would be so - Sure, there are many, many non-uk prototype modellers using it but also... there are a LOT of expats modelling UK prototype outside the UK!

Richard

QUOTE (Brian Considine @ 2 Feb 2009, 10:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Maybe, just maybe their sales to HO modellers worldwide far outstrip the sales to OO modellers worldwide ?

 

[Richard Johnson]

***Hi Tim

Alex answered it pretty eloquently:

Personally I dislike the look, but my advice was in relation to running reliability issues in the main.

Basically you will restrict the size of loco that can run reilably and murder the realism in the look of anything bigger than a dock shunter or 4 wheel wagon with short points.

However practicality does have to rule so if you can't live with less track and bigger radii, a couple of simple rules will help:

Never use short points for a crossover (they make a sharp S curve which is destined to give trouble) or directly off the main where larger loco's will use them.

Never use one directly off the end of a curve.... same problem as a short point crossover.

Keep them for sidings and storage area so layout look isn't compromised.

regards

Richard

QUOTE (TimP @ 7 Feb 2009, 17:53) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Richard - you advised to avoid short turnouts completely - yet in most of our space constrained lives they are v useful for sidings etc. is it your experience with running qualities or is it the unrealistic look you don't like?

Tim
(currently planning a new layout)

 

[Richard Johnson]

*** Hi Paul,

Finer scale back to backs will run fine on peco points.... in fact 14.75 gives a better run through them.

If you use 1mm flangeways at the frog and 1.1 at the wing rails, it'll take most RTR too.... but do you really want to compromise things that much? Finescale is a good habit worth cultivating. Anyway - their stock will run better on their own layouts too if they make the back to backs consistently 14.5 or greater

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

Hi Paul

Yep, you got it.

In fact some RTR is fine with 1mm flangeways everywhere - I was really surprised when a Bachmann 9F drivers happily travelled through my double slip with 1mm at the frogs and a tiny 0.8mm at the K crossings.... however it wasn't all roses - the pony & tender wheels needed adjustment

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

***Yes, I have heard of them

they work fine but they are an expensive way to make a standard turnout - and a jig is simply not needed.

With your good hand skills you would be much better served by buying the programme "Templot" and learning to make accurate templates for Turkish railways (easier than you think) and also then hand making the turnouts with soldering iron, files, rail cutters, dremel, a couple of our gauges and perhaps one special tool - our frog / common crossing jig.

Fancy jigs like the fastracks just are not really needed and in fact make all turnouts look just like all other turnouts, preventing a nice flowing layout being created! A layout properly designed with a track/turnout design programme like Templot will laways look better track-wise... for two examples, the photo's in my gallery and Jim SW's birmingham new street will show you what I mean - both are created using hand made track and templot.

something to whet your appetite: If you take an average track layout made with RTR pointwork, you could make an equivalent in the same space with the same storage/siding lengths but with more realistic larger frog angle / wider radius pointwork by hand laying them as they can be made to flow more naturally with no preset restrictions. (for example, where RTR may use say # 6 or 6 turnouts, you could use realistic # 8's)

Hand laid track isn't really a great MRF interest... so PM me if you need more direct / specific data on the tools needed / or the techiques.

(and DO immediately take a look at TEMPLOT and join the TEMPLOT forum to see what the possibilities are... You will learn a lot and there are some really helpful people there who love accurate and realistic track as pert of their modelling)

Richard

QUOTE (ebaykal @ 10 Mar 2009, 04:42) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>This thread has become a very good source on the subject of tracks.

I came across these while surfing and to be honest they look far more better than what I have seen so far in relation to tracks/points.

Check it out, specially the slide show:

http://www.handlaidtrack.com/

Richard have you heard of them?

Baykal

 

[Richard Johnson]

*** The nice thing about Templot is the ability to specify a track standard and the turnouts will be set at that standard.... clever ability to create everything needed etc... downside is that its counter intuitive if like me you use adobe creative stuff a lot - I have to shake myself and unlearn keyboard habist if I haven't used it for a while...

However it is easy to get back into the habit and a pleasure to use once the shortcuts come back into the mind ... and Martin supports it brilliantly.

Illustrator is a brilliant bit of software though - I can understand why you use it if you have its mastery under your belt.

I'm about to get into Templot again with a layout for our Focus modelling Group... based on the area of liverpools fringes between Edge Hill and Bootle where L&Y and LNER goods lines parallelled the main lines into Liverpool... It will have a lovely track centrepiece with 2 tracks crossing 4 main lines via diamonds.... bracketed with two double junctions. It will test my patience in Templot and turnout creation!

Actually the ends of the layout have already offered an interesting challenge.... The layout is back to back with an AU prototype layout... both effectively about 45 feet long, and we share the end spaces with two contra rotating helixes each end, average diamter 2.6 metres.... one 6 track becoming 8 for the UK layout (at 1 in 100 max) and one only 2 tracks and mercifully steeper so I don't have too much more ply to cut - they have already consumed 9x 2400 x 1200 sheets!!

UK layout will be C&L and steel rail....

Regards

Richard

QUOTE (jim s-w @ 24 Jun 2009, 17:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi Richard

While the approach is the same I don't actually use templot. Preferring to use illustrator instead as its what I am used to. I am sure Templot is much easier if starting from scratch.

Cheers

Jim

 

[Richard Johnson]

***Silurian

In UK, contact Brian Lewis at C&L who could put you in touch with local bespoke turnout people. You have the choice of several who do a nice job.

re joining it, I laid over 400 metres of C&L bullhead track and used not one rail joiner. I simply butted them together carefully so to speak, using a wood block at exactly gauge width to ensure alignment as the glue dried to hold them in place. You should get a couple of lengths of C&L bullhead track and see how well it bends!

if you feel uncomfortable with that, then I'd think an N scale joiner would do it fine - I did actually look at Z joiners which nearly fit (I was experimenting/looking at ways to hinge double slip blades) but they are a wee bit too tight really....

Neil. If there's nobody local put out a call on the BRMA egroup - there are several who can do it well on that list.... and you have at least one local BRMA member who could do it I think... If U have no luck, and can be patient, then email me.

Optionally of course, there are UK people who do it and can post a parcel I really have no idea as to their costs though

Richard

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

***Brossard.... don't confuse the cosmetic brass and plastic "fisjplates" with isolation or not.... whilst they are of course conducting or not as the case may be, their primary purpose is purely cosmetic.

The best of the brass fishplates are by Brassmasters - C&L's are good, but perhaps slightly too big. The plastic C&L ones are very big....

Good to see you are making pointwork - it gets easier every time, and as you say, its not too hard, and can be a very pleasurable and statisfying part of the hobby!

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

***Peter, soldering is just like glueing only easier once you understand the process itself.

What other way of attaching things is almost instant, strong immediately and can be re-done with no problems at all if you make a mistake? Look here: I guarantee you will have all the data you need to become a soldering expert if you spend the time to read and understand.

http://www.dccconcepts.com/index_files/DCCsoldering1.htm

regards

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

*** Hi Silurian

C&L makes a slight compromise on width and sleeper length with the OO track to keep proportions right, so there is a difference between OO and EM/P4.

Read through my soldering pages, get hold of my 179 solder and flux and even with a naff Iron, providing its able to deliver heat reasonably, I'd be betting you can make a good solder joint.

You can practice on Peco offcuts

If necessary, I can talk you through it on the phone.

Have a go - you will be pleasantly surprised

Richard

 

[Richard Johnson]

***You already have a good example of C&L track on a parallel thread

here: http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index...ost&id=1149

regards

Richard

QUOTE (PeterPug @ 1 Jul 2009, 04:18) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Additional comment:

I think there would be less questions about track from us in the wilderness if the likes of C&L, Peco, SMP/Marcway would put some photographs on their sites....