16 and a bit give or take mm gauge

[DCB]

Last evening I fired up my (t)rusty lathe and made a track gauge.   Triang Coaches with Hornby wheels have been derailing at a couple of points on the layout and I suspect the track is wide to gauge coming off the lift out section.

 

I carefully marked up a bit of brass rod and cut a couple of grooves to match a bit of streamline track, double checked it with a 3ft radius point and also a but of awful "GT" track. and deepened the grooves to snugly fit over the rail heads.  So far so good.

I then reduced the diameter to leave effectively 4 collars around a slim shaft so I could check the gauge part way through points.

Still so far so good.

I then tried the gauge through some streamline points. They were tight to gauge. The frog end curve went from good to 1mm tight in the 15mm or so of the short rails which are straight whereas the long rail has an even curve.

 

Worse still my set track, Triang Series 3. std grey, and Super 4 are all tight to gauge compared to streamline by quite a bit.

Can anyone explain?  Is Triang really 00 sf gauge?

[asmay2002]

Last evening I fired up my (t)rusty lathe and made a track gauge.   Triang Coaches with Hornby wheels have been derailing at a couple of points on the layout and I suspect the track is wide to gauge coming off the lift out section.

 

I carefully marked up a bit of brass rod and cut a couple of grooves to match a bit of streamline track, double checked it with a 3ft radius point and also a but of awful "GT" track. and deepened the grooves to snugly fit over the rail heads.  So far so good.

I then reduced the diameter to leave effectively 4 collars around a slim shaft so I could check the gauge part way through points.

Still so far so good.

I then tried the gauge through some streamline points. They were tight to gauge. The frog end curve went from good to 1mm tight in the 15mm or so of the short rails which are straight whereas the long rail has an even curve.

 

Worse still my set track, Triang Series 3. std grey, and Super 4 are all tight to gauge compared to streamline by quite a bit.

Can anyone explain?  Is Triang really 00 sf gauge?

You'll have to measure yours but I believe streamline flexitrack is about 16.7mm so that when you flex it for the curves it stays greater than 16.5.

[PatB]

Can't really offer anything constructive with regard to gauge, but can I ask what is awful about the GT track? It's attractively cheap(er than Streamline anyway), but, presumably, there's a reason for that.

[DCB]

Can't really offer anything constructive with regard to gauge, but can I ask what is awful about the GT track? It's attractively cheap(er than Streamline anyway), but, presumably, there's a reason for that.

The chair mouldings on my box of about 25 yards of GT were so big that flanges hit them on wagons which are fine on Peco and the rail ends were just roughly cut and every one needed to be filed up.

 

You'll have to measure yours but I believe streamline flexitrack is about 16.7mm so that when you flex it for the curves it stays greater than 16.5.

Sounds feasible, I made the gauge tool because it is so difficult to measure the gauge accurately while soldering rails to PCB or screws, this variation is most unexpected.

[Pete the Elaner]

DOGA already make these gauges in both 'Universal' & 'Finescale' forms.

[DCB]

DOGA already make these gauges in both 'Universal' & 'Finescale' forms.

Which would rather prove my point that Streamline seems to vary between the two, and why would set track be finescale?