Peco Bullhead Points: in the flesh

[MJI]

How does the new track connect up to flat bottom code 100?

 

My main lines are being laid out of code 100 concrete sleeper, and I want to add a large amount of BH sidings to one section (under design)

 

Code 100 FB concrete seems to nicely do heavy main line stuff.

[Merfyn Jones]

How does the new track connect up to flat bottom code 100?

 

My main lines are being laid out of code 100 concrete sleeper, and I want to add a large amount of BH sidings to one section (under design)

 

Code 100 FB concrete seems to nicely do heavy main line stuff.

 

Simple answer it doesn't. However the real thing is joined using special fish-plates or welding. On our layout we use Code 100 for the fiddle yard and Peco bullhead for the scenic section. 

A simple solution is to fit the 100 rail with the normal fish-plates and slot the bullhead in and solder it to the plate then a gentle joggle  can be made to the plate with small pliers, to raise the heads to align. It worked for me.

[LNER4479]

I've been pondering this a while, and apologies for going back up the thread a bit, I've decided in the light of this that I don't understand what defines a facing point and so I'd be grateful for being put right. On the ECML as I travel up and down there are goods loops, and station loops, both with points at each end, the 125s and electrics and whatever all go through these at 100+ when staying on the main and since the slowing trains go forwards into the loop to the station platform (eg at Retford and Peterborough, there are others) and forwards back onto the main it seems to me that logically one or other end must be a 'facing point'. So which end, and if not why is this not an fp, and what is it called instead, and if its the case they are fp's on the main at full speed which era did those strictures against facing points discussed above stop being true, and why? Confused.

Apologies from being a few posts behind and I know you've already had a couple of responses to this, but...

 

The categorisation of point as 'facing' is in relation to the normal (ie non-emergency) direction of travel of the trains along the line that the points are on. So, in your example of loops off a main line, the first point the train encounters is the facing point as that causes the train to diverge away from the mainline. That proved itself countless times over railway history to be the more dangerous scenario as it can cause a train to diverge itself into the path of another one if something has gone 'wrong', hence the addition of the additional protection arrangements. At the other end of the loop, the point is a trailing point, where the two routes converge back together again. Less dangerous, although still not recommended to run through them if set incorrectly. Of course, if the line is signalled for trains running in both direction then both points would be facing.

 

A big difference between the railway of today and the traditional, mechanically signalled railway of yore (where the new bullhead track is more typical) is that the facing point locking was achieved in completely different ways. On the mechanical railway, a locking bar fitted into a slot mid-way along the tie-bar between the point blades, requiring the signalman to pull the locking lever (to release the lock), change the points, then reset the locking lever to lock them again. Modern, powered points use a clamp-lock arrangement - if you like a G-clamp - that firmly holds the switch rail against the stock rail as has already been described. This is much safer and easier (for the signaller) to operate as it all happens in one movement. This in itself removed much of the 'fear' surrounding facing points. As a consequence, the modern railway has far fewer slips and crossings and a lot more plain crossovers, often combined to create 'ladders' of crossovers. Single track junctions have replaced double track junctions, etc.

 

As if to illustrate exactly why the Midland railway had such a fear of facing points, a bizarre accident occurred on their magnum opus Settle & Carlisle railway in the early 1950's that was all to do with facing points. As built, there was - famously - only one facing point on the whole 72 mile length (the double track junction at Appleby), hence goods trains routinely set back into sidings, etc (as has already been alluded to) as part of the normal working arrangements on the line. As a war-time expedient, the lie bye sidings at Blea Moor were converted into loops to speed up the process of recessing slower moving goods trains to allow faster traffic to overtake. This led to the Thames-Clyde express (no less) being completed derailed when the tender brake gear of the leading loco (Compound) clouted the otherwise-locked-in-position tie bar on the facing point (obviously a maintenance fault with the loco as the brake gear shouldn't have been hanging down so). This impact then left the switch blade standing off slightly such that the bogie of the train loco (Royal Scot) split the points, leading to the inevitable. Pictures of the accident are quite spectacular but, remarkably, there were no fatalities.

 

Study of the present day railway should be treated with extreme caution if contemplating a model of a steam age railway! What's that saying about 'I wouldn't start from here...'?

[coachmann]

How does the new track connect up to flat bottom code 100?

 

My main lines are being laid out of code 100 concrete sleeper, and I want to add a large amount of BH sidings to one section (under design)

 

Code 100 FB concrete seems to nicely do heavy main line stuff.

Bullhead connects to Code 75 with Peco SL-110 standard rail joiners. Code 75 readily connects to Code 100 via a Peco special adapter length of track. Answer, buy a Peco Transition Track Code SL-113.

[martin_wynne]

The Buttevant railway disaster in Ireland in 1980 was caused by incorrectly set facing points. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttevant_Rail_Disaster

 

Martin.

[TheSignalEngineer]

 

 

A big difference between the railway of today and the traditional, mechanically signalled railway of yore (where the new bullhead track is more typical) is that the facing point locking was achieved in completely different ways. On the mechanical railway, a locking bar fitted into a slot mid-way along the tie-bar between the point blades, requiring the signalman to pull the locking lever (to release the lock), change the points, then reset the locking lever to lock them again. Modern, powered points use a clamp-lock arrangement - if you like a G-clamp - that firmly holds the switch rail against the stock rail as has already been described. This is much safer and easier (for the signaller) to operate as it all happens in one movement. This in itself removed much of the 'fear' surrounding facing points. As a consequence, the modern railway has far fewer slips and crossings and a lot more plain crossovers, often combined to create 'ladders' of crossovers. Single track junctions have replaced double track junctions, etc.

 

Many electric point machines e.g. the HW series still use a Bolt Lock through a stretcher. When Clamp Locks were originally introduced we had to get special permission from HMRI to use them on Facing Points, and then only up to 40mph. They were a cheap, nasty solution developed by BR in the late 1960s. They didn't get widespread approval until the mid to late 1970s and were so good they had to have a virtually complete redesign before the end of the 1980s. The Mk1 version was rubbish in service, I remember having to do an emergency fix of installing support brackets under them because they were prone to body cracks which meant they could fall off and still show locked and detected. They were supposed to tolerate bad PWay but that was a salesman's myth and were useless in situations where there was a lot of coal dust. (Rant Over).

 

They were re-invented as in-bearer clamp locks around 2000. I've not had much experience of these as they were just coming into use as I was preparing my path to retirement. As with all equipment, time in service will show which machines are good and stay the course. After all, the machines like the HW series, Westinghouse 63 and Surelock have a lineage that can be traced back over 100 years.

[Oldddudders]

After all, the machines like the HW series, Westinghouse 63 and Surelock have a lineage that can be traced back over 100 years.

I had to stop and think there, but then remembered that the original Westinghouse frame for Victoria Eastern went down with the Lusitania in 1915, so power points were in use well before then.

[Dagworth]

Bullhead connects to Code 75 with Peco SL-110 standard rail joiners. Code 75 readily connects to Code 100 via a Peco special adapter length of track. Answer, buy a Peco Transition Track Code SL-113.

Or the conversion joiners that allow one to connect directly to the other 

 

https://www.peco-uk.com/product.asp?strParents=3309,3322&CAT_ID=3327&P_ID=17417

 

Andi

[St Enodoc]

If this is the case (and, as has been said, there's nothing wrong with that at all), then it stands to reason that the number of modellers using Streamline points and flexible track are far fewer. Those handbuilding their own pointwork will be fewer still.

If Peco took a bit of a gamble all those years ago to offer an alternative to Setrack, then I guess it was a bigger gamble still to offer the new bullhead range. One that will surely pay off, judging by comments and sales. I think they've been around long enough to know the market and to know what is a gamble too far.

As much as I may like to replicate a one-off item of pointwork, I know that's not going to happen, unless I pay someone to do it for me. "Better-looking" will have to suffice, as the learning curve of handbuilt pointwork does not particularly appeal. If that ties me to a certain geometry, I can live with that.

Those of us using RMWeb can sometimes forget that we're in a minority. For every modeller here, there are no doubt 99 others who don't participate in forums. Peco need to go after the 99 as well as the 1. That said, I certainly will be interested to see what they announce next.

I agree with the thrust of your argument Pete, but for the sake of accuracy I would point out that Streamline was introduced many years before Setrack.

[Anglian]

I was on a train that derailed as it travelled over a facing point. We were going very slowly when it happened. I thought the coach was going to topple over but fortunately we just went bumping along the sleepers. We were almost directly in front of a signal box as it happened. The worst aspect was the metal grills falling out of the ceiling onto people. I called the emergency services from the train as nobody else was doing anything to help. I had to give an assessment of the passenger numbers and level of injuries. The news that evening quoted my highest possible number of passengers on board, that I gave the 999 operator, given we were eight semi-full coaches. They didn't use the actual number that we turned out to be – about 200. It was a long time before the driver made any announcement. Passengers were most concerned, and rightly so, about another train running into us.

 

We had to give our addresses before we could exit the station – I think my ticket price got refunded. Few folks in shock for sure.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Anglian

[Mike Storey]

It is difficult to resolve the desire between prototypical-looking track and a mass market. My priority is for the appearance of a train as it negotiates a set of points. That is why I have chosen to use Code 83 FB, using primarily #8 turnouts, for my main running lines, set in Kent in 1980-ish. But if laid as supplied, it does not look "British", so a degree of fettling and then heavy weathering is needed to make it seem a little bit so.

 

But I am still buying this Code 75 BH track and pointwork, at standard code 75 geometry, for my sidings, where the freight trains using them will not look so toy-like. I have built the odd piece of pointwork in the distant past (using SMP in 00 and Tenmille in SM32, and before Templot was widely available), but primarily in the soldered to copperclad sleeper variety for 00 - it gained superior geometry but, in no way, looked realistic on close-up view. I still had to use the heavy weathering technique to hide the flaws. (In SM32 it was brilliant, but modern equivalent RTL is just as good.)

 

Whilst I would dearly love RTL #8 turnouts in BH, I do not see Peco being the supplier for them in future, as not enough people commercially, even on here, seem to see the appearance of bogie stock transiting them as an equal priority to the appearance of the track itself. That suggests the far wider market will not do so either - if the market puts up with 2ft radius curves, it will put up with this. Which means we, as in the oddball fraternity, either pay the sort of prices necessary for C&L or Marcway to build them for us, or wait to see if DCC Concepts do that, or build them ourselves.

 

But, as others have said, moaning about existing products has, at least partially, helped to improve the offer from manufacturers, over time (a very long time in the case of 00), but it also needs a commercial imperative. I do not think there are enough of us around to make that work. Maybe DCC Concepts will go that far, but at a price.

[TheSignalEngineer]

 Thread drift alert.

I had to stop and think there, but then remembered that the original Westinghouse frame for Victoria Eastern went down with the Lusitania in 1915, so power points were in use well before then.

Is that why it had a GRS Slide Frame?

 

On my previous comment, I think the first Electro-Pneumatic installation in UK was probably Whitechapel on the GER in 1899. The first Crewe All-Electric boxes were done in Basford Hall Yard c1901.

[Chamby]

Bullhead connects to Code 75 with Peco SL-110 standard rail joiners. Code 75 readily connects to Code 100 via a Peco special adapter length of track. Answer, buy a Peco Transition Track Code SL-113.

I have joined code 100 FB rail directly to the new BH. If you grind down the end of the code 100 so that you are just left with the flat bottom bit, you can then solder the BH onto this and it is the right height - gives you a solid and smooth transition.

 

Phil

[Pacific231G]

If this is the case (and, as has been said, there's nothing wrong with that at all), then it stands to reason that the number of modellers using Streamline points and flexible track are far fewer. Those handbuilding their own pointwork will be fewer still.

If Peco took a bit of a gamble all those years ago to offer an alternative to Setrack, then I guess it was a bigger gamble still to offer the new bullhead range. One that will surely pay off, judging by comments and sales. I think they've been around long enough to know the market and to know what is a gamble too far.

You're right about them knowing the market but, as St. Enodoc says, they didn't take your original gamble. Streamline came long before Peco introduced Setrack and at that time they were offering the fibre based Pecoway track RTL and components for hand built track, both FB and BH. The gamble was to introduce a flexible track based on injection moulded plastic- which at that time involved a very large investment in tooling- and they reduced that gamble by making a track that could be sold into both the almost purely British OO market  and the much larger worldwide market for H0. The gamble was possibly to go for close spaced sleepering (60cm in H0 scale) but in the event Streamline proved extremely popular and the close sleepering also made the track stronger. . 

 

I think the "toy" manufacturers such as Tri-ang were also using injection moulding  but they would have had larger economies of scale and the other "scale " RTL track manufacturers such as Gem, Graham Farish and a few other were AFAIK still only offering fibre based track. 

 

The first Streamline points were the current short (nominally 2 ft radius) which is interesting as the Pecoway range was based on the nominal three foot radius points that most modellers using hand laid track at that time also seemed to favour,  but at that time the other RTL track manufacturers were also tending to offer two foot radius as standard. Medium radius points came later and the large radius the BH points arwe based on came much later.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Pacific231G

[martin_wynne]

The first Streamline points were the current short (nominally 2 ft radius) which is interesting as the Pecoway range was based on the nominal three foot radius points

 

Almost certainly to keep the moulding size as short as possible, to keep within the platen size and ton-lock available on their (first?) moulding machine.

 

The original Peco Streamline turnouts were hand-assembled, not insert-moulded. So they have now come full circle. 

 

Martin.

[Guest]

I agree with the thrust of your argument Pete, but for the sake of accuracy I would point out that Streamline was introduced many years before Setrack.

 

You're right about them knowing the market but, as St. Enodoc says, they didn't take your original gamble. Streamline came long before Peco introduced Setrack...

 

Thanks guys, that's interesting. I had simply assumed that Streamline was the (relative) new kid on the block and that Setrack in some form or other had been around forever. Does anyone know exactly when Streamline flexible track was introduced? Is what you can buy today (Code 100 wood sleeper) unchanged over the years? Ignoring the sleeper spacing (which would open a whole other can of worms), it would appear to have stood the test of time.

[Oldddudders]

 Thread drift alert.

 

Is that why it had a GRS Slide Frame?

Thanks for putting me right! I had pulled the ‘umbrella handles’ during a morning spent in Vic E in 1967, but quite forgotten whose frame.

[PatB]

Thanks guys, that's interesting. I had simply assumed that Streamline was the (relative) new kid on the block and that Setrack in some form or other had been around forever. Does anyone know exactly when Streamline flexible track was introduced? Is what you can buy today (Code 100 wood sleeper) unchanged over the years? Ignoring the sleeper spacing (which would open a whole other can of worms), it would appear to have stood the test of time.

 

I don't think Streamline has changed all that much. Once upon a time it had notches under the sleepers to take a contact strip (also a Peco product) for stud-contact electrification which, I believe, has now been eliminated. Otherwise it looks much the same to me as it always has. Not bad for a 50+ year product life. That's plain track, of course. Historical detail variation of pointwork has, IiRC, been extensively discussed on RMWeb.

[St Enodoc]

Thanks guys, that's interesting. I had simply assumed that Streamline was the (relative) new kid on the block and that Setrack in some form or other had been around forever. Does anyone know exactly when Streamline flexible track was introduced? Is what you can buy today (Code 100 wood sleeper) unchanged over the years? Ignoring the sleeper spacing (which would open a whole other can of worms), it would appear to have stood the test of time.

I haven't got access to my records at the moment, but as far as I recall Streamline was introduced in 1962. I remember two promotional photos - one of a yard length curled up into a trefoil shape like an old-fashioned carpet beater and one of an oval of Streamline - complete with Tri-ang Nellie and a few wagons - laid on the rear parcel self of an Austin or Morris 1100.

 

At that time sectional track meant Tri-ang Series 3 (obsolescent) or Super 4, Hornby-Dublo or possibly Trix. Tri-ang Hornby System 6 came later (1970-ish?) and then Peco Setrack, which shared the geometry of System 6.

[Guest]

I haven't got access to my records at the moment, but as far as I recall Streamline was introduced in 1962.

 

Thanks. After a little search through RMWeb, I found this by Pacific231G...

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/103006-peco-ooho-large-radius-point-measurement-query/?p=2020599

 

...showing an ad from Christmas 1962.

It certainly has been around a good while.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Pete 75C

[Oldddudders]

I must have bought my first Streamline in the very early days of the product. Farish’s Formoway was the chief rival, also having plastic sleepers, but it was less flexible, and the points were adept at shedding their tie-bar. Undoubtedly the better product survived.

[Fat Controller]

I must have bought my first Streamline in the very early days of the product. Farish’s Formoway was the chief rival, also having plastic sleepers, but it was less flexible, and the points were adept at shedding their tie-bar. Undoubtedly the better product survived.

At the time, Formoway offered a wider choice of points than Streamline, with both single and double-slips, as well as curved and three-way points. Once the rather feeble tie-bar had been replaced with a soldered Paxolin one, they were virtually bomb-proof.

[neilkirby]

I think we all to some extent wish to push Peco to what we as individuals want to see, and so offer up corresponding arguments of why we think it is the right way to go. Personally I have no idea. But I do think the answer lies on what Peco's overall strategy is for this product, whether they see it as a completely new market, or an upgrade/replacement to their existing range. Assuming it now proven that Peco are committed to the existing geometry then it looks like the latter. If this is the case then to me it is logical to think that they will look at recent sales volumes of there existing range and base the decision on what is to be produced next on that, thus leading to the quickest return on their investment.  Alternatively if they do see it as a minority niche product filling a gap somewhere between code 75 and hand built. then I wouldn't hazard a guess at what comes next. 

 

The other potential factor is the announcements of other manufacturers, maybe Peco intend to leave the 'Realife' geometry to these. but have staked a claim to head off their rivals in what they see as their bread and butter market? Either way interesting times ahead.

 

Neil

[hayfield]

I must have bought my first Streamline in the very early days of the product. Farish’s Formoway was the chief rival, also having plastic sleepers, but it was less flexible, and the points were adept at shedding their tie-bar. Undoubtedly the better product survived.

 

 

What about the GEM turnouts with a softish cast common crossing where the exit rail often snapped off.

 

I still have a few of the original Peco Turnout kits which I am saving for a retro layout based on a CJF BLT

[LNER4479]

For one of my Peco track adapting/bending/hacking demos, I was given a few old, battered Peco points to away with. One of them was a REALLY old one, of a type I hadn't seen before. Just taken a few pix:

 

 

 

 

Note how the switch rails are hinged all the way from the frog. And looks like someone has had tie-bar issues at some time.

 

I think we've come a long way in the last 50 odd years!