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Practical Peco Bullhead Trackwork


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Why should we be comparing this with previous track?

 

Either you have this on your layout or you don't. 

 

It is not as if the real BR railway had a variety of track standards on one section of main line. 

Edited by jonny777
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It is not as if the real BR railway had a variety of track standards on one section of main line. 

 

Are you kidding Network Rail is using track to three different straight plain line track gauges alone at the moment  1432mm, 1435mm and 1438mm.

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Has anyone had any experience of the electrical continuity of the new bullhead rail joiners. I have recently been laying a new section to the layout using the bullhead rail and have connected droppers to every section of track, even the shortest ones as I was concerned about the loss of power to the rails in future with such a small contact area.

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Has anyone had any experience of the electrical continuity of the new bullhead rail joiners. I have recently been laying a new section to the layout using the bullhead rail and have connected droppers to every section of track, even the shortest ones as I was concerned about the loss of power to the rails in future with such a small contact area.

It's never really a good idea to rely on rail joiners for continuity.

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  • RMweb Gold

Has anyone had any experience of the electrical continuity of the new bullhead rail joiners. I have recently been laying a new section to the layout using the bullhead rail and have connected droppers to every section of track, even the shortest ones as I was concerned about the loss of power to the rails in future with such a small contact area.

You are doing exactly what you should irrespective of track type. You have guaranteed conductivity throughout. The extra effort now will ensure fewer frustrations in future. Even the tightest joiners can suffer humidity etc problems on occasions.

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You are doing exactly what you should irrespective of track type. You have guaranteed conductivity throughout. The extra effort now will ensure fewer frustrations in future. Even the tightest joiners can suffer humidity etc problems on occasions.

I would echo the comment from Ian regarding the reliance on rail joiners. 

 

There is also the question of RESISTIVITY - a measure of the resisting power of a specified material to the flow of an electric current.  That means the finer the rail section the more loss of power.  So adequate feeds are important. 

 

I also note that we have an element of the Harry Enfield character 'You don't want to do it like that' creeping in......

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Bit puzzled here are you telling us exactly what style of fishplate is correct, while knowing so little about track that you are not able to identify the difference between bullhead and flatbottom rail? 

 

Given that most users of bullhead track will be modelling steam era will be using the standard fishplates which fit into the web of the rail, well that's the evidence I have seen when looking at photos and preserved railways.

 

Now I am not telling folk that they should not be using rail joiners, just a point in fact that a rail joiner is what its said a rail joiner!! Granted the new peco offering is much closer in size and looks to the fishplates I have seen, but in my humble opinion they do look different with the exception of a few exceptions

 

post-1131-0-62288300-1529657510.jpeg

 

Sorry for the quality of the photo, but as you can see the foot of the rail is clearly visible, as it is on virtually all the photo's I look at. Do go ahead and use rail joiners, but if I bought this product described as a fishplate I would be very dissapointed

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It may be worth pointing out that in the Peco system, the rail joiners are not just for joining rails together while the rails are held in the same larger unit - they are for joining whole units of the system together, where the only physical connection between those units are the joiners. E.g. for joining a length of flexi-track to another, or to a set of points.

 

Granted you may want to use third party fishplates and other detailing elements to improve your trackwork - so it is relevant to discuss them but I think it's peripheral to the subject of the practical use of the Peco Bullhead system.

Edited by Harlequin
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Another benefit of the Peco type rail joiner is that it maintains the 2 rails together in the same position vertically.

 

Using plastic or cast brass fishplates do not fix the rail heights so that a step condition is likely if a number of other factors are not controlled.

 

They may look better but they are purely cosmetic.

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BH%20FB%20joint.jpg

 

Nothing un-prototypical about having a step in the rail head, provided you don't mind modeling the work of the sub competent.

 

 

Is it just me but are hayfields rail joints in the photo way too far open, I think in real life that there would have to be a speed restriction on them and I would be seriously considering the state of the bolts.  :) 

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BH%20FB%20joint.jpg

 

Nothing un-prototypical about having a step in the rail head, provided you don't mind modeling the work of the sub competent.

 

 

Is it just me but are hayfields rail joints in the photo way too far open, I think in real life that there would have to be a speed restriction on them and I would be seriously considering the state of the bolts.  :)

 

 

The advice from the designer is to file a notch in both ends of the webs, Camera enlarges/accentuates the gap but also for electrical seperation

 

Had no issues in differing rail heights, though this could occur  if adjoining sleepers/timbers differed in height. 

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Has anyone had any experience of the electrical continuity of the new bullhead rail joiners. I have recently been laying a new section to the layout using the bullhead rail and have connected droppers to every section of track, even the shortest ones as I was concerned about the loss of power to the rails in future with such a small contact area.

Although I have subsequently laid track "properly" with droppers etc - including some soldered to the rail joiners I was very pleasant surprised that with a test track of several bits of track laid loose on the board with a few of the points in place everything ran very well - i was using 4 axle diesels prior to unifrogs being wired up.

Edited by Gilbert
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Yep, I'm using Peco Bull-head track with the new layout I'm building, with Marcway pointwork, well on the scenic boards anyway - standard Peco code 75 for the fiddle-yard. No I will not be depending on the rail-joiners for 'electrical continuity', or rail height, but an easy cop-out for aesthetics - and having fun !!!! :onthequiet:  

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Although I have subsequently laid track "properly" with droppers etc - including some soldered to the rail joiners I was very pleasant surprised that with a test track of several bits of track laid loose on the board with a few of the points in place everything ran very well - i was using 4 axle diesels prior to unifrogs being wired up.

And your finding is probably typical. When everything is new and shiny conductivity may be excellent, and so we are lulled into CBA to do the wire and solder stuff. A year or two down the - er - line, it begins to creak here and there and the layout disappoints. Tough if the ballast, scenery etc are now inhibiting our ability to make retrospective improvements.

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Rail joiners are a bit like pins and sockets. There is a certain reliance on the self-cleaning effect of making and breaking connections. If you lay and then re-lay Setrack or Hornby track you probably don't have too many continuity problems, at least initially, but of course the more you assemble it the looser the grip. However if you assemble once, initially it will be ok but when undisturbed tiny movements will allow contaminants to creep in and all of a sudden it can become a high resistance joint - yes it still has some continuity but also a voltage drop.

 

Permanent layouts, and especially portable ones are best connected by soldering two droppers per rail. Two, because even soldered joints can fail. Soldering a dropper to a rail joiner seems a great idea but once again high resistance joints can exist to both rails being joined.

 

My experience with electronic equipment in aircraft is that a poor connection with pins and sockets can frequently be resolved just by disconnecting and reconnecting which restores the equipment to full functionality saving a removal.

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Permanent layouts, and especially portable ones are best connected by soldering two droppers per rail. Two, because even soldered joints can fail. Soldering a dropper to a rail joiner seems a great idea but once again high resistance joints can exist to both rails being joined.

 

 

Seems like overkill but on exhibition layouts this is very good advice...and I also leave the joiners on as well..

Edited by Gilbert
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  • 2 weeks later...

I've tried using the exactoscale plastic fishplates to join Peco track to C and L rail and it seems that the Peco rail is thicker than that from C and L as it is a struggle to fit them to Peco. Once fitted, the adjoining rail cannot be connected without breaking the fishplate.

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I wonder what insulating rail joiners are suitable to use with these?

Good question.

 

The Peco "Fine Standard" Rail Joiners (SL-111) are a fairly good fit onto the Bullhead track but are too long for joining track to points because of the chairs on the points (see above). They will need to be trimmed down to size, which is easy but might not provide such a good physical joint. I'll do a video when I get time.

 

That being said, the use of insulating joints is again subtly different in the Bullhead system than the Code 100 and Code 75 systems for two reasons:

  1. The electrical design of the Unifrog points means that there's no need to insulate the frog rails because the frog is already electrically isolated within the unit.
  2. In DCC systems, which the Unifrog points are clearly designed to support, there's less need to isolate sections of track. (Although there is still some need for isolation in features like reversing loops, power districts, etc.)
Edited by Harlequin
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I thought that those were the brass ones - presumably, they do not insulate?

 

 

Locking Fishplate (4 bolt) - 4mm - Plastic - 48 p..

£13.00

 

The brass ones seem to be absent at the moment, I guess they are out of stock and we will have to wait for the NEW Exactoscale distributor to set up before they become available again

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Locking Fishplate (4 bolt) - 4mm - Plastic - 48 p..

£13.00

 

The brass ones seem to be absent at the moment, I guess they are out of stock and we will have to wait for the NEW Exactoscale distributor to set up before they become available again

As I've already reported, the exactoscale plastic fishplates do not fit well on the Peco rail.

Peco bullhead is approximately 0.5mm in the thin section of the rail. C and L is approximately 0.3mm.

The result is that the Peco rail will force the opposite end closed, making it impossible to fit anything without breaking the fishplate.

I assume the C and L rail is closer to scale so that the Exactoscale fishplates work beautifully. Not so on Peco rail.  

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Phil - I shall look forward to the video. Trimmed SL-111s appear to be the only solution.

I think that once the track is permanently located, it would be better to have nothing rather than the normal Peco insulated rail joiner. They look pretty bad.

 

Possible the best option would be to fix the location with the rails aligned, glue a bit of plastic into the gap and then glue half a plastic fishplate on the visible side of the joint.

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