Improving Peco Code 75

[Andy Y]

Related questions periodically crop up on sleeper spacing, rail and sleeper painting in addition to ballasting. At a couple of recent demos I was playing with a short plank and talking folk through some of the materials used. I thought it may be a useful reference point for future questions.

 

 

Peco track is the staple diet of modellers moving on from train set track. A basic limitation of the prototypical accuracy of the track is obviously the fact that it is OO gauge and any acceptance of it as it comes or to what it can be altered to is always a question of compromise. Improvements can be made that take the basic product beyond the common lay and ballast approach.

 

The first step is to turn the track over and cut away the plastic webbing between all of the sleepers. A sharp craft knife will suffice but don't go too heavy handed as too much pressure will cause the sleeper to to spring away where the narrow clasp of the rails chairs grip the base of the rail.

 

The sleeper spacing is then widened to a more acceptable compromise of around 7.5mm; PH Designs produce a useful tool if you have a lot of track to do - http://www.phd-desig...spacingtool.htm. The whole length of track to be used has the sleeper web cut away and spaced using the tool.

 

I fix the track using latex based adhesive (e.g. Copydex) or a thin line of PVA glue beneath each sleeper. The track is then laid and positioned. It will be necessary to use the sleeper spacing tool to tidy up any movement in the individual sleepers which will inevitably happen during handling, gluing and laying.

 

This makes a significant difference to the appearance making the track look lighter weight.

 

 

Once the track is laid and tidied I use Tan Plasikote Suede Touch spray paint to give a base coat onto the plastic sleepers and nickel silver rails.

 

 

 

Once the base coat has dried I then paint each sleeper with a mix of acrylic paints; in this case a mix of Tamiya Flat Earth (XF-52), Buff (XF-57) and Light Grey (XF-66). Before steaming ahead in painting the sleepers take some photos showing the actual track you wish to model; you should ideally do this in different weathers and observe the difference in appearance in dry sunny, cloudy and wet weather conditions. The colour that you then choose will at least have some foundation in fact rather than just a guesstimate and it will then be appropriate to the area and conditions you are modelling. In this case the sleepers are intended to look dry and sun-bleached with some time having passed since any treatment was used.

 

The same research criteria is relevant to the colour of the rail sides and chairs. The colour will vary with traffic types and volumes and the ambient light. A little used track in sunny conditions will look rusty orange whereas a busy track seen in dreary light on a wet day may look a very dark grey. In this case I use a mix of Tamiya acrylics Nato Brown (XF-68) and Nato Black (XF-69) to taste and with tones varying slightly on different lengths of rail.

 

 

 

Once the final colours have dried and all of the track is laid it's time to consider ballasting. Rewinding to the research really look at the type of ballast that's there. The chances are the actual chippings will be smaller than the size of most of the ballast sold. If the grains in your model ballast are over 1mm in length that means each stone would be 3". Were they really that big. The easy solution is to then use finer ballast intended for the 2mm modeller. Rewind again and look at the colour of the real ballast. Is it uniform in colour? What colour is it? Take care to select something that looks right for your model.

 

In this case I've used Green Scenes GS408 ballast which has fine grains (intended for 2mm) and a nice variation in colours (light grey in this case).

 

There are tools that make the job of laying ballast quickly easier but I find something very therapeutic in laying the ballast. I like it to sit a little below the level of the sleeper and rail to preserve the lightness obtained earlier on with the removal of the sleeper webbing.

 

Along the side of the laid track I'll lay some masking tape to achieve a tidy straight line at the edge or cess. The ballast is gently spread between the sleepers with a brush and tamped down with a fingertip. Ballast is laid along the edge of the track and gently brushed into the spaces between the sleeper ends. Running a fingertip over the sleeper ends moves loose ballast grains into position forming a gentle slope down to the edge of the masking tape. Run your finger along the masking tape to remove loose ballast and tidy the edge.

 

The loose ballast is then fixed in place with a 2:1 mix of Johnson's Klear or Pledge floor wax and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) with a few drops of detergent. This is the new formulation which is readily available at supermarkets (I keep the old Klear for other varnishing!).

 

 

 

The mixture is then sprayed on with a cheap plastic bottle spray or perfume atomoizer, these are available from Boots for £1.65. Give the ballast a good soaking so the varnish can penetrate and adhere to the ballast garnules through to the board.

 

 

 

As this product is intended to form a shiny coat on hard floors there will be a sheen on the track which can be dulled down with a matt spray varnish.

 

 

 

Once the ballast has set (normally overnight) I remove the paint on the top surface of the rail with a fine razor blade, the paint peels away leaving the clean rail head behind. It's worth checking that no ballast granules have moved and stuck to the sides of the rails; they wouldn't stick there in the real world so we'll try to make sure that reflected.

 

The cess at the side of the track in this case is treated with a painting of Tamiya acrylic Flat earth (XF-52) with a sprinkling of Treemendus Earth Powder on top.

 

The end product looks better for the time and attention given to it. This article isn't intended to be prescriptive but to get modellers at a certain stage to think a little more about the track appearance.

 

 

This post has been promoted to an article

[Will Vale]

Good stuff and nice clear pictures Andy, thanks for posting this. I regret not cutting away the webs between the sleepers on Whitemarsh, it would have made several things better/easier, but we live and learn

 

Which matt varnish do you use?

 

Will

 

 

[Andy Y]

This section hasn't actually been varnished yet but I'd use Testor's Dullcote. An experienced hand last weekend told me that Humbrol Matt Spray Varnish had worked well enough for him.

[Chris Nevard]

Top job Andy! This is a very useful post that would be good 'pinned' at the top?

[Will Vale]

Thanks Andy. When I ballasted my track I skipped the varnish step (attempting instead to mop the Klear off the sleepers as I went) and it makes weathering the track fiddly since the remaining Klear spots are too glassy smooth to drybrush well.

 

Will

 

 

[Vanders]

So Andy, why haven't you written a book yet? You're a little late for Christmas 2010, but if you start now you could make a tidy packet next year

 

On a more serious note, I always see 4mm modellers using 2mm ballast, so what do 2mm modellers suggest?

[SteveBedding]

On a more serious note, I always see 4mm modellers using 2mm ballast, so what do 2mm modellers suggest?

 

2mm ballast, a mortar and pestle, a set of progressively finer sieves, and a lot of patience! In the absence of patience, same materials, same tools - and someone else to do it...

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Andy,

That's very inspiring work there, thank you!

Another vote here for 'pinning' this article as i should certainly like to be able to refer back to it.

Cheers,

John E.

[Guest Belgian]

The effect of widening the sleeper spacing is pretty stunning, but has anyone been successful in effecting the same outcome on the associated points? The bases seem to be rather too rigid to remove an occasional sleeper and slide the others to re-space them, also the wiring around the crossing vee would seem to be a problem.

 

JE

[Kenton]

The effect of widening the sleeper spacing is pretty stunning, but has anyone been successful in effecting the same outcome on the associated points? The bases seem to be rather too rigid to remove an occasional sleeper and slide the others to re-space them, also the wiring around the crossing vee would seem to be a problem.

 

JE

Yes, some pics were posted on an old RMWeb somewhere by a couple of RMWebbers - I'll see if I can dig up mine from the HD.

It is not easy and it does involve much hacking. It revolves around basically destroying the point and using the parts to rebuild a new one.

3 sleepers are removed completely and a number of others including the tie bar and adjacent sleepers are replaced with PCB sleepers. You cannot just slide the original sleepers as the distortion of the geometry is too much. The end result still has sleepers too close together at both the frog and at the Peco hinge in the switch rail. Electrically there is no issue as you probably would be wiring up the point correctly anyway.

 

Is it worth doing?

 

I think the overall conclusion that it was a waste of effort. Visually the gains were dubious at best. The spacing is still unequal and the PCB sleepers visually stand out from the plastic originals. The process is more time consuming than building your own points and obviously more restrictive. The only plus is that all the rail components are at hand and possibly the most difficult part of point construction (the 'V' and frog area) are ready constructed.

 

The trouble is when you get this far - constructing your own points - you really end up asking why on earth are you still using Peco track at all and then butchering it.

 

... and we all know the next place that leads to .... OOSF/EM/P4

 

So I have come to the conclusion if you wish to stay in the world of OO and just cannot be bothered with building every sleeper, bending every rail, and fiddling with every single chair, just live with the points (I still replace the ghastly Peco tie bar with a PCB sleeper) but modify the track as above.

[mike knowles]

The effect of widening the sleeper spacing is pretty stunning, but has anyone been successful in effecting the same outcome on the associated points? The bases seem to be rather too rigid to remove an occasional sleeper and slide the others to re-space them, also the wiring around the crossing vee would seem to be a problem.

 

JE

 

 

Yes, some pics were posted on an old RMWeb somewhere by a couple of RMWebbers - I'll see if I can dig up mine from the HD.

It is not easy and it does involve much hacking. It revolves around basically destroying the point and using the parts to rebuild a new one.

3 sleepers are removed completely and a number of others including the tie bar and adjacent sleepers are replaced with PCB sleepers. You cannot just slide the original sleepers as the distortion of the geometry is too much. The end result still has sleepers too close together at both the frog and at the Peco hinge in the switch rail. Electrically there is no issue as you probably would be wiring up the point correctly anyway.

 

Is it worth doing?

 

I think the overall conclusion that it was a waste of effort. Visually the gains were dubious at best. The spacing is still unequal and the PCB sleepers visually stand out from the plastic originals. The process is more time consuming than building your own points and obviously more restrictive. The only plus is that all the rail components are at hand and possibly the most difficult part of point construction (the 'V' and frog area) are ready constructed.

 

The trouble is when you get this far - constructing your own points - you really end up asking why on earth are you still using Peco track at all and then butchering it.

 

... and we all know the next place that leads to .... OOSF/EM/P4

 

So I have come to the conclusion if you wish to stay in the world of OO and just cannot be bothered with building every sleeper, bending every rail, and fiddling with every single chair, just live with the points (I still replace the ghastly Peco tie bar with a PCB sleeper) but modify the track as above.

 

Attached are some pictures I posted on the previous RMWeb showing how I changed the sleepers on a Peco point to copper clad, thus "improving" the sleeper width and spacing. As can be seen the process was done a few sleepers at a time so that the alignment of the rails remained unaffected, obviating the need for any track gauges etc. Yes I know the check rails shown in the last 2 photos are incorrect.

 

Picking up on Kentons comments about is it worth it. I only did this as an exercise to see if it could be done and would seriously recommend scratchbuilding trackwork (using C&L etc), even if staying with OO gauge.

As Kenton said "The trouble is when you get this far - constructing your own points - you really end up asking why on earth are you still using Peco track at all and then butchering it." - I couldn't agree more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kenton]

Thanks for re-posting those photos mike, I just knew someone had done a better job of it than me.

I didn't replace all the sleepers with PCB - I just couldn't bare the thought of having to make and fit my own check rails.

The end result does look much better than my half-way house attempt, but glad to see the conclusion of doing this as routine is just the same

[Ramblin Rich]

Andy, thanks for the tutorial, the colouring methods work rather nicely.

I actually had a go at re-spacing the track for my (currently inactive) layout Tresarrick and used SMP bullhead track in the sidings for comparison. My main findings were

1 - removing the webbing is a PITA and leaves little squares of sleeper base pinging off everywhere!

2 - it's actually quite difficult forming curves as there doesn't seem to be any friction keeping the sleepers in place on the rails - everything seems to slide out of place, with the sleepers staying parallel and ending up at an angle to the rails, instead of 90 degrees. I eventually just got things approximately in place, laid a good layer of glue (I used PVA based "no more nails" type stuff from a cartridge gun), plonked the track into the glue then re-spaced the sleepers along the length until satisfied with the spacing. I used a couple of 4.5mm drill bits as spacers, working along alternating moving one then the other.

 

I think the respaced track is a definite impovement & doesn't look too out of place with SMP. The point spacing I left alone, but point timbers are generally closer togther than plain track & the spacing on Peco points is bigger than the plain track so moving the track sleepers & leaving the points helps (in my view anyway!).

I still think if you want easy to use Flat-bottom track Peco is a good start - but I keep thinking Peco could make it so much better looking just by investing in changed moulds for the plain track, re-spaced to something closer to scale. We've gone through this debate before, but Streamline is too closely spaced even for HO British standard. Andy's 7.5 mm spacing (centre-to-centre) pretty much matches my 4.5mm gaps (with 3mm wide sleepers giving 7.5mm centre-to-centre) and I think that's acceptable visually. i hope everything will gel together more when I get round to ballasting & painting (when......)

 

All opinions are my own and I don't want to get drawn into arguements with EM/P4 advocates - I just want to run OO trains on something thats more visually acceptable to me.

[mikemeg]

As Kenton said "The trouble is when you get this far - constructing your own points - you really end up asking why on earth are you still using Peco track at all and then butchering it." - I couldn't agree more.

 

Slippery slope is this. Asking these sorts of questions could see you in EM land or even the Land of P4.

 

Your only hope is to repent now otherwise it'll be too late, or failing that, then if you can't beat em, join em.

 

Nice work on the photos.

 

Cheers

 

Mike

[Will Vale]

On the subject of Peco points, it's worth trimming the tie bar ends, filling the holes for the point motor legs, and if you can provide an alternative locking mechanism (e.g. Tortoises, slide switch with omega loop) removing the spring housing entirely and filling the divot left over. These are relatively small changes (and can be done after installation - guess how I know that) which make a reasonable difference. There are also improvements to be made on the weirdly joined timbers on the diverging road - I think James Hilton trimmed these off altogether to get a more prototypical spacing for parallel track?

 

Will

 

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I think life's too short to try and hack away at the Peco turnouts. I do remove the ends of the tiebars though, with those unprototypical moulded lumps.

 

With sleeper spacing, I tend to remove all the webbing and space out the sleepers more, in the sidings, to given a slightly uneven look. Here I lay the track straight onto the baseboard too.

 

For running lines, I tend to leave the track as it is, laying it on cork sheet to slightly raise the trackbed.

 

I must remember to file down those obtrusive track pins though.....

[zarniwhoop]

1 - removing the webbing is a PITA and leaves little squares of sleeper base pinging off everywhere!

2 - it's actually quite difficult forming curves as there doesn't seem to be any friction keeping the sleepers in place on the rails - everything seems to slide out of place, with the sleepers staying parallel and ending up at an angle to the rails, instead of 90 degrees. I eventually just got things approximately in place, laid a good layer of glue (I used PVA based "no more nails" type stuff from a cartridge gun), plonked the track into the glue then re-spaced the sleepers along the length until satisfied with the spacing. I used a couple of 4.5mm drill bits as spacers, working along alternating moving one then the other.

 

I agree wholeheartedly about removing the webbing. On a lot of what I did on my test oval (009 inside OO) I merely cut through the webbing so that I could slide the sleepers apart. But, where there was only minimal webbing, the ballasting was a lot easier. I spaced the sleepers to between approx 8mm pitch and 10mm pitch in different places. On the OO, most of it is about 8.5mm pitch and, to me, that pitch looks very acceptable.

 

**edit** actually, 9mm pitch (20 sleepers in a 45ft panel).

 

The curves are the real problem, apart from 009 sleepers that decide they would rather be somewhere else (they have much less grip on the rails than the OO sleepers do). For my test track, I only wanted trainset radii so I used tracksetta gauges. Even then, some of what I did wasn't right, and I've had to replace a few sleepers with pcb. I also found that I needed to keep the gauges in place while the PVA was setting, and to put weights on them to hold them down.

 

For sleeper spacing, I started by drawing the sleepers on the cork base, then attempting to align the sleepers in the glue once I'd put the tracksetta in place. This did NOT work well. Later, I cut some short "castellated" templates to fit on each side (about 4 or 6 sleepers long for the curves, longer for the straights. That worked better, but still needed a lot of attention to get everything aligned 'square'. And I was only able to fix short lengths at a time.

 

But, I think the effort was worthwhile. Not sure if I'll bother on the narrow-gauge layouts I plan to build, but when I come to the OO I definitely plan to do something similar. Andy has persuaded me of the merits of trimming off all the webbing. For my planned curves I think I'll get some *sacrificial* tracksetta gauges and cut them into shorter pieces so that I can have a transition, and then be able to fit the whole tracksetta within the curve.

 

This will NOT be quick. If I was modelling a DEMU line I'd go for the bullhead flexitrack, but for 1960s/70s BR(S) third-rail I need flatbottomed rail. The idea of spacers the full width of each sleeper is attractive, but it doesn't really help on the curves.

 

I'm also interested in Andy's sleeper weathering - for my OO I've achieved acceptable colours with paint (the sleepers were in good condition), but for the narrow gauge I've so far totally failed to create acceptable colours for bleached sleepers. Will have to experiment some more. Meanwhile, I have to say "it was wet" (I've got pics from Alston showing a nearly black rail, and dark sleepers, after the rain).

 

ĸen

[Kenton]

I must remember to file down those obtrusive track pins though.....

It would have been far better not to have bothered with them in the first place - especially when hammering them through the points distorts the geometry.

When you have filed them down, presumably without filing the sleepers, they are probably still going to be visible or some cosmetic "weathering" will be required.

[Pete the Elaner]

Great thread.

This is something I chose to do for my current layout.

I never used to notice it but, now I am used to my own layout, standard streamline looks horrible.

 

It may take a lot longer to lay, but in the whole scheme of things (boards, wiring, tracklaying, weathering, buildings), it is insignificant

& the result easily justifies the extra effort.

[beast66606]

There's also this on a previous incarnation

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13627

[bike2steam]

Yes agree a good interesting thread - but I wont bother, not enough time to get embroiled in such a job that not many people will notice, and Peco sleepers are 00 prototypically undersize anyway.

[beast66606]

Yes agree a good interesting thread - but I wont bother, not enough time to get embroiled in such a job that not many people will notice, and Peco sleepers are 00 prototypically undersize anyway.

 

I continually get asked which P4/EM track we use - the give away with Peco is the points, the plain track can be made to look pretty good by ballasting and weathering but the points, unless modified, scream "PECO"

[trisonic]

It's the "switch blades/ closure rails" that bug me on the Code 75 Peco. I'm not sure if anything can be done about that.

Let me elucidate: without just building your own pointwork.

 

Best, Pete.

[beast66606]

It's the "switch blades/ closure rails" that bug me on the Code 75 Peco. I'm not sure if anything can be done about that.

Let me elucidate: without just building your own pointwork.

 

Best, Pete.

 

Make the viewing height such that its not down the track, they don't look so bad side on, the more side on, the better

 

But don't tell Mr C.Grate about my view on layout heights

[Ceptic]

One question, for Andy Y, and others who've used, or using Andy's re-spacing method.

 

"Would the elasticity of the Copydex keep the sleepers in line (with the radius), if glued to the rail bottom, before the track is formed into a curve ?".

 

If not, I've got an idea brewing, which might solve the problem.

 

Catch you later. Cheers.

 

Edited to re-phrase the question