Better point geometry for OO gauge layouts

[kevinlms]

53 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

It's pretty safe to say that most of the customer base has to be shown potentially better options, before they will take an interest.

With Peco needing to make a huge investment of a new range of track, to be able to show people.

 

However, I can't see it happening because Code 100 rail, still vastly outsells Code 75 or any other, because it's cheaper!

Until you overcome the 'average modeller' bit, that seemingly puts up with a lower quality item, to save some cash.

 

The answer I suspect, is to do what the EMGS did and paid Peco to make a product to their design. Does anyone have an idea on how well the EMGS are going with R-T-R point sales?

[Clive Mortimore]

Still no decent RTR British flat bottom track or pointwork. I am not talking ultra modern but the stuff under the wheels of many a steam loco in the 50s and under diesel and electrics in the 60 and 70s.

[Pete the Elaner]

7 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Still no decent RTR British flat bottom track or pointwork. I am not talking ultra modern but the stuff under the wheels of many a steam loco in the 50s and under diesel and electrics in the 60 and 70s.

 

Pointwork - maybe not, but bullhead points generally seemed to outlast track so they looks at home with FB track, even on concrete sleepers.

FB track can be improved by but re-spacing sleepers. I admit it is a bit time consuming though. I think I gave you some templates for this?

[PMP]

9 hours ago, kevinlms said:

 

However, I can't see it happening because Code 100 rail, still vastly outsells Code 75 or any other, because it's cheaper!

Until you overcome the 'average modeller' bit, that seemingly puts up with a lower quality item, to save some cash.

Whilst the Code 100 products are a bit cheaper, the significant element is that ‘train set’ track is code100 pretty much across the world. Therefore the biggest market is compatibility with that including to a degree geometry. The biggest part of the UK market is more than happy buying set track, it fits what they already have and is compact in terms of space saving on layout design.

In my experience a significant proportion of those don’t realise that OO is too narrow or sleepers too close etc., again they’re not interested, they want to go to an easy plug and play solution which is OO/HO set track. 

 

 

 

[Clive Mortimore]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Pointwork - maybe not, but bullhead points generally seemed to outlast track so they looks at home with FB track, even on concrete sleepers.

FB track can be improved by but re-spacing sleepers. I admit it is a bit time consuming though. I think I gave you some templates for this?

Hi Iain

 

You did and I couldn't ar$ed to do all my train set, but they may be used on a future exhibition layout.

 

BR 98lb and 109 lb rail in 4mm scale comes out at code 82 or 83, same as used by Peco for their US track. Many points on the mainlines were renewed with flat bottom track in the 50s and 60s at the same time as the rest of the track. Code 100 and code 75 are wrong. I could have been tempted to use Peco's code 83 track but even spacing out the ties they are too short and it looks wrong. Plus doing the points would mean replacing most the timbers with copper clad to get then to resemble British point work. I wanted to get things moving and I am happy I did.

 

My statement about scale British flat bottom track relates to the fact it is ignored.

[maico]

2 hours ago, PMP said:

Whilst the Code 100 products are a bit cheaper, the significant element is that ‘train set’ track is code100 pretty much across the world. Therefore the biggest market is compatibility with that including to a degree geometry. The biggest part of the UK market is more than happy buying set track, it fits what they already have and is compact in terms of space saving on layout design.

In my experience a significant proportion of those don’t realise that OO is too narrow or sleepers too close etc., again they’re not interested, they want to go to an easy plug and play solution which is OO/HO set track. 

 

I would of thought code 83 is popular Worldwide in Ho train-set packs. Rocoline, Kato unitrack and Trix C-track etc. are 2.1mm code 83.

Fleischmann Profi track is code 100 2.5mm and is quite popular in Germany but was discontinued at the start of this year.

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by maico

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, PMP said:

Whilst the Code 100 products are a bit cheaper, the significant element is that ‘train set’ track is code100 pretty much across the world. Therefore the biggest market is compatibility with that including to a degree geometry. The biggest part of the UK market is more than happy buying set track, it fits what they already have and is compact in terms of space saving on layout design.

In my experience a significant proportion of those don’t realise that OO is too narrow or sleepers too close etc., again they’re not interested, they want to go to an easy plug and play solution which is OO/HO set track. 

 

 

 

I was talking about Streamline, not Set Track, which is an entirely different product range. Apart from the actual rail size and track gauge, there is nothing in common.

[PMP]

7 hours ago, kevinlms said:

I was talking about Streamline, not Set Track, which is an entirely different product range. Apart from the actual rail size and track gauge, there is nothing in common.

The commonality springs from upgrades from the train set. The next step after the initial purchase is the streamline range, which has the instant compatibility to allow modellers to develop their layouts. 
A quick check of a Hattons ad indicates Hornby and Peco set track points at the same price, and 10p difference between the flex track. The main purchases are the small or medium radius points as they are ‘space savers’ but what the purchasers ‘expect’ as the small radius (2nd) is what comes with their sets.

 

[hayfield]

10 hours ago, PMP said:

Whilst the Code 100 products are a bit cheaper, the significant element is that ‘train set’ track is code100 pretty much across the world. Therefore the biggest market is compatibility with that including to a degree geometry. The biggest part of the UK market is more than happy buying set track, it fits what they already have and is compact in terms of space saving on layout design.

In my experience a significant proportion of those don’t realise that OO is too narrow or sleepers too close etc., again they’re not interested, they want to go to an easy plug and play solution which is OO/HO set track. 

 

 

 

 

Its a very strange situation, these modelers/collectors are more than happy to pay £200+ on a highly detailed loco, demanding the highest standards of detail and a wide range of liveries. Yet are totally blind to an incorrect gauge and worst happy to plonk their 4 mm scale stock on to H0 scale track compounding it with a very much overscale rail of the wrong profile. Finescale where track is concerned is a complete turnoff to most modellers

 

If the manufacturers provided a loco with the same level of faults that the turnouts have, firstly the model press would be in uproar and I doubt if many would be sold

[Pete the Elaner]

9 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Iain

 

You did and I couldn't ar$ed to do all my train set, but they may be used on a future exhibition layout.

 

BR 98lb and 109 lb rail in 4mm scale comes out at code 82 or 83, same as used by Peco for their US track. Many points on the mainlines were renewed with flat bottom track in the 50s and 60s at the same time as the rest of the track. Code 100 and code 75 are wrong. I could have been tempted to use Peco's code 83 track but even spacing out the ties they are too short and it looks wrong. Plus doing the points would mean replacing most the timbers with copper clad to get then to resemble British point work. I wanted to get things moving and I am happy I did.

 

My statement about scale British flat bottom track relates to the fact it is ignored.

 

Re-spacing sleepers is tedious & I don't blame anyone for accepting the standard webbing.

 

Regarding rail height though:

OO is way underscale & always will be, so is getting other things to scale the best thing ?

Sleepers are a good example: scale 8'6" sleepers under OO track look wrong & emphasises how narrow the gauge is. Shortening them hides this a little.

If we are stuck with 1 dimension which is wrong, it is better to tweak others to hide this?

Does the same work for rails too?

 

We seem to be digressing from the subject of point geometry, so here goes:

 

During the recent build of a club layout, we decided to use Streamline with a more accurate six foot (45.5mm between track centres). This may well cock up the universal point geometry but the only crossover is long-long so this was not a problem.

A nice benefit was that in order to shorten the points, we had to eliminate the last bearer...the nasty angled one.

This left us with a crossover with all bearers perpendicular to the running lines also, the remaining ones just about lined up with each other.

Those of us who appreciated the difference were well pleased with our evening's work.

The rest of the club wondered what we were happy about, even after we explained it.

[PMP]

8 hours ago, maico said:

 

I would of thought code 83 is popular Worldwide in Ho train-set packs. Rocoline, Kato unitrack and Trix C-track etc. are 2.1mm code 83.

Fleischmann Profi track is code 100 2.5mm and is quite popular in Germany but was discontinued at the start of this year.

 

 

Kato/Profi Track And the US Bachmann track have moulded ballast sections. They are way more expensive, have limited number of items eg points, and don’t have easy compatibility with other brands. I can’t join my Kato to micro line flex track without significant work not to mention the appearance element. I can wholeheartedly recommend Kato HO Unitrack for a simple running in loop though, it’s brilliant stuff.

[PMP]

43 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

Its a very strange situation, these modelers/collectors are more than happy to pay £200+ on a highly detailed loco, demanding the highest standards of detail and a wide range of liveries. Yet are totally blind to an incorrect gauge (snip)

It’s not strange at all. People aren’t generally interested modelling the overall infrastructure of the railways, the key interest is locomotives and then stock, that’s why the manufacturers concentrate on them. You only have to look at forums/mags/exhibitions to see RTP buildings from all regions mixed on the same layout, and that’s typical, even though it’s stock says BR Midland  region 1950’s.

[martin_wynne]

14 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 a more accurate six foot (45.5mm between track centres)

 

 

The correct figure is 44.67 mm (11ft-2in) track centres for 6ft way.

 

Or on GWR / BR(W) lines, 44.83 mm (11ft-2.5in) track centres.

 

Martin.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

41 minutes ago, hayfield said:

It's a very strange situation, these modelers/collectors are more than happy to pay £200+ on a highly detailed loco, demanding the highest standards of detail and a wide range of liveries. Yet are totally blind to an incorrect gauge and worst happy to plonk their 4 mm scale stock on to H0 scale track compounding it with a very much overscale rail of the wrong profile. Finescale where track is concerned is a complete turnoff to most modellers

 

If the manufacturers provided a loco with the same level of faults that the turnouts have, firstly the model press would be in uproar and I doubt if many would be sold

Yes, and I have the answer from a sophisticated guy, an engineer who successfully built his own business, and yet has a set track OO layout.

"At a fashion show, are you looking at the girl, or the catwalk?"

[Joseph_Pestell]

11 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Yes, and I have the answer from a sophisticated guy, an engineer who successfully built his own business, and yet has a set track OO layout.

"At a fashion show, are you looking at the girl, or the catwalk?"

 

Yes, but would the girl look any good if the catwalk meant that she was unable to walk properly? Just about any locomotive looks awful when negotiating a 15" radius corner.

[martin_wynne]

21 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Yes, and I have the answer from a sophisticated guy, an engineer who successfully built his own business, and yet has a set track OO layout.

"At a fashion show, are you looking at the girl, or the catwalk?"

 

It's called a rail-way and a model rail-way. The defining feature of the whole thing is the fact that it runs on rails. It seems a bit daft to treat them as the Cinderella department of a model of it.

 

If you just want to see pretty steam engines, you don't need rails:

 

linked from http://www.steamscenes.org.uk

 

Martin.

[Dungrange]

20 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

It's called a rail-way and a model rail-way. The defining feature of the whole thing is the fact that it runs on rails. It seems a bit daft to treat them as the Cinderella department of a model of it.

 

But surely the issue is that many people in this hobby are / were 'train spotters'.  They visit or visited the line side to see a particular train, but sometimes just a particular locomotive and don't  / didn't care much about what it was hauling, and that is why they are interested in the hobby.   How many made a regular trip to their nearest railway station to look at the track?  I agree that it's a fundamental part of a railway, but it's just not interesting to most people (though it can be interesting if you choose to study and understand it).

 

I guess it's no different from asking how many people have a passionate interest in cars?  How many of those have an interest in the road surface that they drive on?

Edited September 16, 2020 by Dungrange

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, martin_wynne said:

 

The correct figure is 44.67 mm (11ft-2in) track centres for 6ft way.

 

Or on GWR / BR(W) lines, 44.83 mm (11ft-2.5in) track centres.

 

Martin.

Which are of course minimum dimensions. 

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Re-spacing sleepers is tedious & I don't blame anyone for accepting the standard webbing.

 

Regarding rail height though:

OO is way underscale & always will be, so is getting other things to scale the best thing ?

Sleepers are a good example: scale 8'6" sleepers under OO track look wrong & emphasises how narrow the gauge is. Shortening them hides this a little.

If we are stuck with 1 dimension which is wrong, it is better to tweak others to hide this?

Does the same work for rails too?

 

We seem to be digressing from the subject of point geometry, so here goes:

 

During the recent build of a club layout, we decided to use Streamline with a more accurate six foot (45.5mm between track centres). This may well cock up the universal point geometry but the only crossover is long-long so this was not a problem.

A nice benefit was that in order to shorten the points, we had to eliminate the last bearer...the nasty angled one.

This left us with a crossover with all bearers perpendicular to the running lines also, the remaining ones just about lined up with each other.

Those of us who appreciated the difference were well pleased with our evening's work.

The rest of the club wondered what we were happy about, even after we explained it.

Yes all of that is true, which goes to prove that an improved point geometry, is a much smaller market than some would like to believe. The hordes, simply aren't there waiting. 

I suspect Peco know that only too well.

[PMP]

4 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Yes all of that is true, which goes to prove that an improved point geometry, is a much smaller market than some would like to believe. The hordes, simply aren't there waiting. 

I suspect Peco know that only too well.

Nail.

On.

Head.

[martin_wynne]

8 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

But surely the issue is that many people in this hobby are / were 'train spotters'.

 

 

They may have been, but I wasn't. Always the infrastructure was far more interesting -- bridges, tunnels, towering viaducts,vast stations, intricate signalling, and yes the complex geometry of trackwork and junctions. The trains just flashed past and were gone, and let's be honest, one locomotive looks very much like any other. I don't think I was the only one to think that way.

 

When the SVR took over Bewdley station, within months they ripped out a half-scissors crossover. So much for "preservation" I thought. All they were really interested in was playing with steam engines.

 

Truly there has always been two completely different hobbies here. They tend to be treated as one, but they don't always sit happily together.

 

Martin.

[Zomboid]

15 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Yes all of that is true, which goes to prove that an improved point geometry, is a much smaller market than some would like to believe. The hordes, simply aren't there waiting. 

I suspect Peco know that only too well.

If something better than streamline were as readily available as streamline is (and at the relatively sensible prices of streamline), then I'm sure some people would buy it. Though it would presumably come at the cost of the magical 12* divergence that streamline has, and which enables everything to work together with very little effort.

 

Like others, I suspect they'd do reasonable trade if they put OO style sleepers on the Code 83 range. Whether it would sell enough to justify the development costs is questionable, but since the metalwork is already sorted then on the face of it it shouldn't be an especially huge project.

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Yes, and I have the answer from a sophisticated guy, an engineer who successfully built his own business, and yet has a set track OO layout.

"At a fashion show, are you looking at the girl, or the catwalk?"

 

Usually the person who makes a highly detailed model takes as much care with the plinth as the model, perhaps buying something is not quite the same as creating something

 

But its where a modeler makes a highly detailed model either of a location or representing a location, an area and or era. Carefully representing the buildings, scenery and stock which ran in the said area and at the same time all to 4mm scale. Then use 3.5 mm scale track from a totally different era, to me it spoils the layout.  These layouts are regularly described as finescale (certainly in some of the press), by copying the prototype in every detail, totally forgetting the track.

 

Lets face it most layouts representing the GWR, LSWR,  Midland  etc rarely model the correct chairs or timber orientation, but to have track from the wrong era and the wrong scale is like plonking an old Triang loco on P4 track after being re-wheeled.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

50 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

 

They may have been, but I wasn't. Always the infrastructure was far more interesting -- bridges, tunnels, towering viaducts,vast stations, intricate signalling, and yes the complex geometry of trackwork and junctions. The trains just flashed past and were gone, and let's be honest, one locomotive looks very much like any other. I don't think I was the only one to think that way.

 

When the SVR took over Bewdley station, within months they ripped out a half-scissors crossover. So much for "preservation" I thought. All they were really interested in was playing with steam engines.

 

Truly there has always been two completely different hobbies here. They tend to be treated as one, but they don't always sit happily together.

 

Martin.

 

Me too.  I was heartbroken when the Ecclesbourne Valley walked onto an almost completely intact Midland Railway terminus and then ripped it all up...

[hayfield]

2 hours ago, PMP said:

It’s not strange at all. People aren’t generally interested modelling the overall infrastructure of the railways, the key interest is locomotives and then stock, that’s why the manufacturers concentrate on them. You only have to look at forums/mags/exhibitions to see RTP buildings from all regions mixed on the same layout, and that’s typical, even though it’s stock says BR Midland  region 1950’s.

 

I think many do want to model (infrastructure) scenic sections and buildings to a high level, and in period. See what's available commercially and its cost !!

 

Just because its of no interest to them does not make it correct, they would shudder at the thought of putting modern BR mk 3 coaching stock behind a a fully lined pre-grouping loco on a layout depicting a pre-grouping era.