Peco 'O' gauge track.

[SouthernEMU]

I am new to 'O' gauge, and have been reading up on various track options in a couple of publications.  John Emerson provides information on Peco 'O' gauge track in his very helpful book "Modelling Railways in 'O' Gauge" in the section titled 'Fine Scale: Making the most of RTR'.

He states: "Whilst it is probably true to say that the majority of 'O' gauge modellers are happy to use 'Streamline', it does have its detractors.  Sleeper spacing and width is a compromise to suit both UK and overseas markets and the points do not entirely conform to how the prototype is constructed".  May I inquire with members on this site how much of a compromise is the Peco track work?

Mr. Emerson continues by advising that he has had very satisfactory results on his 'Gifford Street' layout with Peco 'O' gauge track.  He also recommends C & L Finescale, and Marcway as viable options.  In the Peco publication "Your guide to O gauge railway modelling", Peco also compliment C & L and Marcway along with their own brand of track.

I realize that the '00' gauge code 75 and 100 flat bottom rail fitted 'Streamline' track is a compromise for 16.5 m.m. track gauge, and is produced for domestic '00' and overseas HO - 3.5 m.m./foot scale markets.  I am curious why 'O' gauge bullhead track would need to be a compromise, as surely it is not used anywhere else in the world (or is it?), and the 32 m.m. gauge is almost spot-on.  Perhaps it is the code 143 flat bottom rail track that is the compromise, but Mr. Emerson does not clarify this?  I tried a search on this forum, but could not find anything related to my inquiry.  I also tried another forum, but no replies as of this posting.  Advice please before I compile my list and send off for yards of track and turnouts etc. Cheers EW

Edited November 16, 2019 by SouthernEMU
added an additional question

[Simond]

Firstly, I think we all accept that all modelling involves some compromise.  It’s then a matter of personal choice as to which compromises we, as individuals, prefer to accept.

 

0 gauge is currently subdivided into 4 or even 5 groups - there’s “tinplate”, “standard or coarse”, “fine”, “modified fine” and “S7”.  You’re referring to RTR so you’re probably looking at “fine”, though I’d suggest you look at MF & S7 before making a decision.  If you do not wish to build your own track, you can eliminate these options, but track building is not difficult, it’s MUCH cheaper, I find the process enjoyable, and the visual results are better because it’s difficult to get commercial items to “flow” in quite the same way.  Certainly nothing to be scared of!

 

asssuming you’re sticking with RTR, your choices are Peco & Marcway for pointwork, and Peco for flexi.  There are set-track and pointwork possibilities from European suppliers such as Lenz too.

 

Flexi track is easy, the Peco stuff is pretty much to scale for 3-bolt chaired bullhead track, except the sleeper spacing, which is quite a bit closer than UK practice, as I understand they sell lots of it in the US.  Turn your new length of track upside down, cut out the webs between sleepers, and slide a few off the end, adjust the others to suit your prototype & stick it down.  If you want 2-bolt, or 4-bolt chairs, you’re going to C&L and hand making it!

 

Peco points are not accurate models of the real thing, but they work well in general, and are the de-facto standard for most Fine modellers in the UK. If you ever get into building locos or rolling stock, in 32mm gauge, the Peco reverse crossover is the standard to meet.  They can be hacked about a bit to curve them slightly, the big box thing at the tiebar end can be chopped out, they’re easy to wire (before you stick them down) and can be operated by hand, rodding or electrically.   Peco track lasts well outdoors.

 

Marcway track is constructed from copperclad “pcb board” sleepers/timbers, with the rails soldered on.  It’s very robust, it’s relatively easy to adjust geometry to improve the flow of the track, but if you’re up close & personal with your stock, or taking close-up photos, you might notice the missing chairs.  From two coach-lengths away, you’d be hard-pressed to spot it though, particularly on ballasted & weathered track.  Have a look on my link for the Greater Windowledge, it’s all Peco except the hand-made 3-way, I doubt it shows.  You can operate Marcway (indeed all copperclad) pointwork with rodding or slowmotion point motors, a bit of work will be required if you want to use solenoids.

 

0-MF is actually further from Scale in gauge, at 31.5, rather than 32, but the flangeways are narrower, which makes it appear more accurate.  It also avoids wheeldrop, which is an annoying consequence of 0F geometry.  You have to build your own pointwork, but your plain track and rolling stock can be standard RTR, allowing you to run at your mates’ tracks, and they on yours.  It’s the approach I have taken.

 

S7 is the 7mm equivalent of P4, and is as near dead-scale as practicable.  You have to build your own track, and stock must be modified or built to suit.  The stock looks better in my view, though I think the difference in track between S7 and 0-MF is less obvious.  There are fewer places to run S7, though there’s a thriving society, and I think it’s growing.

 

if you want to know more about track geometry, there are a couple of good books out there, but the first port of call could be the Templot site & associated forum.  It is an education.

 

Hope this provides food for thought

atb

Simon

 

 

 

[37114]

24 minutes ago, Simond said:

Firstly, I think we all accept that all modelling involves some compromise.  It’s then a matter of personal choice as to which compromises we, as individuals, prefer to accept.

 

0 gauge is currently subdivided into 4 or even 5 groups - there’s “tinplate”, “standard or coarse”, “fine”, “modified fine” and “S7”.  You’re referring to RTR so you’re probably looking at “fine”, though I’d suggest you look at MF & S7 before making a decision.  If you do not wish to build your own track, you can eliminate these options, but track building is not difficult, it’s MUCH cheaper, I find the process enjoyable, and the visual results are better because it’s difficult to get commercial items to “flow” in quite the same way.  Certainly nothing to be scared of!

 

asssuming you’re sticking with RTR, your choices are Peco & Marcway for pointwork, and Peco for flexi.  There are set-track and pointwork possibilities from European suppliers such as Lenz too.

 

Flexi track is easy, the Peco stuff is pretty much to scale for 3-bolt chaired bullhead track, except the sleeper spacing, which is quite a bit closer than UK practice, as I understand they sell lots of it in the US.  Turn your new length of track upside down, cut out the webs between sleepers, and slide a few off the end, adjust the others to suit your prototype & stick it down.  If you want 2-bolt, or 4-bolt chairs, you’re going to C&L and hand making it!

 

Peco points are not accurate models of the real thing, but they work well in general, and are the de-facto standard for most Fine modellers in the UK. If you ever get into building locos or rolling stock, in 32mm gauge, the Peco reverse crossover is the standard to meet.  They can be hacked about a bit to curve them slightly, the big box thing at the tiebar end can be chopped out, they’re easy to wire (before you stick them down) and can be operated by hand, rodding or electrically.   Peco track lasts well outdoors.

 

Marcway track is constructed from copperclad “pcb board” sleepers/timbers, with the rails soldered on.  It’s very robust, it’s relatively easy to adjust geometry to improve the flow of the track, but if you’re up close & personal with your stock, or taking close-up photos, you might notice the missing chairs.  From two coach-lengths away, you’d be hard-pressed to spot it though, particularly on ballasted & weathered track.  Have a look on my link for the Greater Windowledge, it’s all Peco except the hand-made 3-way, I doubt it shows.  You can operate Marcway (indeed all copperclad) pointwork with rodding or slowmotion point motors, a bit of work will be required if you want to use solenoids.

 

0-MF is actually further from Scale in gauge, at 31.5, rather than 32, but the flangeways are narrower, which makes it appear more accurate.  It also avoids wheeldrop, which is an annoying consequence of 0F geometry.  You have to build your own pointwork, but your plain track and rolling stock can be standard RTR, allowing you to run at your mates’ tracks, and they on yours.  It’s the approach I have taken.

 

S7 is the 7mm equivalent of P4, and is as near dead-scale as practicable.  You have to build your own track, and stock must be modified or built to suit.  The stock looks better in my view, though I think the difference in track between S7 and 0-MF is less obvious.  There are fewer places to run S7, though there’s a thriving society, and I think it’s growing.

 

if you want to know more about track geometry, there are a couple of good books out there, but the first port of call could be the Templot site & associated forum.  It is an education.

 

Hope this provides food for thought

atb

Simon

 

 

 

Great post thanks Simon. When you mention wheel drop, how pronounced is the wheel drop please?

[Hal Nail]

57 minutes ago, Simond said:

Flexi track is easy, the Peco stuff is pretty much to scale for 3-bolt chaired bullhead track, except the sleeper spacing, which is quite a bit closer than UK practice, as I understand they sell lots of it in the US.

Incredibly comprehensive reply! Just to add that C&L also do flexitrack as an alternative to Peco.

[Hal Nail]

47 minutes ago, 37114 said:

Great post thanks Simon. When you mention wheel drop, how pronounced is the wheel drop please?

Try you tube “7mm wheel drop”.

 

Also worth a search on this forum as the topic comes up regularly: someone makes an insert designed to improve it and there’s a thread on that somewhere too.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Hal Nail

[Simond]

There are lots of options to correct it, including commercially produced laser cut plastic “X”s to drop in, but my pal, John, has the simplest solution.  A bit of grey black or brown plasticine pressed into the crossing and run over with a couple of heavy locos...

 

atb

Simon

[Stephen Freeman]

Wheel-drop. It isn't normally too much of an issue with PECO but depends on the wheels you use. Where it becomes more of a problem is with such as Marcway and handbuilt 0F pointwork.

 

As with a lot of things in life, if you can afford it you can have pointwork built for you but of course it can be a bit more expensive. That is also true for other gauges and scales of course.  The problem and solutions for the dreaded wheel-drop has been well explored and covered both in RMweb and Templot Forum

[RobR]

Peco code 124 Bullhead is not true bullhead as the rail is flat bottom, which is why the rail joiners are the same as used for 00 code 100 track. C & L and I think Marcway use the correct bullhead profile. I am happy using Peco, as once it's ballasted and weathered I can't tell the difference.

Rob  

[hartleymartin]

Peco Code 124 is really their Code 100 rail with an extra 24 thou on top of the head. It makes for a near-enough bullhead profile. The track is sturdy and reliable, but it isn't an accurate reproduction of any one type of track and points used by any British Railway company. It is a generic design, but also designed so that a good portion of the components are common to all items. Take a Right, Left and Wye point look at them closely together and you will see that they all have common parts. I believe the design of the Peco O gauge points was optimized for manufacturing - to get as many different products out of the same group of moulds and patterns. Sometimes there is a problem with wheel-drop in the Vee crossing. It is a fairly simple matter to pack it with some styrene or card which the wheel flange rides over to minimise the drop of the wheels, though there is now a 3rd part laser-cut part which simple snaps into place and solves the problem.

 

All modelling is compromise to one degree or another, and for the most part people don't notice how track looks. Over here in Australia, lots of modellers use the Peco Code 124 bullhead track, despite the fact that we typically used Flat-bottom here. I hand-laid most of the plain track on "Stringybark Creek" using timber sleepers, four spikes in every sleeper. Considering that I laid about 2 scale miles of the stuff, I never want to do it again.

[SouthernEMU]

Hello all.

Thank you very much for the advice on the various brands of track and ways to improve it - as and if necessary.  I also like the look of the Peco code 143 flat bottom track to be used for a mainline run, and merely wonder if the sleeper spacing is to American 'O' gauge specifications?  I remember that Mainly Trains used to sell a pack of various manufacturers' track samples (I'm pretty sure for '00' only), but as Peco and C & L seem to manufacture shorter lengths than 1 metre (but only bullhead I believe), perhaps this will help me decide?  Either way, having 2 left thumbs, but unfortunately not the patience of Job, RTR is probably the best way for me to go. I have room in my heated basement here in Canada for a medium size layout, and with the door closed, my better half doesn't hear the cursing that sometimes goes on!

Thanks again, Ed.

[MarcD]

I have used the Set track points on our latest layout. The wheel drop issues looks like it has been solved on these points. I have had the occasional issues with buffer locking on longer wagons but I think that is more to do with couplings rather than the buffers. As a side the tie bars are a lot better than those fitted to the larger radius points.

 

Marc 

[Simond]

Marc

 

"The wheel drop issues looks like it has been solved on these points". 

 

Not really.  I suspect that the issue has not been "solved", but as it is dependent on the geometry of the point, particularly the crossing angle and the flangeway width, simply doesn't occur on them as a result of the small radius and hence large crossing angle.  As the crossing angle reduces, the effective length of the flangeway gap increases, to a point where drop is inevitable. 

 

It doesn't happen on the real thing as the tyre is wider than the gap, and is thus supported on the wingrail before losing support at the nose - or vice versa of course.  And it didn't cause a problem originally in 0F when the normal wheel was wider, but as wheels have become more like scale in appearance over the years, they have become narrower, and therefore can fall in the gap, unless the angle is large, or the gap is small - smaller gaps are the key benefit of 0MF.  Indeed, the key driver for the creation of 0MF was to address this issue - better looking, narrower wheels, and no wheel drop.  The added benefit is better looking track.

 

atb

Simon

 

 

[MarcD]

 On Scratchy Bottom we installed MDF inserts but on boggs and son we haven't needed them as the wheel don't drop and the frogs look like they already have a raised section in them.  I'm solving the issue completely on my next layout as it will be S7.  

 

Marc

[MarkNJ]

I have an outdoor layout and use PECO 124 bullhead flex with hand built pointwork using Marcway components.

 

Not very unusual until you realize I live in the Yukon with -40deg C winters and +28deg C summers.

 

When I was planning the layout I contacted PECO regarding the suitability of their track, they did not recoomend it due to the temperature variation. Not wishing to hand build the regular track I ignored their advice and used their flex. After 3 years the track is as good as new.

 

I was surprised that the PECO flex track was cheaper than the components from Marcway for the regular track which I would then have to assemble.

 

The rail and sleepers for the pointwork I bought from Marcway. They were a lot cheaper than PECO points and enabled a more flowing formation.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Mark