Fixing "00" Turnouts for "modern" "00" drifting Standards

[martin_wynne]

1 hour ago, Andy Reichert said:

4. Wheel Width Min  >= 2 x Crossing Flange way

 

That should be:  Wheel Width Min = 2 x crossing flangeway + blunt nose width + allowance for top corner radius on rail section + allowance for chamfer between face of wheel and tread.

 

p.s. it is a nonsense to write Min and then add a  >=  relational symbol.

 

Martin.

[Andy Reichert]

Please go back and read my disclaimer note - on the posting your are finding fault with. 

 

BTW, the data is verbatim from the S4 Soc documentation.   As you are a long time Scalefour Society member, and as a "standards expert" here, why have you not insisted years ago that they adopt your more relevant "corrections"?  Neither they, nor any other model standards, other than the long mostly unused list of yours in Templot, require or expect any deliberately damaging of the point of the coarse scales' model crossing vees in order to satisfy your personal cosmetic necessity opinion.

 

BTW, when will you be posting  proof of your claim of the failure of the NMRA Standard dimensions?  You've made multiple other posts in the interim. It can't be that difficult to produce the facts if you've understood and known about such a critical error for so long.

 

And on that subject, The NMRA HO standard is used and supported in it's supposedly "failed form" by most major model railway companies including PECO, Bachmann, Hornby USA, Hornby UK apparently, Rapido, Athearn, Atlas, Kato, Kaydee, Walthers, Micro Engineering, Fast Tracks, and many others. Many of whom are even long term major advertisers on Warners' publications. And all of whom have experienced and qualified RTR design and manufacturing units.  Many actually manufacture and promote 16.5 mm gauge track as well as a RTR moving models. Yet none AFAIK, regardless of the presumably highly valuable features of "improved running" and "finescale appearance" even mention a "choice" of running on 16.2 mm track, let alone actually suggesting or making a product incorporating it. And at the end user level, the number of 16.5 mm gauge satisfied users over in the past half century and more, must number at least in the millions, if not tens of millions.  And they are all doing it wrong?

 

Andy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[martin_wynne]

Hi Andy,

 

RMweb is a forum for modellers, not manufacturers. I post stuff which I hope will be useful and helpful to modellers. Some of them find it so, others regard it as the ravings of a lunatic. No-one is required to take the slightest notice of it.

 

What I do write is invariably about hand-built track, based on the prototype.

 

You continually refer to ready-made commercial track, which mostly isn't.

 

We are on two different tracks.  

 

Martin.

[Chris White]

For me one of the major issues is there seem to be too many groups advocating too many standards. Flawed or not in the US you have the NMRA and as I understand it manufacturers aiming at that market fall into line with this.

 

I don't know how much influence or adherence they have but in the rest of Europe you have MOROP and their published "Norms of the European Model railroads", NEM.

 

For the UK scene there appear to be a plethora of specialist interest splinter groups all advocating their own published standards, albeit derived from EMGS, MOROP, NMRA, or some hybrid of these. Manufacturers for the UK market seem to freely pick and choose which standards they pay any attention to, or just put out their own.

 

I often feel those of us looking for a RTR solution are pretty much lost until there's coherence and agreement on a single set of published standards that manufacturers can they be requested to follow. I'd suggest herding the cats might be a worthwhile first step before endeavouring to propose a better mousetrap.

 

At the very least I'd appreciate a web site somewhere listing all the different UK standards, and ideally giving a tabular cross reference and comparison, such that every I can look there rather than picking through every different conversation I come across every few years, these do come around cyclically in order to try to come to terms with the latest fashion or flavour.

[martin_wynne]

38 minutes ago, Chris White said:

I often feel those of us looking for a RTR solution

 

Hi Chris,

 

For RTR modelling you don't need to look for a solution. Almost everything you buy RTR will work just fine with everything else. Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol and the rest work fine on Peco track. What is the the problem you need to solve?

 

The track discussions, which sometimes get a bit heated, are nothing to do with ready-made RTR models. They are among modellers who like building their own stuff, and naturally each have their own ideas about how best to do it. RTR modellers can cheerfully ignore them.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

Edited February 21, 2020 by martin_wynne
typo

[Nearholmer]

Some of us r-t-r people, in my case retro r-t-r, enjoy watching these rather tortured debates, just as a spectator sport.

 

Those debating should, in case they are not already, be aware that the arguments they are having are almost identical to arguments that have broken-out periodically since c1930, and which have never arrived at a lasting settlement.

 

Such arguments are integral to The British Way of Railway Modelling, at its heart almost, so probably ought never to be settled, in case settling them ruins the whole atmosphere of the hobby, by creating an entirely practical but somewhat dull near-total-uniformity. This isn’t the USA after all.

[Andy Reichert]

On 20/02/2020 at 04:26, hayfield said:

 

Andy

 

SNIP

 

Clearly there is nothing wrong with modellers wanting to model in either EM or P4 gauges, so why is it so wrong to want to model in 00SF?  Building layouts to both EM and P4 standards to prove the standard is exactly the what both societies did !! Many are now doing the same in 00SF,

 

Now if 00sf does not interest you that's fine, the standards work and the genie is out of the bottle. This is how life evolves and develops 

 

Gordon who is doing precisely that, agreed with your post. However, for whatever reasons, Gordon abandoned an earlier layout build using P4.  If you read the criteria for a working standard, especially lines 1 and 6, you'll notice the reference to the Running Clearance between the wheel effective flange and the crossing flange way width and the check rail - stock rail gap.

 

In NMRA HO that gap can be as much as 1.25 mm containing a wheel effective flange width of 0.75 mm. I.e 0.5 mm running clearance. That allows for a lot of possible construction inaccuracy and wheel wobble in a well used model and the advertised minimum radius for a Hornby long wheel base loco of 438 mm actually being possible.

 

OTOH,  The P4 running clearance is for an effective wheel flange of 0.4 mm, in a crossing flange way of 0.68 mm. I. e. 0.28 mm, hence the extra build accuracy and very large minimum radii suggested for P4 locomotives, even with scratch built chassis. 

 

If we apply the same test to the 00-SF suggested dimensions, the running clearance of a DOGA Intermediate wheel flange is 0.8 mm in a 00-SF 1 mm flange way. I. e 0.2 mm . That actually suggests that the required build accuracy and minimum radius for RTR running on 16.2 mm track is even greater for 00-SF than it is for the popularly considered difficult P4. 

 

I don't see the same level of promotion being expressed for the limitations of 00-SF running RTR , as it is for its flange way cosmetic advantage. If the purpose of posting " stuff which I hope will be useful and helpful to modellers" is the goal, then the full picture of the simultaneous issues needs to be posted at the same time as the positive claims.

 

Andy

 

 

 

 

[Andy Reichert]

40 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Some of us r-t-r people, in my case retro r-t-r, enjoy watching these rather tortured debates, just as a spectator sport.

 

Those debating should, in case they are not already, be aware that the arguments they are having are almost identical to arguments that have broken-out periodically since c1930, and which have never arrived at a lasting settlement.

 

Such arguments are integral to The British Way of Railway Modelling, at its heart almost, so probably ought never to be settled, in case settling them ruins the whole atmosphere of the hobby, by creating an entirely practical but somewhat dull near-total-uniformity. This isn’t the USA after all.

 

I believe you are confusing "gauge wars" with an exploration of the limitations as well as just the positives of an alternative wheel and track standard to 00.

 

00/HO, EM and P4 exist separately for sound reasons and all work and run 100% if built to their specific definitions. I'm not arguing against any of them.

 

In the case of 00-SF, the "sound" reasons and the claims appear to be a continually moving (and recycling) target.  Hence the huge number of posts trying to pin down an actual answer to any particular factual question.  In spectator sport terms,  00-SF probably holds the record for the fastest moving goalposts in the history of RM WEB.

 

Andy

[Nearholmer]

No Andy, I’m not confusing anything with anything else. What I’m doing is gently (I hope) taking the p*ss.

 

(As an aside, there were earnest and passionate discussions about track/wheel standards simultaneous with the earnest and passionate discussions about scale and gauge. The soon to be Minister of War Transport found time to write a famous letter to a magazine about it in the middle of WW2)

[gordon s]

17 hours ago, Andy Reichert said:

 

Gordon who is doing precisely that, agreed with your post. However, for whatever reasons, Gordon abandoned an earlier layout build using P4. 

 

Andy, you really ought to get your facts straight. You misquoted me yesterday and then called me 'Simon' and now you are stating I've abandoned an earlier layout in P4....

 

I wish....

 

Just for the record, I have NEVER even bought a wheel set in P4, let alone built pointwork in P4. Period.

 

I, along with many others are more than happy building pointwork in 00-SF. It works and works well and I will continue to speak positively about my own experience. This is not an evangelical mission of mine, simply to say I've tried it and it works well. The decision for anyone else to use it is entirely up to them, but the huge difference is that we all respect our freedom of choice .

 

That's the way Brits are and you just don't get it.....

 

I have also asked on numerous occasions what your recommended specification would be for 00 track, but you never answer. Come on, give us the benefit of your experience for once. Instead of the continual negativity, why not change the tone of your posts into something positive and share with us what would work. Give us a set of easily understood track specs for 00  that would allow us to run most RTR stock plus kit built items and you may find you could solve something that has puzzled us for years.

 

If there is a better alternative, then please share it with us....

Edited February 22, 2020 by gordon s

[Enterprisingwestern]

21 hours ago, trustytrev said:

Hello,

      Where does one get these various back to back gauges for the different OO settings? I had more than one but seem to have misplaced them.

Had them ages and just when I need them they have disappeared.

trustytev.

 

If it's anything like the selection of EM B-B gauges I've got, just buy different manufacturers versions and measure them, I've got 4 different (and one that isn't even parallel so it must correct somewhere along it's girth) and if all else fails there is always the possibility of plasticard or brass shims!

 

Mike.

[Nearholmer]

On 16/12/2019 at 23:42, Andy Reichert said:

it's become clear that the idea of "00" being to 4mm scale, but conveniently able to run on standard HO 16.5 mm gauged track

Now I’m going to became terribly pedantic.

 

That isn’t an accurate summary of the birth of 00 at all.

 

4mm/ft(ish) on 16.5mm(ish) gauge track came before, not after 3.5mm/ft on 16.5mm gauge track, in the form of the Bing (Bassett Lowke/Greenly) Tabletop Railway. Read all about it here https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Category:Bing_Table_Railway.

 

3.5mm/ft on the same gauge emerged as clever amateurs began to make use of Bing parts to build increasingly fine-scale models.

Edited February 21, 2020 by Nearholmer

[njee20]

I never get Andy's agenda, any time I read a thread/post by him. This thread included. The whole thing seems a bizarre mess, possibly to promote a scale in which he has some vested interest...? Genuinely confused.

I can absolutely get behind T-55 though, although as an N gauge modeller I'm tempted to start T-27.5. We need a good universal standard:

 

[PatB]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

No Andy, I’m not confusing anything with anything else. What I’m doing is gently (I hope) taking the p*ss.

 

(As an aside, there were earnest and passionate discussions about track/wheel standards simultaneous with the earnest and passionate discussions about scale and gauge. The soon to be Minister of War Transport found time to write a famous letter to a magazine about it in the middle of WW2)

Fortuneately, his cunning plan to regauge the entire network to 4'11/2", to allow operation of US built stock supplied under Lend-Lease, was abandoned due to a critical shortage of suitable solder for sticking the rail chairs back down. 

[PatB]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

If it's anything like the selection of EM B-B gauges I've got, just buy different manufacturers versions and measure them, I've got 4 different (and one that isn't even parallel so it must correct somewhere along it's girth) and if all else fails there is always the possibility of plasticard or brass shims!

 

Mike.

I'm reminded of when we were building the Somerset 0 Gauge Group's test track, 40 years ago. One old boy used to bring in a vast selection of track gauges of all kinds, not one of which appeared to be correct. 

[trustytrev]

Hello,

      One thing I have noticed in all this talk. No one has mentioned the co-efficient of expansion and the role it plays combined with the current ambient temperature and fluctuations  experienced over a time of a variable degree.

The bottle of Australian Shiraz was rather nice as well.

trustytrev.

[trustytrev]

Hello,

      One thing I have noticed in all this talk. No one has mentioned the co-efficient of expansion and the role it plays combined with the current ambient temperature and fluctuations  experienced over a time of a variable degree.

The bottle of Australian Shiraz was rather nice as well.

trustytrev.

[hayfield]

17 hours ago, Andy Reichert said:

 

Gordon who is doing precisely that, agreed with your post. However, for whatever reasons, Gordon abandoned an earlier layout build using P4.  If you read the criteria for a working standard, especially lines 1 and 6, you'll notice the reference to the Running Clearance between the wheel effective flange and the crossing flange way width and the check rail - stock rail gap.

 

In NMRA HO that gap can be as much as 1.25 mm containing a wheel effective flange width of 0.75 mm. I.e 0.5 mm running clearance. That allows for a lot of possible construction inaccuracy and wheel wobble in a well used model and the advertised minimum radius for a Hornby long wheel base loco of 438 mm actually being possible.

 

OTOH,  The P4 running clearance is for an effective wheel flange of 0.4 mm, in a crossing flange way of 0.68 mm. I. e. 0.28 mm, hence the extra build accuracy and very large minimum radii suggested for P4 locomotives, even with scratch built chassis. 

 

If we apply the same test to the 00-SF suggested dimensions, the running clearance of a DOGA Intermediate wheel flange is 0.8 mm in a 00-SF 1 mm flange way. I. e 0.2 mm . That actually suggests that the required build accuracy and minimum radius for RTR running on 16.2 mm track is even greater for 00-SF than it is for the popularly considered difficult P4. 

 

I don't see the same level of promotion being expressed for the limitations of 00-SF running RTR , as it is for its flange way cosmetic advantage. If the purpose of posting " stuff which I hope will be useful and helpful to modellers" is the goal, then the full picture of the simultaneous issues needs to be posted at the same time as the positive claims.

 

Andy

 

 

 

 

 

Andy

 

NMRA and H0 has nothing to do with what Gordon and others are doing. Secondly the minimum radii in my experience usually is dictated by how the loco itself has been produced. Many were designed for toy train set radii. With the greatest respect all this theory goes over most folks head. We have a saying the proof is in the pudding or eating.

 

The question is does this set of revised standards work, in all but a few cases its a resounding yes. The fact is, Does it look better?, does it work better? Until in practice you can physically show the standards fail, all you have is an unfounded theory 

[Oldddudders]

17 hours ago, Andy Reichert said:

 

I believe you are confusing "gauge wars" with an exploration of the limitations as well as just the positives of an alternative wheel and track standard to 00.

 

00/HO, EM and P4 exist separately for sound reasons and all work and run 100% if built to their specific definitions. I'm not arguing against any of them.

 

In the case of 00-SF, the "sound" reasons and the claims appear to be a continually moving (and recycling) target.  Hence the huge number of posts trying to pin down an actual answer to any particular factual question.  In spectator sport terms,  00-SF probably holds the record for the fastest moving goalposts in the history of RM WEB.

 

Andy

 I am well aware that standards are essential for the satisfaction of the customer, so my RTR trains will run on my Peco track - and they do. As far as I can see, whatever standards Gordon has used to build his beautiful track, aided by Templot and its owner, seem to have worked rather well with the trains he is now running. We have the videos. What more is there to debate? 

[Siberian Snooper]

As with all the gauge war debates, it's starting to go round in circles.  We have the evidence that current RTR locos and rolling stock runs very well on 00sf 4sf or any other label to give and that should be that, if it doesn't work for you, use something else.

 

 

[hayfield]

13 hours ago, PatB said:

I'm reminded of when we were building the Somerset 0 Gauge Group's test track, 40 years ago. One old boy used to bring in a vast selection of track gauges of all kinds, not one of which appeared to be correct. 

 

 

I enjoy building track and over the years have built up a collection of various gauges and scales. One thing I can report is that with modern measuring devices going to .00 of a mm no two makes of the same gauge are exactly the same, both though are within the given tolerances set by the standard  

[gordon s]

Thanks for your kind words, but this isn't about me.

 

For whatever reason Andy appears to have a problem with 00-SF. He is entitled to an opinion as we all are, but as far as I'm aware it's not a criminal offence to build track to that specification. Why he makes such a song and dance about it is beyond me, but I do draw the line at a third person attempting to undermine the work of others because it doesn't meet the standards they have chosen or want to inflict on others. Life isn't always about numbers. You only have to take an interest in cars to know that on paper, one model really stands out, but when you drive it, there is no involvement for the driver and a model that appears less attractive in spec is often the best drive.

 

There are many of us who want to build our own pointwork because we want flowing formations. Personally I also want to achieve the best running quality in 00, using a variety of modern RTR and kit built stock. 

 

I'm just waiting for someone to provide the best specification for 00 track that will provide high quality running for a mix of stock. I really can't see why that hasn't been forthcoming.

 

Maybe there isn't one any better than any of the variations chosen by UK 00 modellers.

 

 

[martin_wynne]

What I find amusing in all this is the idea that 00-SF is a new insult that has been visited upon the hobby, and that I'm the perpetrator of this outrage.

 

In fact it has been around for 50 years now, since Roy Miller first devised "EM minus 2" in the early 1970s. It was used by the MRC for one of their layouts. It was supplied by me to customers of my 00 pointwork in the 70s and 80s, who always came back for more.

 

If anyone is at fault in all this it is DOGA, who could and should have included it in their 00 standards. By now it should have been accepted as an established part of 00 modelling -- and who knows, C&L under their previous ownerships might have adopted it for their finescale turnout kits, instead of the dreadful DOGA Fine standard which they inflicted on customers without telling them that RTR models wouldn't run on it.

 

But we are where we are, and we now have several videos on RMweb showing 00-SF layouts looking good and running just fine. What's the big problem which justifies this entire topic heading?

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[hayfield]

18 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Thanks for your kind words, but this isn't about me.

 

For whatever reason Andy appears to have a problem with 00-SF. He is entitled to an opinion as we all are, but as far as I'm aware it's not a criminal offence to build track to that specification. Why he makes such a song and dance about it is beyond me, but I do draw the line at a third person attempting to undermine the work of others because it doesn't meet the standards they have chosen or want to inflict on others. Life isn't always about numbers. You only have to take an interest in cars to know that on paper, one model really stands out, but when you drive it, there is no involvement for the driver and a model that appears less attractive in spec is often the best drive.

 

There are many of us who want to build our own pointwork because we want flowing formations. Personally I also want to achieve the best running quality in 00, using a variety of modern RTR and kit built stock. 

 

I'm just waiting for someone to provide the best specification for 00 track that will provide high quality running for a mix of stock. I really can't see why that hasn't been forthcoming.

 

Maybe there isn't one any better than any of the variations chosen by UK 00 modellers.

 

 

 

We have had this before where someone else took exception to 00SF presumably because it proved a better solution than the one they supported.

 

The thing is does it really matter? Those who use 00SF are not forcing anyone to use this system. Gordon should be commended for :-

 

l.    The design of flowing trackwork

ll.   The skill in building the track

lll.  The performance and look of the trackwork

 

00 & H0 can equally have trackwork to the same flowing design

No doubt most competent track builders can build track to a similar standard

00 with 1.25 flangeways in my opinion it will never look as good and perhaps not perform as well

 

But this is my personnel observation/preference. if you are happy to chose a different set of standards that's fine  

 

 

[hayfield]

2 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

What I find amusing in all this is the idea that 00-SF is a new insult that has been visited upon the hobby, and that I'm the perpetrator of this outrage.

 

In fact it has been around for 50 years now, since Roy Miller first devised "EM minus 2" in the early 1970s. It was used by the MRC for one of their layouts. It was supplied by me to customers of my 00 pointwork in the 70s and 80s, who always came back for more.

 

If anyone is at fault in all this it is DOGA, who could and should have included it in their 00 standards. By now it should have been accepted as an established part of 00 modelling -- and who knows, C&L under their previous ownerships might have adopted it for their finescale turnout kits, instead of the dreadful DOGA Fine standard which they inflicted on customers without telling them that RTR models wouldn't run on it.

 

But we are where we are, and we now have several videos on RMweb showing 00-SF layouts looking good and running just fine. What's the big problem which justifies this entire topic heading?

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

 

Martin

 

I am certainly in agreement with your comments about C&L, which has changed completely under Phil. Previous decisions were made for financial reasons. 

 

1 Phil has had made roller gauges with 1.25 check and flangeway guides

2) Common crossings with a 1.25mm flangeway are now available

 

For 00 gauge modellers C&L now support 00SF, 00-BF/DOGA universal & DOGA Fine

 

I am still working on flangeway gauges , but one step at a time