Is trackwork the poor relation of the hobby ?

[hayfield]

Regarding Peco points - when we built our new club layout, we had a number of insulfrog points from the previous effort. I recycled these by re-using the stock rails (which have a convenient rebate) and initially the blades. The crossings have to be fabricated. This all goes on copper clad and looks a lot better than the original. The rebuilt point can be done with a non-standard curve as well. Much cheaper than buying new.

 

John

 

Dont forget this method can be used to repair old or broken points (sorry for going off track)

[coachmann]

Gem Model Railways went to the trouble of having plastic webbing made in the 1970s. It never occured to me to ask George M. if it was very expensive or not, but knowing him, he wouldnt spend if he didn't think it would turn a penny. Roy Dock continued making the track for a time after taking over GEM. Can anyone remember if it had 'British' sleeper spacing or not?

[hayfield]

Gem Model Railways went to the trouble of having plastic webbing made in the 1970s. It never occured to me to ask George M. if it was very expensive or not, but knowing him, he wouldnt spend if he didn't think it would turn a penny. Roy Dock continued making the track for a time after taking over GEM. Can anyone remember if it had 'British' sleeper spacing or not?

 

Coachman

 

I have an old turnout next to me, the sleeper spacing matches SMP flexi track so I guess its 00 spacing, the sleepers are 9" and not 12" though. The main problem I found with them, was that as the V was made from a soft metal casting (whitemetal ?) it was easily broken and in those days no low melt solder and only multi core solder with big unweildy soldering irons, so all attempts to repair them failed

 

 

GEM turnout against a bit of Peco streamline

[coachmann]

Blimey, I don't remember those points so thanks. I had GEM track on a diaramma but that one hit the dustbin years ago. My memories of GEM include blokes threading sleeper webbing onto rails and stacking up piles of yard long tracks when they werent fettling white metal parts.

[Tim Hale]

Gordon wrote

I would suspect it is simply the return on investment.

 

Sorry to return to this comment but I believe that any reason why something isn't being made must be a commercial decision and Gordon has nit the nail etc.

 

Unlike items of rolling stock, track is likely to be a one-off investment for the modeller over a period of time and therefore the financial returns must be fairly slim. For the incumbent UK supplier, there is little or no incentive to change because we continue to buy the product although I do argue that the introduction of plain bullhead track* that matched their existing product range might be a small step in the right direction for Peco.

 

Tim

 

*Not turnouts, just a length of track.

[beast66606]

If moulds have a limited life span then this completly shoots down the cost of tooling claim,lets say a tool lasts 6 months then they make 2 a year.

 

I wonder how much tools mould cost ...

 

If they had 1 tool for H0 and one for 00 both tools would last longer therefore over a given period of time the cost will be much the same. In the short term the initial costs are higher as you are making 2 and not 1 mould but they will not have to be renewed as quickly (off setting the initial cost) rhe bonus is that those who have H0 and want 00 track would buy a whole lot of track that they otherwise not have brought.

 

Based on what ? - the sales for HO are already established, it's OO we are replacing surely ? and that supports my comments.

 

The maths may not be so simple for the turnouts, but if the moulds ware out in time then they would be replaced anyway. Also when Peco had a perfectly good track system why did they bring out 'SET TRACK' if costs are so critical ?.

 

Because it's the projected sales that decide what does or doesn't go ahead, simple economics.

 

I am not having a go at Peco, I have a lot of time for them. I use some of their products and they have a customer sales / service department which is second to none. I have used the Set Track as an example of a company seeing a sales opportunity and grabing it with both hands

 

 

Sorry but we go around this debate time after time, plenty of people who want manufacturers to invest their (the manufacturer) money in a new "certainty" but very very very few who would invest their own.

[Tim Hale]

Well, it might be, but unless they were going to have rail drawn of a different section/height, why would they do this when SMP and C&L flexi are on the market?

 

Because neither C&L nor SMP are ideal to use with Peco's existing turnouts due to the difference in sleeper height..

[Guest oldlugger]

Chris Nevard was briefly describing Tillig HO points the other day; the example in the photo looked very nice with wider spaced sleepers than Peco and would make a nice combination with Peco flexi that had been modified in the way Andy Y describes (wider spaced sleepers, etc). The Tillig track is, I believe, code 75 flat bottom rail with nicely detailed rail fixings and a reasonably fine tiebar. It is also slightly flexible. Worth a look. Personally I think it would be pointless for Peco to just add plain bullhead flexi track without matching turnouts and crossings as well. Perhaps a compromise might be introducing just two chaired points in medium radius, left and right, with matching wooden sleeper bullhead flexi, and leave it at that. Then if customers get the bug they could add to the system by having a go at building other points from Exactoscale or C and L. I think there are enough modellers worldwide who would jump at the chance of buying off the peg scale bullhead track as outlined above, and the investment would be relatively moderate and repaid by sales. Many forum members who use RTR track often refer to the fine looks of hand built chaired track (and scale flat bottom) but are put off by the cost; skill and time equation. Give these people a RTR scale alternative and I think we'd see excitement and sales on the levels of the introduction of the Bachmann 2 EPB. Even though I have built all my track (P4) I didn't really enjoy the process and would have jumped at the chance a few years ago when modelling in OO, at RTR scale chaired track. I think interest in track, and track building is still a minority interest compared to other aspects of the hobby, but we all know how impressive and convincing nicely built scale track looks!

[hayfield]

 

Because neither C&L nor SMP are ideal to use with Peco's existing turnouts due to the difference in sleeper height..

 

I think Peco sleepers are 1.75mm thick. C&L do thicker sleepers at 1.6mm in both plastic and copperclad, for plain track you would have to hand build the track or just have a bit of card packing under the track to lift it to the correct height, just think of the saving in ballast costs.

[gordon s]

Sorry to pee on your chips guys, but the biggest difficulty we have is no one really has any idea of the figures involved. Forget what the heart says, manufacturers follow their heads. In any successful business cash is king and any request for investment will have to pass several tests. Those tests will be put in place by investment specialists that probably have no connection whatsoever to model railways. It's a business. People invest and get a return. End of...No return, no investment.

 

OK, from a purely emotional perspective, I agree with the sentiment, track is the poor relation, but I suspect the accountants simply see it as a necessary evil to run locos/stock on and that is where the money is to be made. The world is full of lifestyle businesses. People will see an opening and invest some cash. Yes, they might make a return, enough to pay for a salary and a holiday every year, but nothing like enough to satisfy larger investors.

 

I've used Peco and Tillig and eventually like Hayfield made my own, because I wanted flowing curves and freedom from RTR track. Soldered PCB construction is a compromise and not as good as P4, but life is too short to aim for perfection in every aspect of modelling, particularly if you want full length trains and large express locos.

 

Perhaps someone will see an opening. Personally I think it doesn't exist and we will just have to get on with our current methods of building track. After all, if you care enough, you'll build your own. If you don't, Peco and Tillig will be only too pleased to sell you some.

[beast66606]

I've used Peco and Tillig and eventually like Hayfield made my own, because I wanted flowing curves and freedom from RTR track. Soldered PCB construction is a compromise and not as good as P4, but life is too short to aim for perfection in every aspect of modelling, particularly if you want full length trains and large express locos.

 

Done that, it doesn't take that long ...

[gordon s]

Beast, I have nothing but admiration for Widnes Vine Yard and hope to see it one day on the circuit, but from a purely lone modeller perspective, I've learned something has to give. I look at Chris Nevards scenic work, Norman Solomons track, Roy Jacksons loco's etc etc, but each of these is an expert in one particular field and no doubt, very good in many others. I'm sure Widnes has track experts, loco experts and in your case, signalling experts.

 

I suspect the average Joe modeller will focus on one or other aspect of their construction skills and may make compromises in others. From a purely personal perspective, I wanted a large layout with flowing curves, but couldn't live with the demands of P4. I'd love to, but something else would have to give. If a modellers area of expertise is outside trackwork, then I suspect again, they will compromise in that area as it it may not be the real element of modelling that appeals.

 

Clubs and Societies are different as you pool all those skills and it's not a one man creation. As the market is surely driven by lone modellers, the percentage who will want perfect track is just a fraction of the total. How much of a fraction? I have no idea and thereby lives the problem.

[Guest oldlugger]

Sorry to pee on your chips guys, but the biggest difficulty we have is no one really has any idea of the figures involved. Forget what the heart says, manufacturers follow their heads. In any successful business cash is king and any request for investment will have to pass several tests. Those tests will be put in place by investment specialists that probably have no connection whatsoever to model railways. It's a business. People invest and get a return. End of...No return, no investment.

 

OK, from a purely emotional perspective, I agree with the sentiment, track is the poor relation, but I suspect the accountants simply see it as a necessary evil to run locos/stock on and that is where the money is to be made. The world is full of lifestyle businesses. People will see an opening and invest some cash. Yes, they might make a return, enough to pay for a salary and a holiday every year, but nothing like enough to satisfy larger investors.

 

I've used Peco and Tillig and eventually like Hayfield made my own, because I wanted flowing curves and freedom from RTR track. Soldered PCB construction is a compromise and not as good as P4, but life is too short to aim for perfection in every aspect of modelling, particularly if you want full length trains and large express locos.

 

Perhaps someone will see an opening. Personally I think it doesn't exist and we will just have to get on with our current methods of building track. After all, if you care enough, you'll build your own. If you don't, Peco and Tillig will be only too pleased to sell you some.

 

Hello Gordon,

 

Stranger things have happened. Who would have predicted a code 75 concrete sleeper point in OO, or flat bottom points in O gauge, both from Peco? Who would have expected a Super D not that long ago? I think the manufacturers listen to their customers and with enough encouragement I think we might just be surprised a few years down the line, so to speak. After all, so much has been produced now that the big model companies will be running out of things to produce and maintain novelty. I'd bet on it.

[The Stationmaster]

Gem Model Railways went to the trouble of having plastic webbing made in the 1970s. It never occured to me to ask George M. if it was very expensive or not, but knowing him, he wouldnt spend if he didn't think it would turn a penny. Roy Dock continued making the track for a time after taking over GEM. Can anyone remember if it had 'British' sleeper spacing or not?

Sorry, I missed this earlier. As far as I can recall - without delving any out (!!) the GEM track had 'proper' sleeper spacing. From a conversation years ago with Roger Webster I know that at one time Ratio moulded the sleeper bases for GEM (and might even have made the tooling?) but I don't know if that continued after Roy Dock took over. I recall it as quite nice track but the points were atrocious - experimentation with one was quite enough for me and I stayed with the much better looking but slightly problematical (with their plastic frog) Farish Formoway because they looked miles better than Peco. And I've actually got some of all this stuff stashed away up in the attic (where's the 'smiley' for Old Father Time?).

[Pacific231G]

I guess the answer is yes but far more people seem to be interested in model trains than in model railways and for them the track is simply what you run your trains on. So as long as it looks more or less like real track then they're probably satisfied. Even at the serious end of the hobby look at the number of EM gauge modellers who've built their own track and been perfectly happy to accept a blob of solder as representing a chair in a way that they surely would never have for say a handrail knob.

 

[hayfield]

 

I've used Peco and Tillig and eventually like Hayfield made my own, because I wanted flowing curves and freedom from RTR track. Soldered PCB construction is a compromise and not as good as P4, but life is too short to aim for perfection in every aspect of modelling, particularly if you want full length trains and large express locos.

 

 

Gordon I am sorry if I have miss-understood what you have written, but I have built track in P4 gauge using copperclad construction as well as ply and rivet. Also I have also built 00 (and 0-16.5) gauge turnouts using Brook Smith ply sleepers with C&L plastic chairs. Gauge is not a limiting factor in quality or standards of detail in track building. I think what you mean and I agree, that if Copperclad track is not finished off properly it can look aweful, or at least stick out like a sore thumb

 

Up close any hand built track with chairs looks much better than track made by soldering rail to PCB sleepers, but from a distance (at exhibitions etc) once ballasted and painted it is extreemly difficut to see that its blobs of solder rather than chairs, anyway ones attention is drawn away by the stock, buildings and scenery.

 

A chap at the Watford show demonstrated an S gauge layout, all the trackwork was built with copperclad sleepers, it was quite some time before I realised how it was made and it made no difference to the quality of the layout as everything was built and painted to such a high quality and sympathetically with each other.

[gordon s]

Yes, you are correct and perhaps I could have worded it better. I chose soldered construction because I wanted the absolute freedom in layout design that Templot gave me. I also come from a mechanical engineering background and feel comfortable with soldering and then finally, I realised I would have time constraints with building a large layout, particularly now as I've sampled the joys of kit building.

 

I do see P4 as something to aspire to, but believe the tolerance demands of P4 are much tighter and I'm not sure I could maintain those demands without throwing something.......or having to give something else up to provide the additional time needed to produce P4 trackwork.

[blueeighties]

I wanted to construct my layout with handbuilt, purely because it looks so good. Had a good few attempts at turnout construction, but it just ended up in constant frustration and disappointment. Beyond my capabilities.

I had a rethink, and assesed my priorities. I wanted something fairly straightforward to lay, runs well, is reliable, and looks quite good. I decided to use Peco code 75 turnouts, with the electrical mod for reliability, and Exactoscale flexi, for more realistic plain track.

Perfectly acceptable compromise to me. After realising the difficulties, and time required to build ones own turnouts, I would happily pay a premium price if a manufacturer decided to bring out more realistic turnouts.

 

Regards,

 

Lee.

[OFFTHE RAILS]

This is a very important topic so I I would like to make a couple of points (...)

 

1) re: PECO and costs to produce better British 00 track

 

Peco make rather nice 0 gauge British style bullhead track which I imagine has a very much smaller sales volume than 00 trackwork so why don't they make the latter?

 

2) re: SMP track

 

SMP flexible track with code 75 bullhead rail has been around for 40 years now and I’m amazed more people don’t use it. The current suppliers (Marcway) still produce plastic based chaired 36” radius LH & RH points kits which match the SMP track and are much easier to assemble than PCB sleeper based kits. If you require other points radii/functions and if Marcway matching handbuilt RTR PCB based pointwork is considered too pricey, many compromise with PECO code 75 HO points.

 

3) SMP / PECO sleeper height :

I don't see that sleeper height differences of a millimeter or so betwen PECO and SMP track (easly overcome with a little thin card) involve major difficulties!

 

Ian

[Tim Hale]

 

I think Peco sleepers are 1.75mm thick. C&L do thicker sleepers at 1.6mm in both plastic and copperclad, for plain track you would have to hand build the track or just have a bit of card packing under the track to lift it to the correct height, just think of the saving in ballast costs.

 

Actually Peco sleeper base is 1,94mm thick (just checked it) and the packing of SMP plain track to use with Peco Code 75 is a pain however the combination has been used by at least layout that appeared in MRJ.

 

I don't want a complete change of direction from Peco, just some plain BH track with a 1,94mm thick sleeper base set at the correct spacing- not perfect but it would be a start and acceptable for a more than a few.

 

As for building turnouts - no thanks, been there, done that.

 

Tim

[Bernard Lamb]

2 bolt, 3 bolt, 4 bolt and 3 bolt the other way round for the chairs.

30', 45', 60' panels. Wider sleepers at the end of a length or narrower spacing or both?

Roughly as the man at Peco once said . They don't know what they want.

Once you get into more accurate track you become interested in the details.

I use SMP and still fudge the joints.

As for pointwork the options must be almost infinite.

No wonder no major player is bothered to try to improve on the existing option.

They would be on a hiding to nothing.

The poor relation? Yes.

Blame the prototype.

Oh!

Almost forgot. Inside keys.

Bernard

[t-b-g]

 

I don't think I would agree with you Simon that handbuilt points cost 10 - 15 pounds. All you need is some copper clad strip and some rail - not very expensive on a per point basis. Now you can buy pre-machined blades for 7 pounds a pair. Blades are the most time consuming element and difficult to get right. You can also buy pre-assembled crossings for around 14 pounds. If one was to fabricate everything, the cost would probably be only a couple of pounds per point but might take 4 or 5 hours. Yes, I have made a few duff ones but in the last year or so I made a number of successful points for our club layout.

 

John

 

I am just building some copperclad points now. The last one took me less than 2 hours, including filing the crossing nose and blades. With the right file and a good clamp to hold the rail, I can make a blade in about 10 minutes. I haven't worked out how much the bits cost but it isn't going to be any more than about £4. Sometimes I make points from individual chairs glued to wooden sleepers. They cost a little bit more and take me twice as long to make but they do look much better when completed.

 

I have been shot down once or twice on here by the "I am a railway modeller but I have no skill, time or ability and I don't really want to make anything" brigade so I am a bit reluctant to say it again but to me (this is my own personal choice and I don't expect everybody else to feel the same way!), the fun of this hobby is all about making things.

 

Points are not difficult to make. You don't need many tools. I taught myself to make points when I was about 11 years old and have been making them ever since. The first ones had code 100 rail glued with Bostick to balsa wood sleepers and they worked just fine!

 

Apart from the pleasure of making something for yourself, you also have an unlimited range of shapes and sizes, so your layout is not limited to what Peco or suchlike produce.

 

There are very few layouts that have ever looked really good with Peco track in 4mm scale and pretty much all the best looking trackwork in the magazines has hand made pointswork at the very least. I have built some plain track too but the time spent and the small improvement in appearance doesn't make it worthwhile to me when compared with C & L flexible track.

 

Is trackwork the poor relation? In "RTR out of the box" world it is. In "build it yourself" modelling, it certainly isn't.

[Ravenser]

A quick look through the thread didn't throw up any place in which it was stated that only 5% of Peco's market was British sales . And I don't believe that figure - I have heard suggestions you could add a nought on the back of it.... And is this figure for all sales (including N, O, HOm ) or only 16.5mm gauge

 

Peco currently make a dizzying number of 16.5mm gauge ranges : Setrack, Streamline 100 Insulfrog, Streamline 100 Electrofrog , Streamline 75 electrofrog, O.16.5 narrow gauge, Code 83. That's six. They manage 3 ranges of 9mm gauge track (code 80, code 55, OO9 crazy track) and I believe they are talking about a new more mainline 009 track...

 

Frankly , they could probably do with rationalising their existing 16.5mm ranges - and I think I would start by quietly dropping Streamline 100 electrofrog items as the tooling wore out. The "objections" to using code 75 are now obsolete - the fear that elderly Lima and Triang Hornby locos would bounce on the chairs is now largely a thing of the past, and with concrete sleeper and even steel sleeper track available in code 75 , the main factor that kept modern image modellers tied to code 100 has gone. I suspect the folk who are afraid of code 75 are also the folk afraid of wiring live frogs.

 

There's no evidence, looking at that list, that the tooling costs for pointwork are prohibitive . There is a strong commercial reason why Peco don't do British OO track, though, and this is simply that they have a near monopoly of the British market. As a monopoly supplier with little or no competition they can get near 100% of the market for ready made 16.5mm gauge track without making OO points . So they don't . It's much cheaper for Peco to come up with "off the record" reasons why it would be unreasonable and impossible to do than to make a new product competing with their existing products. It's exactly what you would expect with a monopoly supplier - and the same reason why car designs in places like E Germany and India remained unchanged for decades. Why update the design when you have no competition and they have to buy your existing product because there is no alternative? What's wrong with a Trabant - it gets you from A to B? In a similar way British N stagnated in the years when Farish had a monopoly - there was no need to improve the product to compete with another company

 

Where Peco only have a part of a market, they compete, with new products (code 83 for the US , where they face Atlas , Shinohara and the like. Code 75 for the Continent, Setrack to compete with Hornby, code 55 for N , where there is Continental competition ) Where there is an unexploited market to fill they bring out a range quick enough - 009, O , HOm. When they faced competition in the British market from the likes of Farish Formoway, GEM, Welkut and others, they developed the product rapidly enough . It's only since they saw off the last British competitor in the mid 70s that product development has largely ceased

 

I'm rather sceptical about the arguments being put forward about why better track would be uneconomic , because I've heard them before. They are pretty well identical to the arguments used in the 90s to argue that British outline models to a higher specification would be uneconomic. Even if someone introduced a high spec model of a popular class - say class 47 -most of the market would stick with Lima, and with no more than 10% of the market willing to buy it, it would cost so much more that the whole thing would be uneconomic. I remember one magazine editorial solemnly warning that the "tiny" British market was so small that it was barely economic to develop any RTR models and British outline had to be cheap and chearful to exist at all unless we all went HO. Then came the Heljan 47 , and the market rapidly switched to the better product. We now have a RTR Beattie well tank , for approximately the price that the Heljan 47 originally appeared for, and that's ignoring inflation

 

The product doesn't have to be perfect to sell. I've seen enough flame wars about new RTR diesels to know that - but the Heljan 33 is streets ahead of the old Lima version, even though you can pick up a Lima one second hand for £20 . There is a middle ground between 100% accurate and not accurate in any respect

[Ravenser]

And just to counter all the claims that OO points would cost £80 pounds a go - you can buy ready made OO points here ,if you are scared you can't build them to work reliably yourself , and they cost £16.50

 

http://www.marcway.co.uk/ooempw.htm

 

No connection other than a satisfied user , and someone who wants to see better OO track available . Points for a modest sized layout cost £225 acouple of years ago - that includes a bespoke crossover and a bespoke single slip. I have had excellent running, and the appearance is a considereable improvement on Peco . Flexible track used with them is SMP

[DaveF]

As one whose 00 interests are in the Midland railway pre 1914 it would be very nice to have the correct bullhead track.

 

However throughout this thread I don't think I've really seen a mention that if such track and points were to be produced Peco's total sales of 16.5mm gauge track would not increase (except perhaps by a tiny amount for those who stop building their own points).

 

Is any manufacturer, particularly at the moment, going to invest a large amount in a new product which is going to take away sales from a range they already produce?

 

I cannot see any commercial sense in this.

 

I wonder what Peco's response would be if one or more wealthy modellers offered to underwrite the costs of their tooling and stocking such a range?

 

I am sure I have read somewhere that Peco self finance their new products, i.e. they do not go to a bank to borrow at possibly unpredictable rates of interest. If this is so perhaps it explains how as a fairly small company they have stayed in business and been successful for so long.

 

They also appear to be a company who hold quite large stocks of some items, often for many years - spare parts are still available for some of their early products. This must tie up cash. But how often do we moan about companies who do not hold a stock of spares for both new and obsolete models?

 

David