MRJ 234

[billbedford]

The flangeways and check rails are definitely to the published P4 standards; they have not been eased or slackened.

 

 

Then prove it by posting the between checks distance of your point(s).

 

As for theory, when does simple maths become theory?

 

If Back_to_Back + Effective_Flange < Check_Gauge:

        Runs well

else:

        Derails

[Paul Cram]

I won't rise to Bill Bedford's bait, other than to point out that model railway wheels (in any scale or gauge) have never behaved like the wheels on the full-size railway.  For one thing, most of us don't incline our rails inwards to match the coning of the wheels. The flanges on the wheels of our rolling stock perform a very real function in keeping the wheels on the track. The dynamics of small-scale models are vastly different from the dynamics of full-size railway vehicles, and it is rather silly to pretend that our models either can or do behave in the same way.

Speaking for myself and anyone else who uses C&L/Exactoscale track the rail is inclined at 1:20 and the wheels do perform as per the prototype. Since this track has been available since the mid 80s I would have thought most layouts were built to this standard. Certainly my current layout is and a previous one was..

[billbedford]

So we have at least two people telling us that using EM style wheels works on P4 track (and I know of others) and others telling us that it will never work!

 

 

No one has said that wheels with deep flanges would not improve the running on, at least some, poorly performing P4 layouts, but equally tracking down, understanding and correcting faults as they arise will be just as successful. It seems to me that people who advocate deep flanges are doing no more than covering up one bodge with another. While I don't really care what people do in the privacy of their own train set, I do care that the sort of unthinking advocacy we've seen here and in MRJ will add more layers of misinformation to the pile that newcomers to P4 have to wade through.

[Jol Wilkinson]

From which I conclude that Bill Bedford hasn't actually tested these wheels on a layout. (More theorising!)

 

I built my track using Brook Smith methods.  The flangeways and check rails are definitely to the published P4 standards; they have not been eased or slackened.

 

I am speaking from several years' experience of using EM wheels on P4 track (at least 6 years, it may be 7 now.)  So please will theorists like Bill Bedford stop telllng those of us who have actually done it that it does not or cannot work!

Well I tried it, accidentally and briefly and it didn't work. If  you made it work and I didn't, who is right? No doubt you will claim to be.

 

Quite a few of my friends work in EM gauge, and they find that the BTB measurement (16.5mm) is rather too generous for 18.2mm gauge track.  Some have tried tightening up the flangeway and check rail clearances, although that is only possible if they use only the wheels mentioned earlier in this thread.  Romfords (Markits) and the like need the wider clearance.

 

I did take a look at EM track standards before deciding to use EM wheels on P4 track, but it soon became apparent that EM gauge ('complete and uncompromised') was not the answer, for me at any rate.  Besides which I had already built the layout to P4 track standards, and re-gauging (GWR 1892-style) was not really practicable. Jeff George's MRJ article describes exactly the same process that I went through, and his descisions and the reasons for them were uncannily similar to my own  

 

So far as I am concerned, everyone is welcome to please themselves what track and wheel standards they use.  It is only the 'purists' (some of whom have been evident on this thread) who seem to have a problem with that. 

Please stop going on about "purists" in a derogatory way. If someone chooses to model the MR (as depicted by Dewsbury in MRJ) are they being a purist by insisting on using items which are correct for the railway, period and location. They undoubtedly are and there is nothing at all wrong with that.

 

The fact that someone wants to follow a set of standards and you don't, doesn't make you right and them wrong.

[Captain Kernow]

Such a shame that quite a few folk seem to be getting hot under the collar about what was only a small portion of this excellent issue of MRJ - surely this thread is for discussion about the whole magazine issue, not just the one article?

 

(with apologies to those who don't agree...!)

[chrisf]

I'm inclined to agree with the Captain so at the risk of courting further unpopularity I propose to mention a different article.  My attention was grabbed by Lower Soudley, its irregular shape and the extremely tall chimney next to the Casting House.  Inspired by the latter, it strikes me that we tend not to maximise the opportunity for using the potential of height.  How many of us realise just how tall trees can be, or how much mountain is to be found above a tunnel?  This is just the sort of thought-provoking at which MRJ excels.

 

Chris

[martin_wynne]

The point is that, whether the purists like it or not, wheels made to current EM standards by Ultrascale, KM and Gibson will run very reliably on P4 track if set to the minimum P4 B2B (or something very close to that figure).  (If you use one of the original Studiolith BB gauges, it will provide exactly the right setting.)

 

Jeff George has proved it by experience and has said so in MRJ.  I have done the same and I see that one or two contirbutors to the S4 webforum have also confirmed it.

 

You have muddled up two completely different things. Jeff George is a good friend and I have seen his stock running well.

 

But he is NOT using EM wheels. He is buying EM wheels. And then modifying them to use on his P4 layout. After which they are not EM wheels and will not run on EM track (they are too narrow).

 

This is completely different from using EM wheels as supplied on P4 track. In my view that's a daft thing to do because even at the minimum back-to-back the BEF max dimension is exceeded, and sooner or later that will cause grief on properly constructed crossings (frogs). Especially when the crossing is on the outside rail of a curve and stock is being propelled (pushed).

 

But if that's what you want to do, fine. Although it seems to me that if you want to use EM wheels, the obvious thing to do would be to build an EM layout.

 

Martin.

[t-b-g]

There are a lot of people in this hobby who will try to tell you what can and can't work. Then there are those who just get on with their modelling!

 

A nice, friendly discussion about standards and about somebody trying something different is quite refreshing.

 

With my simple maths, if you have a maximum flange width of 0.6mm (quoted above) and a flangeway gap of 0.68mm (from the P4 standards), then your flange will go through the flangeway as long as your wheels are far enough apart (say 17.55mm B2B) not to jam over two opposing check rails. An 18.2mm check gauge would seem to work with that. 

 

I might be being a bit dim and missing something obvious but wheels with those dimensions would appear to go through points built to P4 standards and the wheels would run nice and close against the rails. You would need to be accurate with your gauges etc. but that is what P4 is all about.

 

I agree about the other articles in MRJ. I always enjoy seeing and reading about Castle Rackrent (a proper operators layout!!) and Bob Essery is a modeller and writer I have admired greatly, especially when he puts forward his thoughts on operation. A couple of friends of mine get a name check for their involvement in the Lower Soudley article and I remember seeing the layout a while ago. It is now pretty much retired but it was a very interesting design indeed, with the different levels and the tight curves twisting around the buildings.

 

Perhaps the P4 article has received the greatest response because it really is an "elephant in the room" thought provoking piece rather than just a description of good modelling. 

 

Tony 

[billbedford]

With my simple maths, if you have a maximum flange width of 0.6mm (quoted above) and a flangeway gap of 0.68mm (from the P4 standards), then your flange will go through the flangeway as long as your wheels are far enough apart (say 17.55mm B2B) not to jam over two opposing check rails. An 18.2mm check gauge would seem to work with that. 

 

I might be being a bit dim and missing something obvious but wheels with those dimensions would appear to go through points built to P4 standards and the wheels would run nice and close against the rails. You would need to be accurate with your gauges etc. but that is what P4 is all about.

 

 

Yes sure, it will work if you can keep all your stock within those finer tolerances, but keeping everything within tolerance is exactly the problem that people have with 'standard' P4. At the same time increasing the width over the flanges will limit the minimum radius track curves you can use, especially for long fixed wheelbase vehicles. 

[kipford]

 

but keeping everything within tolerance is exactly the problem that people have with 'standard' P4.

There lies the crux of the matter and why we see so much variation in running qualities between layouts.

[Horsetan]

.....If anyone actually working in P4 should read this thread, I would encourage them to try out EM wheels on their layouts for themselves (and not be deterred by the airy theorists who infest webforums).

 

The answer is surely simpler than that. Why not just use Ray Hammond's strict Scalefour standards? I adopted these some years ago, as I liked the ability to eventually be able to run on P4 & S4.

[Tim V]

Having read the article on wheels in P4, there is no comment on the track, or its standards, or any fettling that may or may not have been done. It may have been "professionally" built, but that is no sinecure.

 

As such, to cite the flange depth as the only reason for derailments strikes me as being a bit blinkered.

[Arthur]

I really don't get all the hand wringing over this.

 

The articles author, and one or two others it would seem, have built track work to a certain standard, they've had some running problems, and have found an eminently practical solution which works FOR THEM. They've shared the idea.

 

Nobody has claimed P4 only works this way, or that all other P4 modellers should adopt it.

 

Blimey, let's move on....

 

N.B. I've no vested interest in EM, P4 or S4.

[Talltim]

 First time I have seen it modelled but yes, some did.

 

There is a good photo of one on p173 of the book "Private Owner Wagons from the Ince Waggon and Ironworks Co." book.

 

The wagon in the book was hired to the LD&ECR, so just about qualifies as a "private owner".

 

Tony

Pan Am Railways used backwards sloping letters on one side of their locos for a while. Looks very strange. They seemed to have moved to normal italics on both sides now.

Pan Am 370 by Voluntary Amputation, on Flickr

[billbedford]

Pan Am Railways used backwards sloping letters on one side of their locos for a while. Looks very strange. They seemed to have moved to normal italics on both sides now.

 

Pan Am 370 by Voluntary Amputation, on Flickr

 

Did the lettering slope the other way on the other side?

[BlackRat]

Ohhhh Im sooooo glad I did that Tribology class at Nite Skool!

 

Chris.......your right re the heights of trees, very few layouts actually model trees , to scale, and those that do never somehow seem to look right!

 

Probably due to the forced perspective view we have of layouts and we go back to should layouts be at eye level viewing height.......something which I think the MRJ has covered a number of times.

[Penlan]

Sloping Lettering, I'm just wondering if this is the Ince Wagon Co's. idea for lettering, which never actually reached traffic.
I can think of a couple of South Wales Colliery wagons where the wagons in traffic had contemporary lettering differently spaced to the Wagon Suppliers photos.

Is there a known (prototype) photo of this sloping LDEC lettering on a wagon in traffic?

Anyway, IF I had a LDEC wagon, I think I would do it properly..... Upright.

I do the have odd company wagons like the E&WYU, W(irral) R(ailway), N.L.R., N(eath) & B(recon)R. B(ishops) C(astle), plus of course most of the South Wales pre-grouping Co's., on my layout, sometimes.
I have enough wagons to fill the layout twice over.... 

[garethashenden]

Did the lettering slope the other way on the other side?

Yes.

[Flymo748]

Sloping Lettering, I'm just wondering if this is the Ince Wagon Co's. idea for lettering, which never actually reached traffic.

I can think of a couple of South Wales Colliery wagons where the wagons in traffic had contemporary lettering differently spaced to the Wagon Suppliers photos.

 

Is there a known (prototype) photo of this sloping LDEC lettering on a wagon in traffic?

 

The short answer is "yes".  Entirely by coincidence, I was reading copies of the Great Eastern Railway Society Journal last night, and there was a photo of an LDEC wagon with the sloping lettering.  The wagon was in a picture about one of the GER joint lines.

 

I'll have a look again when I am home from work.  However I think that it was in GERJ #94 or #98, if anyone has them to hand.

 

Cheers

Flymo

[t-b-g]

Yes sure, it will work if you can keep all your stock within those finer tolerances, but keeping everything within tolerance is exactly the problem that people have with 'standard' P4. At the same time increasing the width over the flanges will limit the minimum radius track curves you can use, especially for long fixed wheelbase vehicles. 

 

I thought P4 had gauge widening to deal with such matters.

 

If you have two layouts, both built to a reasonably high consistency and using suitable gauges, with one layout having tiny flanges and one having deeper flanges, it seems blindingly obvious that the larger flanges will make any tiny discrepancies in the track, particularly in levels, less likely to cause a derailment.

 

My view in such things has come as a result of being involved in building upwards of a dozen layouts, mostly in EM but I have done some work in P4 and OO. As such, I prefer to accept what has been shown to work over any amount of being told what should or shouldn't work in theory. When I look at Buckingham, it would give theorists severe headaches as there are things on it that I have been told are impossible and will not work, yet there they are, running as sweetly as many a modern layout.   

 

I know just how difficult it is to keep everything dead flat and level, especially across baseboard joints and the one "true" P4 layout that I have seen running with long fast trains could only do this after a lifting flap was permanently fixed to do away with any chance of slight poor alignment over the joints.

 

Incidentally, having re-read the article, the modification to the wheels is to reduce the overall width (to compensate for the EM wheels being wider and therefore having a greater overall width when pulled out to the wider gauge) and the flange isn't touched.

 

I have it on good authority that the Gibson OO wheel and the Gibson EM wheel have the same tyre profile, so to make it even more heretical, it could be said that the layout is being run with wheels to OO standards moved apart.

 

Tony

[Flymo748]

The short answer is "yes".  Entirely by coincidence, I was reading copies of the Great Eastern Railway Society Journal last night, and there was a photo of an LDEC wagon with the sloping lettering.  The wagon was in a picture about one of the GER joint lines.

 

I'll have a look again when I am home from work.  However I think that it was in GERJ #94 or #98, if anyone has them to hand.

 

Cheers

Flymo

 

Right...  Courtesy of the Greater Anglia service from Liverpool Street, I'm home and able to consult last night's reading...

 

In the GERJ number 98, there is an article "The Lancashire, Derbyshire & East Coast Railway - the route described".  This has a photograph of Shirebrook Colliery, and the final line of the caption says "The photograoh is almost certainly pre 1914 as an LD&ECR truck can be seen in the centre of the rake.  Note a curious feature of the livery with the left slope to the letters".

 

I do have a digital copy of the photo, as membership of the GERS entitles one to purchase all of their Journals on DVD for a miserly small sum of sterling, but respect for copyright means that I won't repost the picture on here.

 

Cheers

Flymo

[Craigw]

P4 is a set of standards...The idea of such standards is something to work from, not to, in order to make things work how you wish them to do

 

In simple Engilsh, if I'm told that I  should make "bit A" 10 thou, but it works better at 12 thou; guess which size its going to be in my reality??

 

Mickey, that is contrary to the point of standards!

 

A standard is something you work to.... not as a starting point to work from and then modify. If you have done that, you are not working to a standard.

 

Like all standards, P4 has a "tolerance", but if you have something outside that standard then the results will not be "optimum". 

 

I have never tried EM wheels on P4 though I have no doubt they work. But, I would also suggest that they are probably masking something else.

 

Still, each to their own.

 

Regards,

 

Craig W

[Penlan]

Many thanks Flymo748, Uhmn, looks like I shall have to eat my words, where's the Foolscap Rice Paper....

[drduncan]

Many thanks to Martin Goodall for an excellent article on improving the K's Siphon F.  I've one in my kit drawer and now I've got a lot more work to do to it than I first thought!  Sometimes ignorance is bliss!!!!!

 

Now when are we going to see some decent kits for GWR Siphons (6 wheel and bogie)?  I know there are the Blacksmith bogie siphon kits (which I hope are more accurate than K's and Hornby offerings) but they aren't available at the moment and the wonderful D & S 6 wheel O4, O5, and O6 are quite rare too (but Brassmasters do stock them from time to time).

 

drduncan

[Jol Wilkinson]

Many thanks to Martin Goodall for an excellent article on improving the K's Siphon F.  I've one in my kit drawer and now I've got a lot more work to do to it than I first thought!  Sometimes ignorance is bliss!!!!!

 

Now when are we going to see some decent kits for GWR Siphons (6 wheel and bogie)?  I know there are the Blacksmith bogie siphon kits (which I hope are more accurate than K's and Hornby offerings) but they aren't available at the moment and the wonderful D & S 6 wheel O4, O5, and O6 are quite rare too (but Brassmasters do stock them from time to time).

 

drduncan

As mentioned elsewhere, Danny Pinnock is still producing some of his D&S 4mm kits. If Brassmasters are able to get hold of them from time to time, then I am sure Danny would be willing to supply you. I'll PM his address.