Pacific231G

Couldnt't agree more. Fortunately we live in a country where being rude about the government in power doesn't get you shot, chucked into some torture chamber or a cup of Polonium laced tea.

I think that's always been true except that the interest used to be lost by more young people at a rather later age- maybe mid teens. Some people maintain a lifelong interest but I suspect they've always been a minority and perhaps more likely to have gone on to scratchbuilding, fine scale and so on so far less likely to be Hornby's customers. I suspect that most adult modellers (and adults with large train sets) are returners with some picking up the hobby for the first time. Adults, especially those no longer looking after young families, mortgage paid and so on, also tend to have more money to spend on their hobbies and as you say are likely to be engaged in it for longer.

Err. I knew what ERP stands for, in this context not Effective Radiated Power, but had to look up UAT even though I've carried it out more than once and assumed the resentment didn't come from bringing in a team from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Since we include people from an enormous range of backgrounds, could people who use TLAs* (apart from obvious ones like LMS when it's not the London Mathematical Society) please define them. They're rarely universal and every sector has its own, partly I suspect like jargon to confer professional respectabiity. *Three letter acronyms or a abbreviations

So it's mainly used for stock transfers - making sure that seats are raked the right way for example? I suppose that if it wasn't there there'd be need of a turning facility at both termini but it does seem an expensive way of doing this if it wasn't originally intended for through trains. Dave's picture does seem to show it being well used.

It is a turning triangle. Wiki even quotes it as an example of this formation. Apparently trains run with the power car at the lower end on rack sections and the seating raked accordingly. Kleine Scheidegg is at the summit and, though most trains from both directions terminate there so scuttle back from whence they came, some do run through and these need to be turned before making the descent. Having it running into the mountain does mean that it stays clear of snow. On the Google image you seem to be able to make out the route of the tunnel and I wonder if that's the effect the tunnel below has on the vegetation on the mountainside above it. I wonder whether passengers stay on the train while it's being turned or have to detrain and then re board when it returns. Dave, it's great to see more of your fascinating photos. Thanks very much for posting them.

What's worrying for me is that Hornby's International brands also include Jouef which is the only mass market brand specialising in French H0. Similar stories I think for Hornby's Italian (Rivarossi) and Spanish (Electrotren) brands. European manufacturers are less confined to their country of origin of course but without Jouef, almost the only SNCF steam locos available would be ex German "reparations" types. There are other French manufacturers such as REE and LSM but they tend to be at the specialist and therefore higher priced end of the market and without Hornby Jouef there would be nobody supplying the all important beginner's market.

That would have meant having two separate ranges of code 75 FB track, one with the established sleeper dimensions and spacing that are actually to H0 scale that they sell very succesfully throughout the world and one with wider sleeper spacing just for the British 00 market. With the modern automated tooling that Peco have invested heavily in that might now be commercially viable but almost certainly wasn't in even the fairly recent past.

Thank for the clarification Martin. This does though mean that the SMP) "three foot radius point" is also a lot tighter in radius than that as its geometry is very similar to the Peco medium. The crossing angle is slightly shallower ar about 11.50 though it's actually 10mm shorter from the nose to the end of the switch rail as it has far less transition at the switch. For its length, which is way less than the pointwork it represents, the Peco medium turnout does seem to have a smoother and fairly natural geometry and, though the nominally two foot radius points appeared first, I think Pritchard probably based the Streamline points on that geometry- it's also very similar to the PecoWay points that preceded it and as far as I know the components and ready made points were only available for the same nominal three foot radius. The long points came later and there the same final 12o divergence doesn't seem at all natural. If Peco do produce BH turnouts with the same geometry as Streamline mediums I'll probably use them but I'm not sure I'd be so keen on the equivalent to Streamline long. Would a 12o crossing even be used in normal yards apart from industrials and quaysides with four coupled locos? I know that the smallest standard crossing used by SNCF was tan0.13 or 7.5 degrees often quoted as 1:7 and that had a maximum speeds over the divergent track of 40km/h or about 25MPH. That was normally used only in yards but turnouts with that crossing angle were used in a few mainline situations notablly for Paris Bastille but apart from a couple of loco release crossovers there were no reverse curves in the layout so full length bogie coaches could and did use it. What would be the equivalent tightest pointwork for passenger stock in Britain?

Hi Martin I know you've analysed this in some depth so I'm a bit confused as I thought it was only Peco's large radius turnouts that had a curved crossing with the curve continuing to the end to give the same 12o degree divergence from a rather shallower crossing angle (about 10o from my measurements) From the knuckle to the end, the Peco small and medium radius turnouts are identical with straight Vee rails at an angle of 12o. The closure rail on the medium is curved right up to the knuckle whereas on the small it is straight for 20 mm before the knuckle which of course enables it to be shorter by using a smaller radius when it does start to curve. I think this is clear from this scan and you can swap the part from the knuckle to the end between the two turnouts. Because the large radius turnouts are curved beyond the crossing to get the final 12o angle,when you make a crossover with them you don't get as much of an improvement compared with medium turnouts in terms of buffer locking and end swing as you'd expect. I suspect that a crossover with the same total length using straight Vees and a slightly larger frog angle would be smoother. I have noticed that the geometry of Peco's medium radius turnout seems to be almost identical to other nominally three foot radius points (including SMP) but the the large radius turnouts are definitely compromised to get the same final angle of 12o

Well we do still play with toy trains (even those that run on 18.87mm track) and there's an awful lot of Top Trumpery in the hobby.

I had to travel to Doncaster and back from King's Cross on business yesterday and was surprised just how much BH track there still was in various sidings etc. even those with OHE. Some of the yards had FB points with BH plain track. I've probably seen it before but hadn't paid it so much attention. OT but Doncaster (where I've never actually alighted before) seems remarkably well served with trains. With four to six an hour to London I didn't even need to consult the timetable. I did though omit to buy a bottle of Henderson's Relish and I've almost run out.

No. code 75 bullhead is definitely not a substitute for FB. Given that most of Peco's other non-track products are largely for the British market then the proportion of their track that goes for export must be fairly high. Both code 75 and 100 sell well in all H0 markets along with 83 line and apart from Britain (and to some extent France) FB rail is very much the norm. I've just looked at the website of Jura Modelisme- one of the larger French retailers and the only track they sell is Peco and for H0 they had all three codes 75, 83, and 100 (including setrack) Another retailer had just code 83 from Roco (which is also quite popular) but the whole Peco track range apart from H0n3. Peco code 75 H0 is generally regarded as a fine scale track along with Roco 83 and Tillig and Loco Revue have even run articles on turning Peco 75 into "hyper-realistic" track which for points mainly involved removing the locking mechanism, replacing the tie bar and making check rails from rail to replace the plasic ones. .

Code 75 and code 100 are both selling well to H0 customers worldwide so there's no way they're likely to drop either (a majority of the H0 layouts featured in Loco-Revue use Peco track, increasingly code 75, sometimes with SMP bullhead for older track in sidings etc.) . The H0 sleeper spacing is also very similar to most Setrack type ranges (Hornby supply the same track products for their European H0 brands as they do for the UK OO Hornby range) and they won't want to scupper the movement of modellers from Setrack to more advanced modelling.

Why would they when everyone else did it wrong ? Actually, I think the GWR was fairly open to good ideas from elsewhere and not just Britain, under Collett they did introduce things like very accurate optical alignment techniques using equipment from Zeiss and I think they got the application of that to locomotive engineering from France where a lot of work on precision engineering around motive power was going on.

Sorry Ron my humour chip was off-line (one day you really won't be able to distinguish me from a real boy) I'd guess that Peco will want to get some feedback to the flex track before finalising the designs (or possibly the advertising copy) for pointwork but I'd be amazed if they're not already very close to production. I'm no expert on mass produced model railway track (but Peco probably know more about it than anyone in the world) but its seems quite likely that setting up to produce the plain track is simply quicker than pointwork so they can get it to market earlier. I would also guess that for Peco making it rugged and reliable was a significant priority as that's what a lot of their reputation worldwide is based on. The H0 market for this track will probably be very limited; France, but only for a minority, and some people elsewhere modelling French railways- quite possibly including me. There will also be a small market for people elsewhere, mostly in the English speaking world, modelling Britain's railways in OO. Mostly though this will be a product for the British market. I think this fits in with a number of other somewhat niche track products from Peco. At ExpoNG last year they had "mainline" H0e/009 track and also H0n3 (10.5mm) track and turnouts to NMRA standards which can't have an enormous market outside N. America. They've also fairly recently produced bi-bloc concrete track which is distinctly French. All this presumably shows that advances in their tooling set up makes it feasible to profitably produce a wider range of track products, so long of course as their dealers can afford to carry it.

There will be some market for this in H0 as BH wasn't just used in Britain. Maybe half of France's railways used to use it and, because sleeper spacings varied so much, it'll be perfectly acceptable for H0. C&L and SMP are already quite widely used there for Ep 3 and earlier. The sort of modellers who would know where to use it in preference to Vignoles rail are not the sort to have any wool pulled over their eyes.

There is no question of Peco "coming to the right conclusion". As a commercial company they can only produce products they can stake their money on enough people buying, not what we think they "ought" to offer us . Also remember that starting with plain flex track is exactly what Peco did in the 1950s when they first introduced Streamline. The first Streamline points appeared about a year later On the, why not before, front I rather suspect that their long term strategy assumed that interest in steam era prototypes would fade as new generations of modellers who had known only "modern image" grew up and would have little need for BH. That seems to have been more or less the pattern in other markets where the number of mass-market steam prototypes on offer really is quite small even though steam generally ended rather later. For example, under the Jouef brand Hornby now offer only five (with variations) steam loco classes. In Britain, interest in the steam era has remained to a quite remarkable degree, perhaps because we have so much in preservation, but BH track will be mainly of interest to the British market. (Though not entirely and I'm looking forward to having prototypical track for my next Ouest/Etat project)

Looks good Gary and I'd agree about keeping the crossovers. So, you'll now have a long mainline for the through trains to run on but a largish and satisfyingly sprawling yard and industrial zone with plenty of scope for switching and both road locos and switchers at work. Looks like the best of both worlds and much better than scrapping and starting over.

Thanks very much for this Martin. But in their notes "turnout motors" ??

Hi Gary I can see your problem as you've effectively just got a double track continuous main line with a branch that leaves it and then rejoins it and just one yard. Fine if you just want to run trains through the scenery but not good for more intricate operation. I've done a bit of doodling on your plan to try to get an idea of how much more operation you could get into this layout with minimal changes to scenery or track and my first very crude thought is this.. By removing some of the visible second track on the main and turning the very long hidden section into two parallel but unconnected lines this gives a continuous single track line that goes three times round the room with three separate stations/yards that all have a passing siding. You do have to switch between the two parallel tracks somewhere and though I've done this with a flat crossing there are probably more elegant solutions. I tnink the key is for trains to go from somewhere to somewhere else and do something useful on the way. The idea would be to work it as a point to point from yard/station A to C with the short track between C & A being the continous run link that you normally wouldn't use for operation. A transfer freight couldthough be made up in A and taken directly to C to arrive as if from another RR and vice versa. This idea is pinched from the direct link between Denver and SLC on Cliff Young's plan though they're a bit closer together and might need headshunts to avoid being in each other's yard limits. The placing of the three station isn't critical and though I've tried to use as much of the existing trackwork as possible this really is just a back of the envelope sketch. I've only really marked in the main runing lines and suggested passing sidings in the three stations but there should be scope to add sidings both to the main stations and as industry sidings or minor stations out on the line. I haven't allowed for any hidden staging tracks but these would be useful. Station A would be the largest yard (a bit like Denver on Cliff Young's D*RGW layout) and would have more trackage than I've shown including possibly a small marshalling yard There may be a way to run a line from C to a hidden but very accessible staging yard. B is a passing siding plus whatever industry, house and or team track you want to add and I think the three stations would enable freight operation of way freights with car cards.

Hi Gary Do you have a track plan of the layout? It doesn't look as though it would be impossible to rework it to a more operational version without ripping everything up but maybe making the main line into an entirely single track with shorter passing sidings and using the real estate released for more industries and even for traditional depots with a freight house and a team track. I was always very impressed by Cliff Young's first D&RGW layout which was based in the transition era and was RM's Railway of the Month in October 1966. It was a continuous run but was worked point to point from the main station Denver to a three road yard representing Salt Lake City. The short link between them that completed the continuous run was used to transfer cars to the CB&Q at Denver that I think became cars transferred from the UP at SLC. The whole thing was worked by a card and waybill system plus a passenger timetable and though in a larger room than yours (15x12) I suspect you could apply similar principles. I can't post the plan because it's copyright but I'll PM it.

Or even 0.65", Yes, I saw that post when it appeared and found it Intereresting that he specified dimensions in imperial units (were his standards different from BRMSB or simply expressed in inches?) That's common enough in the US where even proto 87.1 is specified in inches as well as mm but I've not been aware of anyone else doing it in British OO since the 1920s. I was really though wondering whether having used 16.2mm gauge succesfully for Dyer's End he'd continued with that for Hardwick Grange or whether Dyer's Ends had been a one-off "proof of concept". BTW Does anyone know whether Frank Dyer used commercial gauges or built his own?

Thanks Tony I've just checked and yes it was Hardwick Grange. Does anyone know what track standards that was built to?

Is it my imagination or was Dyers End exhibited as a stand alone terminus to fiddle yard at Ally Pally a few years ago when Borchester Market was also there? If so, I had no idea it was 16.2mm gauge

Thanks for this Grovenor, it's fascinating and those formulae could be very useful. Would you happen to know how the GWR worked out the "equivalent" radius for the crossover?