Mickoo's American Modelling Empire

[mickoo]

I started the trainset over two years ago and frankly not progressed very much, the scenic section is fine and can be progressed bu the lead into the upper staging area has always been a bit fickle, thus I'm en-devouring to sort this all put. The problem is plain and simply, trying to cram too many turnouts in a tight space, not helped by the grade which falls away on two axis; bottom right is the highest point and top left is the flat section.



The outer radii from the king switch is generally fine as is the outer Queen and Jack, it's the inner Queen that's the biggest niggle, though the others have been a bit temperamental occasionally.

All of the switches are Shinohara (Walthers imports, they now do their own) and they're all #7 which according to the blurb are 28" - 24" radius which I took for granted and laid accordingly. Problem is quite a lot of stock that should go around a 24" or even 22" minimum is binding. A dig around on the US forums reveals that they're actually 28" - 20.5".....bugga so I whizzed up a basic template to check, yes I know I'm measuring the inner rail but it's plain to see it's not 24" radius.



There are other choices out there, Shinohara #7.5 which is 32" - 24" which has the right radius but is even longer in length, Walthers do a 28"-24" but that's even longer so you're ending up spreading the fan over an even greater length and reducing siding length.

Walthers also do a 36"-24" which is significantly shorter than all of the above and would reduce the length by 2/3rds, however they're only available in the US and at $50 a pop not that cheap, especially when you need maybe 10 of them.

Peco's only code 83 curved switch is 60"-36" the outside radius is silly and I suspect looking at that it may even be more.

So before I pile more funds into track which might not work I've had a closer look at the Shinohara #7, most switches are solid, you can't bend them at all but the Shinohara's have quite flexible webbing and with a few notches here and there it's perfectly possible to ease the radius.

I appreciate the purist's will wail and gnash their teeth with the change in the lead to the crossing angle and other such technical aspects, but to the eye it still looks a constant smooth radii on the inner and outer; frankly it just has to be robust and work, authenticity and accuracy in this section are at the bottom of the list.



I'm also reasoning that I can shorten both diverging lines and bring the next switch closer to the crossing and save a good 2" in length per pair, I'll need to run some checks to make sure the tie bar still has enough throw the closer to the preceding crossing it gets.

One other aspect I've found is the foam track bed is quite soft so unless your gradient transitions are ultra smooth then you can get vertical kinks at the joints; so along with the above reworks I'm going to place the whole fan (Queens and Jacks) on a thin piece of ply and make it up as a complete set up, I'm not overly concerned about having no foam here as it's a yard so reliability is placed higher than visuals.

Having done all that it should be easier to get smoother grades and cant around this area and the the next issue will be the joint between the removable bridge and the fan. If I can push the queens further down the yard by 2" that'll give more space for a stronger track section across the joint.

Tomorrow it's the big rip out job and rebuild.

 

[richard carr]

Good luck mick, too tight track is always an issue in any scale.

 

[mickoo]

Good luck mick, too tight track is always an issue in any scale.

Cheers, to be fair on the flat the stock passes through easily, a littler tight maybe so the easing will certainly help.

I think the biggest issue is the falling grade combined with the curvature and I may have to introduce some cant in the removable bridge to help the inner track from the King switch make a smooth transition. I have some more ply now so will redesign the whole area I think, tomorrow is the plan if everything else goes well.

 

[mickoo]

Small update on the HO Pacific Northwest yard rebuild, as noted earlier some of the stock was snagging on the switches, derails, tight coupling etc; it turns out the inner radius is not 24" as the blurb would suggest but actually just under 21".

By extending the whole throat and adjusting the switch radius I've managed to get it back to a minimum of 24" and keep the original switches. A couple of sidings are now a bit shorter and correspondingly some are a bit longer.

I've had to loose the foam ballast as you need to pin the switch at key points to hold it all in place and stop it slipping back to the old radii. I'm not bothered about that as this areas wasn't supposed to be detailed or have scenery, if I do, then it'll be level ballast across the lot which is probably more realistic than shouldered ballast. The yard throat baseboard sheet is now bonding into the main base board, once that's done I can set about reconnecting all the sidings and get trains running through here again.

To adjust the radius just cut the webs between the sleepers on the inner radius at every third sleeper and then gently ease the radius out; for the purist, pure hell, for the pragmatist, cheap, practical and works a treat.

I've no idea what the outer radius comes out at, not concerned to be honest so long as it's greater than 24".

 

[LarryG]

I used Peco Code 83 some years ago because of their large radius and obtained some really smooth running. Conversely, I recently turned to Peco Code 75 24" radius turnouts on the basis that they actually look better when loops and other track sections are very short.

 

[mickoo]

I used Peco Code 83 some years ago because of their large radius and obtained some really smooth running. Conversely, I recently turned to Peco Code 75 24" radius turnouts on the basis that they actually look better when loops and other track sections are very short.

One of the biggest drawbacks with these curved switches is their length, Walthers do a nice 24"-28" but they're silly long (370+mm) but the 24"-36" is nice and short, however the 36" outer is a touch too large.

The only code 83 Peco I can find is their 36"-60" the outer is horribly wide and the 36" whilst it looks nice isn't practical for a yard throat if you're trying to save space and compress it all up.

Shinohara do a near perfect 24"-32" (#7.5) but again they're quite long and at £45 a pop it's getting expensive to replace the three I already had, hence the Frankenstein easement. I will buy new ones for other parts of the layout that need them in due course.

On the RH Queen and Jack I chopped quite a bit out of each to bring the Jack tie bar and switch toe closer to the Queen crossing and saved about 50 mm over the whole length.

For the overflow yard there's no lifting section involved so I can spread it all out a lot more and begin the throat much further back from the sidings; for a brief while I was tempted to lift this current yard and make some sort of scenic section, then rely on the overflow for all the stock holding but a quick look at the mass of stock I have it's clear I need both, maybe even a third further down.

Ideally for the space I have this should have been N scale and that keeps chewing away every time I buy something new in HO

 

[mickoo]

Upper yard all complete, just over 130 cars in five full and one half siding shown here, it'll roughly hold 150 cars with DPU's front and rear in total; the lower yard should get seven sidings in and hold 190 or so cars. Obviously longer stock like 89' autoracks changes that, but most stock is around the 60' mark so that's the bench mark.

The five unit trains here are autoracks, coal, domestic intermodal, grain and oil with rag tag stock in the half siding; the half siding will probably hold the Boeing train in the end.

I'll need possibly three manifests, a deep sea intermodal, Fracsand unit train and possibly a couple of covered hopper wheat or other unit commodity like plastic pellets or sulphates etc.

 

[mickoo]

Last day of trainset work, connected the switch motors back up mechanically and now need to work out a single button push set up for route selection.

The trench down to the lower yard has progressed a little at the far end and I'm pondering a couple of spurs, primarily to hold head end engines and to rail stock with.

For the grades and train sizes I need to run a 2x1 set up, there's a turn back loop at the top but the yards are both dead ends so anything returning back needs the head end engine removed and placing on the rear (new front when it leaves).

Due to limited clearances at the dead end of the sidings, the loco needs to be removed before the train goes all the way into the siding, not ideal but not overly distressing. Two options, hand crane as the train rolls in non stop, stop, uncouple lead engine and draw forward to spare road and then send train into siding as 1x1.

The other option of course is a 2x2 consist and the loss of a couple of cars in the train, the only downside there are visuals as it's rear for tail end DPU power to match head end.

The final elephant from the previous track has been lifted and I need to sort some curvature easement and a new switch with wider radius. I also had a horrible sag in the passing siding which has now been leveled.