First steps in P4.

[adwrobinsn]

Good evening, hope we’ve all had a good weekend.

The past few weeks I’ve been pouring over books, internet articles and generally anything I can find related to small industrial railways including NCB/ Colliery lines.

I’ve also being playing about in a notepad drawing up various track plans. Once I’m happy I’ll load up templot and take it from there.

That being said, while I’ve being going through the motions I’ve been pondering where to make a start with P4. I was thinking about starting with hand building some bullhead track, but wondered if any of you had some pointers?

Thanks in advance!

[Winander]

What method are you going to use to build trackwork, ply and rivets or ply and functional chairs? Regarding turnouts, there are two articles in S4News issues 194 & 195 for ply and functional chairs. For ply and rivet, see this thread on the forum viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5727. S4News 195 also has an article on fault finding, should you need it.

The manufacture of turnout components is common to both and covered in both. You might want to give some consideration to how you will actuate your turnouts as if you need to drill holes in rail it is much easier before it is in an assembly.

[Paul Willis]

Hi Andy,

Welcome, and I hope that the research has been both enjoyable and inspiring.

You may not have chanced across and excellent tuition thread by Allan Goodwillie which is elsewhere in the "Starting in P4" section of the Forum. It even starts with a photo of some very dodgy industrial track. Not that we'd recommend that you start building in this way! Flat and level is definitely the way to go...

Have a look at https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=5474 and do download the PDF files for reference too.

And rest assured, you'll get *plenty* of advice for any questions that you may have on here.

Cheers
Paul

[jon price]

This may be heretical, but I wouldn't worry about track building at first. Build or convert a loco and a wagon. Run it up and down on a piece of RTR track. If it doesn't work there is not a lot of point building track until you can fix it. If it works then use plastic bases and chairs to build a turnout. They are much easier to use than ply and rivet and they look right immediately with no fiddling about sticking on cosmetic plastic chairs cut in half. (I expect I will be thrown out of the society for this )

[Terry Bendall]

(I expect I will be thrown out of the society for this )

Probably not!

There are many different ways of getting started and sometimes it can be a bit confusing. Ready to run plain track and turnout kits are available from C&L and this is one way of getting started. Building your own track using rivetted sleepers is another. The main thing is to have a go, accept that some things may not work first time and if you can link up with other Society members in the local area. Everyone started off as a beginner and the onkly way to get better is to try.

Terry Bendall

[jon price]

I agree with Terry. Of course there are many ways to approach trackbuilding, but unless your rolling stock can roll through and along it it won't work, so I stand by my statement that you should get a converted, or kit built, loco working as a first priority, run it on a piece of RTR, and only then invest the time and effort in whatever track building takes your fancy. (unless of course you are going to only run the RTR diesels that are now available!)

[steve howe]

(I expect I will be thrown out of the society for this )

Probably not!

There are many different ways of getting started and sometimes it can be a bit confusing. Ready to run plain track and turnout kits are available from C&L and this is one way of getting started. Building your own track using rivetted sleepers is another. The main thing is to have a go, accept that some things may not work first time and if you can link up with other Society members in the local area. Everyone started off as a beginner and the onkly way to get better is to try.

Terry Bendall

I built P4 track on the rivet and ply method for years, sticking on the whitemetal chairs by hand after it was laid and tested however, having tried a test plank and built a three-way tandem with plastic chairs glued to ply sleepers with Butanone, I'm pretty certain this gives the best of both worlds: its clean, 'instant', and still has the benefit of a genuine wooden sleeper which takes stains and weathering products far better than plastic (although others would no doubt defer!) its also reasonably cost effective compared to plastic based track systems.

But thats just my opinion!!
Steve

[Carlos]

I found this document from Julian Roberts very useful to understand the geometry a point
download/file.php?id=28028

[Julian Roberts]

thanks Carlos!!!

I can't understand why anyone wants to spend hours making track when perfectly good Exactoscale RTR "Fastrack" is available from the Society Stores - just add the rails. Making points will take time enough. Though I do see about the painting downside Steve mentions.

The C&L track our club bought some years ago was significantly undergauge, and when we sent it back the replacement supplied had the same fault. Why use C&L when you can get Exactoscale which is more robust, and is accurately to gauge. I admit I'm not comparing prices here - depends how much you value your time. The sleepers are twice as thick (being more robust) so if marrying it with ply sleepered pointwork that allowance must be made. Or it gives the same rail height as copperclad plus chairs.

Gauge widened version is recommended for all curves less than 8ft or thereabouts radius.

The order form doesn't exactly highlight this track - I've inked it here.



4FT101A P4 18.83mm gauge for BH rail (Exactoscale) £8.50 1.95 meters

4FT102A P4 gauge widened for BH Rail (Exactoscale)

[davebradwell]

If you're representing NCB/industrial track you will, most likely, discover the widespread use of heel-switches and even sleepered pointwork. It's all in Templot, I believe. You'll find the occasional oddity which seemed to be made up of the bits that were left over.

For your first attempts at point making you might go back to the 60s and just solder bullhead rail to PCB sleeper strips. It's very quick and you'll learn a lot. They can be used in fiddle yards or inset when you build your layout.

DaveB

[Winander]

perfectly good Exactoscale RTR "Fastrack" is available from the Society Stores

First time I have had a good look at this product and am surprised at the scale of the webbing. I can see the benefit of using something quick and accurate but you have to acknowledge the minimal acquisition of skills and confidence, not to mention the feeling of achievement. Building plain track is not hard, so supports the notion of "why bother", but it does provide a good introduction to turnout construction.

[davebradwell]

The webbing is actually quite thin so easily cut out once the track is stuck down and still less tedious than trying to position individual sleepers. I might make 6" of plain track with separate sleepers but can't see why I'd do more. It's easier to roll down whole track firmly to get it flat onto the board than the individual components.

If you want robust or complex pointwork then it's better soldered and I'll put in a plug for Masokits etched point chairs seeing no-one else has. Julian did a thread on the system.

DaveB

[Albert Hall]

I may have discussed this several years back but I think it is worth repeating here.

Referring back to Julian's comment regarding undergauge C+L flexitrack, I was the one who sent him a box of replacement track from exactly the same batch on the then boss's instructions. I always carried out a quality control check when a new batch of sleeper bases arrived from the suppliers and I repeatedly told him that the assembled track was coming out at around 18.75mm. His response was always 'that's near enough' which demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the standards P4 modellers work to. To have spent a lot of money in sorting out the mould tool would have been uneconomic for a product with a relatively small demand compared to 00. It was with a sense of frustration that I was required to assemble 13 boxes of 25 x 1 metre lengths for one customer taking around three days knowing that it was likely to be returned for stripping down to recover the rail, but for whatever reason, it never was.

I can only assume that the present proprietor did eventually resolve this issue. Maybe someone attending Scaleforum could enquire of him and report back.

I always considered the Exactoscale product to be far superior not only in crisp detail but also producing a gauge which was consistently accurate and more rigid due to the increased thickness. The only downside was the need for a greater depth of ballast which could potentially add a fair bit of weight to a portable baseboard well filled with track.

Roy

[BorderCounties]

Right, I'm going to stick my two-penn'orth in here.

If you are going to be happy modelling an industrial/NCB line, I would suggest that you give any track bases a miss because the sleeper spacing is almost certainly for main line standards and you won't need 60ft rails! Ply sleepers (bring and buy / members sales) and functional plastic chairs (stores) will allow you to experiment so that it will look right, plus you can recycle what you have done with the judicious use of a scalpel blade if you aren't happy with it.

If you haven't come across Ernie Brack's Flickr photos https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/albums, NCB Dalmellington and Waterside systems, Northumberland, Westoe, and Lambton and Hetton; and Trev52A thread on RMWeb https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/150114-60s-industrial-steam-ie-non-br/, Team Valley, Bowes Railway, Wemyss Private Railway, Philadelphia to select a few.

The most realistic model I have ever seen of BR/NCB exchange sidings even replicated dropped rail joints - the movement of the wagons was exactly as in real life. I have never seen anything like it since.

[bobwallison]

It's dead easy to snip the webs off altogether, then they can be threaded onto the rails and set at any spacing you like. The spacing of Fast Track sleepers as supplied is neither one thing nor another, so even if you want to replicate the spacing on 60ft main line panels, the webs still need to be removed. Once the sleepers are threaded on the rails (easy) they can be set out on a paper template and glued in place by dribbling a mixture of 1 part Copydex to 2 parts water along one edge of each sleeper. The glue seeps into the template and under the sleepers and holds them really well.
I'm with Dave B regarding the benefit of Fast Track over ply sleepers and individual chairs. Two other significant benefits are robustness and price - £8.50 for 1.95m of Fast Track base compared with about £24 for the same length of ply sleepers and individual chairs.

Bob