wooden sleepers

[David Bigcheeseplant]

is there any difference between the society stores wooden sleepers and Exactoscale wooden sleepers? The Exactoscale ones are listed as 1.6mm think, are the society one the same, as there seems to be quite a price difference.

David

[Tim V]

The Exacto are double thickness.

[Terry Bendall]

Tim is quite right. The Society sleepers are 0.8mm thick plywood - half the scale depth and made this way I think so that they could be punched and rivetted easily.

For anyone who wants to use full depth sleepers and rivets, I have made a punching/rivetting tool for full depth sleepers so it does work and anyone who wants details can contact me off list. Not sure where you would get rivets long enough though.

Terry Bendall

[grovenor-2685]

The Society sleepers are 0.8mm thick plywood - half the scale depth and made this way I think so that they could be punched and rivetted easily.

Also remember that this system was developed in the 1960s, when we all had to watch our budgets, a benefit was/is that you only need half as much ballast, and as detailed in the original P4 instructions the track can be glued down and ballasted in one operation as you only have one layer of chippings. Full depth sleepers eliminate this method.
Regards

[Tim V]

However, having used both depth sleepers, I prefer the thicker ones. It is possible to get the ballast to sit the obligatory 1" below the top of the sleeper. Very difficult with the thin sleepers, however most of Clutton is built using the thin sleepers.

Things have moved on a long way since the 60s, the thick sleepers go very well with functional chairs.

[Mike Garwood]

Would anyone know if the double thickness sleepers are only available from Exacto, or is that nice Mr Lewis doing them as well? Or is there another source that I'm not familiar with?

Mike

[50022]

I used exacto thick sleepers and where rivets were required I used a thin rivetted sleeper stuck on top of another thin one. Tiresome, but there were not too many to do (and not sure that I would do it again either).

Like Tim V I think ballast can look very effectivbe with the thick sleepers.

Mike

[Andy G]

If you had a mixture of both sleeper heights what would the minimum recommended transition distance be between the two heights?

Andy G

[Paul Willis]

If you had a mixture of both sleeper heights what would the minimum recommended transition distance be between the two heights?

I haven't tried it (having only ever used thin sleepers, both ply and C&L bases) but my suspicion would be to *not* transition at all.

I'd prefer to use something like thick card to raise the trackbase under the thin ones in order to keep the railhead level. There maybe someone out there that has some technique for accommodating the rise and fall, but my gut instinct says that it is not the way to go.

HTH
Paul Willis

[Andy G]

The problem is that the thin sleeper track is already laid and therefore can't be raised. In actual fact the thin sleepers are in a goods yard which should in fact be at a slightly lower level and therefore there would have been some sort of transition.

Andy

[Rod Cameron]

In that case Andy shouldn't you be looking at it as a slight gradient out of the yard rather than a transition between two thicknesses of sleepers (even though that contributes to the production of the gradient)? I presume the sleeper thickness in the yard is not 'visible' because of being buried in ash ballast or similar? Splitting hairs a bit maybe, but just looking at it in a different way. You may have to consider relaying the trackbed or even building up the baseboard surface a bit under the gradient section so you end up with a very shallow 'ski-jump' onto the thicker sleeper section.

But like Paul I would be wary otherwise of 'transitioning' between the sleeper thicknesses - goes against trying to lay flat track.

This is all a bit 'stream of consciousness' and may be utter rubbish without seeing the problem areas on the layout in the flesh!

[Andy G]

Rod,
A slight gradient is what I meant by a transition, so thinking about it that way I can work it out myself - 0.8mm @ 1:80 = 64mm etc. Though that would be a non-ideal immediate change from flat - slope - flat. The goods yard is greater than running line distance from the mainline but not by very much and the first piece of goods yard track is a double slip that works faultlessly and we don't want to move. We are looking at relaying the mainline including the turnout to the goods yard in thick timbers so need to be able to go from thick on the mainline to thin in the goods yard. It may be that we have to compromise by lowering the mainline turnout and adjacent track marginally.

Andy

[Russ Elliott]

Andy - I wouldn't think in terms of a plain 'gradient' but would concentrate on the requirements of the vertical curves.

vertical-curve.gif

We've got some track on Green Street where a goods line goes down to a lower level (by a thickness of 1/16" cork, i.e. about 1.5mm), and I think the total transition is about 8" or so, but I will be able to check this tonight. The length of the transition in this case is determined not so much by the vertical curve requirement but rather more in not wanting wagons to 'run away with themselves' while being loose-shunted - the gradient in our case doesn't always prevent this with free-running wagons, which is a bit of a pain with AJs! Even with coupled trains, I would imagine this 'running forward' propensity could be your greatest realism-breaker when running off the mainline to the yard.

Momentum considerations aside and getting back to trackholding aspects, on normal gradient transitions, I would suggest a horizontal length of 200 to 250mm for each vertical curve, possibly greater than this for long-wheelbase locos or where suspensions can't cope adequately.

[Andy G]

Russ,
Thanks for pointing out the momentum issue, hadn't thought of that one and with longish trains we're aiming at free running wagons.
Plenty to ponder and sort out.

Andy

[mikemeg]

Can I offer the following photo, both in support of wooden sleepers (though I make my own from obechi) and in support of 1/16th deep sleepers. Using the deeper sleepers does allow the ballast to rest slightly below the top surface of the sleepers, which does seem to add to the realism.

Apologies for that A1 picture, yet again, but it does show what I mean on the track.

Mike

[dcockling]

Hi Mike,
Your track is quite superb as a representation of how track looked in the period that you are modelling; but it was not always thus.
All the Best
Danny

[Tim V]

Can I offer the following photo, both in support of wooden sleepers (though I make my own from obechi) and in support of 1/16th deep sleepers. Using the deeper sleepers does allow the ballast to rest slightly below the top surface of the sleepers, which does seem to add to the realism.

Apologies for that A1 picture, yet again, but it does show what I mean on the track.

Mike

And the nicely greased fishplates, well done that man

[Mark Tatlow]

Regarding Terry's much earlier posting, does anybody have any thoughts about rivets for the Exactoscale sleepers.

My preference would be to use them, but with rivets at the turnouts...........................


Mark

[Andy G]

Hi Mark,
On the rebuild of Slattocks' trackwork we will be using full height sleepers for the mainlines. For the turnouts we will be using Exactoscale timber strip for most of the timbers but every fifth sleeper or so will be rivetted. To achieve the rivetted sleepers we'll be using standard thickness timber rivetted in the usual manner but will then laminate another layer of standard thickness timber underneath to bring the timber thickness to that of the other timbers.

Andy