Building/track standards

[Tim Hale]

I cannot seem to find an online resource for 4mm standards i.e. platform height, minimum distance betwixt building and rail etc. It seems that the old BRSMB matrix is long gone but I should be able to find the information in the Society manual........what is wrong with me, if I cannot find it?

Unfortunately I am busy wasting my time installing the egg-box structure for the platforms and I am a wee bit stuck without one of those wonderful drawings that provided all the standard minimum dimensions.

Tim

[Tim V]

You need the Scalefour Multigauge item 197 on the stores list!

also digest 62:0.
digests_download.php?f=62-0v1.2.pdf

[Tim Hale]

Tim,

I would not have looked in there.

TVM

Tim

[dcockling]

I cannot seem to find an online resource for 4mm standards i.e. platform height, minimum distance betwixt building and rail etc. It seems that the old BRSMB matrix is long gone but I should be able to find the information in the Society manual........what is wrong with me, if I cannot find it?

Tim

Hi Tim,

You want Digest 62.0 "The Permanent Way in Miniature" by Derek Genzel

http://www.scalefour.org/forum/s4-digests.php

You'll find all the measurements for platforms and clearances on the last two pages.

All the Best
Danny

[Mark Tatlow]

Tim,

The concept of a standard platform height is quite modern and even now not applicable to the whole of the network.

It depended upon the attitude of the local concern that promoted the original line, who then took it over and then when they decided to refurbish/upgrade the platforms. As was noted as a result of one of my posting on the "how good do your photo's look" thread, there remain a number of platforms in the far north where the platform heights are still very low indeed (the Highland Railway had many of their platforms at 1'10" and these may remain as low as these).

Whilst the big four and maybe the pregroup companies had design standards, they were probably aspirational!

[guyrixon]

IIRC, there was an earlier period when the conventional platform-height was 2' 6", not 3' 0". I suspect that it may have been a convention between the railway companies rather than a BoT rule. I think the main platforms at York were built to this "standard" and have never been raised. (I don't have a reference for this to hand; will search tonight).

Digest 62.0 also states that "The ends of platforms other, of course, than of terminal platforms off a concourse must have a ramp, steps are not acceptable ... ". This was doubtless an actual rule for many years but seems to have been changed recently. The new (21st-century) platform at Cambridge, for example, has steps and no ramps.

[davidb]

Guy,

You might find this thread on ramps helpful.

David

[Flymo748]

IIRC, there was an earlier period when the conventional platform-height was 2' 6", not 3' 0". I suspect that it may have been a convention between the railway companies rather than a BoT rule. I think the main platforms at York were built to this "standard" and have never been raised. (I don't have a reference for this to hand; will search tonight).

Digest 62.0 also states that "The ends of platforms other, of course, than of terminal platforms off a concourse must have a ramp, steps are not acceptable ... ". This was doubtless an actual rule for many years but seems to have been changed recently. The new (21st-century) platform at Cambridge, for example, has steps and no ramps.

There was a short (and inevitably mainly "things aren't what they were when I was a lad... moaning") discussion of this on the GERS e-list.

Once all the traditional predudices about pushing platform barrows around and and having spare sidings for ECS were out of the way, it was actually confirmed that there has been a recent change in government regulations that abolished the requirement for a ramp. It is not only at Cambridge that there is steps rather than a ramp, this is the case at the new Southend Airport station as well, amnd doubtless others on the rail network outside East Anglia.

So les, in this respect the original version of the digest sheet is now technically incorrect for modellers of the contemporary scene.

HTH
Flymo

[Tim V]

I thought the requirement for ramps was removed with the introduction of central locking on trains?

[Terry Bendall]

Unfortunately I am busy wasting my time installing the egg-box structure for the platforms

On Elcot Road, the basis of the platform is 18 mm thick MDF. Very easy and quick to make up. The sides have been clad in embossed brick stryene, fixed with a thin coat of Evo-stick impact adhesive. The top surface which has yet to be fitted will also be stryene with an applictaion of Suedecoat - an idea borrowed from Jim Smith-Wright. (thanks Jim)

I have found that Eileen's Emporium are able to supply large sheets of styryene to special order which means that the top surface can be one piece of plastic.

Terry Bendall