Curved Turnouts

[Martin Wynne]

doggeface wrote:

This gives a need for 1360 run to accomodate a curved crossover (1 LH mating to 1 RH).

Hi Peter,

For a crossover between running lines, both turnouts should be of the same hand. This is obvious for a straight crossover but not so obvious for a curved one. If you mix turnouts of both hands in a crossover you would have a switch deflection in one of the running lines, with a corresponding severe speed restriction. For the ruling concentric radii to run uninterrupted through both turnouts, they need to be both of the same hand.

If you use Templot to create curved crossovers, this happens automatically.

In fact it was the need to create proper templates for curved crossovers which set me going on Templot, 32 years ago.

regards,

Martin.

[Paul Townsend]

[quote=.

In fact it was the need to create proper templates for curved crossovers which set me going on Templot, 32 years ago.

regards,

Martin.[/quote]

Cor, I wish I had had it 30 years ago, my large complex P4 trackwork would be a lot better.
When did you sell the first release?

[Martin Wynne]

Cor, I wish I had had it 30 years ago, my large complex P4 trackwork would be a lot better. When did you sell the first release?

Hi Paul,

The first public showing of Templot was at the Gauge 0 Guild show in Telford in September 1998, and the first paid-for copy left here in August 1999. For 20 years before that I ran it on my own computers only and offered a template printing service to friends and those in the know. Very early on, about 1982, I wrote to the Scalefour Society explaining what I was doing and enclosing some samples, but never received any interest.

There is an old page still on the Templot web site with some early Templot history here: http://www.templot.com/martweb/templot_history.htm

And this bit of Templot history goes back a lot further:

WEST MERCIAN EM GROUP NEWSLETTER, SEPTEMBER 1980

" Our last meeting, held at Broadwas Village Hall on 7th Sep 1980, was
one of the liveliest we have had. Ten members were present and
among matters discussed were
.....
[snipped]
....
....
A most interesting development was then described by Martin Wynne.
Neville Fairbairn had asked Martin for help in setting out a turnout from
a curved road. From this request Martin had gone on to devise a system
for enabling any turnout to be drawn out on 1mm graph paper by even
the most inexperienced.

Given the radius of the main line, the crossing angle and switch type,
Martin can supply the X and Y co-ordinates of the rail running face at
every chair position. From this data it is easy to construct a turnout
template, indeed Martin did it in about twenty minutes, explaining as he
went. Thus the days of track plans being juggled to suit the templates
available from commercial sources are over - pointwork can now be
made to suit the site as was done in full-size practice.

Needless to say the figures for the various offsets are produced by
a micro-computer, using a program written by Martin. This service
will be available soon from 85A Models. This must be one of the most
interesting developments in modelling in recent years."


Kind words there from the late Roy Miller. What would Roy have made of Templot today? But twenty solid minutes poring over 1mm graph paper! With my eyes now 31 years older I can understand why there were so few takers at the time.

regards,

Martin.

[Paul Townsend]

Quotes from Martin's history link....

I recall writing circa 1982 to the Scalefour Society, explaining at length that I had this facility available and enclosing several sample graph-paper templates, but received only a brief acknowledgement in reply - so I assumed that I was alone in this particular form of madness (and probably was at the time).

Ah well, the S4 committee at that time were tied up in their own version of madness trying to disentangle P4Society and Studiolith etc!
I wish history could be rewritten

Where next? The increasing power of modern processors makes for many exciting possibilities. All railway modellers have at some time sketched the perfect layout on the back of a envelope, usually while in the pub! Imagine taking it home, scanning it, and there it is, converted to a proper scaled track plan with not a sleeper out of place!

But that would put armchair Templotters out of kilter and leave them free to go out and build track!

Well that's probably some way off, but there are many lesser developments in the pipeline. Watch this space.

I look forward to them.
TVM for this potted history.

We long view modellers who have needed 30+ years to finish a layout suffer many frustrations in that branches of out technology advance and leave sections of our model looking dated. That is why my new model must be finished inside 5 years