Representing light weight FB rail

[junctionmad]

Hi, I was wondering what's available to represent lightweight FB rail on wooden sleepers as was common n Irish railways till quite recently. I can see C & L have a code 55 steel rail , but I don't see anything similar in nickel silver.

Also these rails were held in a pecular low profile two chair screw " chair " with the lip of the chair screw holding the rail.

Anyone any ideas on how to represent this with ply sleepers. I know adavoyle junction used code 55 ( or 65 ) on copperclad. But today copper clad is just too expensive.

Thanks

Dave

[Armchair Modeller]

Might be worth looking at code 40 from C&L - although not as tall as code 65, the head is large, making the rail look bigger than it really is. Unlikely to be problems with P4 wheel flanges as 2mm scale flanges run on code 40 rail without any problem.

[Andrew Ullyott]

I used C&L's code 55 fb rail when I built the track for my WCPR Clevedon layout. It's nickel silver catalogue ref 4RA101H. Might be advertised as conductor rail?

[grovenor-2685]

Why not use the steel anyway, best material for rail IMHO.
Regards

[junctionmad]

I used C&L's code 55 fb rail when I built the track for my WCPR Clevedon layout. It's nickel silver catalogue ref 4RA101H. Might be advertised as conductor rail?

I believe it's gone from the catalogue. I'll ask Pete next week

[junctionmad]

Why not use the steel anyway, best material for rail IMHO.
Regards

Yes I,ve considered that. All my experience is with NS rail and I'm reluctant to change. Is there any guide to using steel rail ?

The issue of how to handle connecting it to wooden ply sleepers still remains

Dave

[grovenor-2685]

I've used steel for over 40 years, I don't see any difference so far as building and handling goes except to avoid corrosive fluxes after its built and layed and hence no longer washable, but that's good practice with NS as well.

Fixing to wood sleepers you have two choices, glue or solder, I have tried using the usual rivets then putting the sleeper upside down and soldering to the bottom of the rivets, works OK but you end up with a gap between underlay and sleepers and a bit more hassle in ballasting.
Doing it now I think I would glue, the P87 stores has good instructions, once you get far enough down the page to see the application of tie plates and the glueing process. And if you want baseplates his etched ones would suit a light railway in P4.
Regards

[junctionmad]

Thanks Keith.

I am looking at doing a custom etch for the FB chairs to try and closely replicate the prototype so the article on gluing was very useful

Dave

[Andrew Ullyott]

I used C&L's code 55 fb rail when I built the track for my WCPR Clevedon layout. It's nickel silver catalogue ref 4RA101H. Might be advertised as conductor rail?

I believe it's gone from the catalogue. I'll ask Pete next week

I've an unopened pack of 10m which I'm not going to use so you're welcome to have. Don't know how much you need. Send me a PM if you're interested.

[junctionmad]

I used C&L's code 55 fb rail when I built the track for my WCPR Clevedon layout. It's nickel silver catalogue ref 4RA101H. Might be advertised as conductor rail?

I believe it's gone from the catalogue. I'll ask Pete next week

I've an unopened pack of 10m which I'm not going to use so you're welcome to have. Don't know how much you need. Send me a PM if you're interested.

Thank you PM sent

[junctionmad]

By the way , would the NS conductor rail mentioned in the stores be or similar profile ?

Dave

[grovenor-2685]

No, the stores conductor rail is a real heavy duty conductor rail profile, wider, heavier and lower than a running rail.
See http://www.clag.org.uk/crs.html
Not many light railways using 150lb rail
Regards

[Martin Wynne]

Anyone any ideas on how to represent this with ply sleepers. I know Adavoyle Junction used code 55 ( or 65 ) on copperclad. But today copper clad is just too expensive.

Hi Dave,

Adavoyle Junction used plywood sleepers for the narrow-gauge and flat-bottom sidings, not copper-clad.



We used this Peco rail: http://www.peco-uk.com/product.asp?strP ... P_ID=17542

The ply sleepers were creating by doubling them up, using Brook Smith rivets upside down. The top sleeper was rivetted and then turned over. The lower sleeper was drilled out with larger holes to receive the rivet heads. The two were then glued together*. The rail was soldered to the flattened end of the rivet on top.

You can just see the double thickness below the first axlebox in the picture.

*With what? I hear you ask. I'm afraid I can't remember. However Tony was very fond of traditional Evo-Stick for most jobs, and seemed immune to the fumes.

regards,

Martin.

[junctionmad]

Thanks Martin. You really are close to an omnipresent Hal 9000 on fora

Dave

[grovenor-2685]

Given the way ply sleepers have gone up in price in recent years I would be surprised if doubling up the ply comes out cheaper than copperclad.
One thought,, if prepared to go to the trouble of drilling out half of the sleepers to take the rivet heads an alternative would be to drill holes for the heads in the cork underlay, the drilling would be easier and it would take less ballast. It should be possible to use the assembled track sections to print the rivet locations onto the cork.
Regards

PS Interesting to see that the individulay components can be found on the Peco site if you search for "IL-". Still can't find anyway to get to them by browsing though and searching for "rail" failed to find any rail but did find lots of trees .
Regards

[Martin Wynne]

One thought, if prepared to go to the trouble of drilling out half of the sleepers to take the rivet heads an alternative would be to drill holes for the heads in the cork underlay, the drilling would be easier and it would take less ballast. It should be possible to use the assembled track sections to print the rivet locations onto the cork.

Hi Keith,

One reason for the doubled thickness was to bring the railtop up to the same level as the code 75 bullhead on rivets for the 21mm siding connections, and for the mixed-gauge sections.

regards,

Martin.

[David Knight]

There is a relatively non-toxic way to go about gluing down code 55 rail and that's with hot glue from a glue gun. The procedure has a couple of steps, first with as fine a tip as possible on your glue gun, run a bead along the bottom of the rail. After you've finished that step, re-heat the web of the rail with a soldering iron so that the bead levels out. Pop the rail in position on your sleepers, plywood preferred, with gauges in place and once again re-heat the web of the rail and allow to cool. All being well your rail should be fixed in place. If repairs are needed a shaving from a glue stick can be placed under the offending section of rail, heated, and repairs will have been made. In fairness this will not give the appearance of tie plates but given the condition of light railway track very few will probably notice.
The first shot shows the trackwork under construction with some code 75 BH in the foreground for contrast.

Code 55 FB.jpg

The second shot to show how the track looks with all in place. TBH if a punter got that close I'd be tempted to give him a clip round the earhole

Rose2.jpg

The layout has been in use for at least 6 years now and has been transported to a variety of shows. Repairs are quick and easy as described above and so far (touches wood) have been infrequent.

HTH

David

[junctionmad]

Given the way ply sleepers have gone up in price in recent years I would be surprised if doubling up the ply comes out cheaper than copperclad.
One thought,, if prepared to go to the trouble of drilling out half of the sleepers to take the rivet heads an alternative would be to drill holes for the heads in the cork underlay, the drilling would be easier and it would take less ballast. It should be possible to use the assembled track sections to print the rivet locations onto the cork.
Regards

PS Interesting to see that the individulay components can be found on the Peco site if you search for "IL-". Still can't find anyway to get to them by browsing though and searching for "rail" failed to find any rail but did find lots of trees .
Regards

Id be inclined to agree.

My current preference is to get a custom etch to represent the baseplate/chair , glue this to the ply sleeper with permabond ( which can withstand 200 degrees C ) and then solder the rail to the etch, probably using solder paste.

The upturned rivet is a fall back

Dave

[junctionmad]

I'm visiting the prototype in 2 weeks , so I'll measure the rail section directly to establish the nearest FB code. I need dimensions for the FB chair anyway

[junctionmad]

Its looks to me that code 55 FB is going to be hard to get, C&L have only 4 packs of steel 55 and likely to have no more , I wonder is code 65 FB rail available ? ( PECO ?)

anyway heres a close-up of the chair , any ideas on how to model this, anything out there that might look similar , This chair is a recent casting but the design has been used since 1910 ( and there are 1910 age chairs on this track !)

FBchair.jpg

thanks


dave

[Martin Wynne]

any ideas on how to model this, anything out there that might look similar

Hi Dave,

Andy Reichert has some etched H0 tie-plates which may be suitable. Unfortunately it is a difficult web site to find things:

http://www.proto87.com/discount-hand-la ... plies.html

regards,

Martin.

[junctionmad]

any ideas on how to model this, anything out there that might look similar

Hi Dave,

Andy Reichert has some etched H0 tie-plates which may be suitable. Unfortunately it is a difficult web site to find things:

http://www.proto87.com/discount-hand-la ... plies.html

regards,

Martin.

Thanks Martin. They look quite good , but the thought of having to insert spikes to represent chair screws. Omg, the work

The other option I had was to 3D print the whole sleeper with some representation of that chair. I'm currently building a reprap I3 printer

[hughesp87]

Dave,

Apologies, I've only just caught up with this. When I built the track on my p87 layout 'Obbekaer', I used riveted sleepers and etched chairplates.

The sleepers were made from two thicknesses of ply, with rivet holes punched in the top layer. The rivets were hollow tube brass types with a countersunk head, purchased from a firm called Danglo in Hitchin. I had to buy 10,000 of them, so I've got a few left! When fitted, these give a flat surface onto which the etched chairplates (my own design, etched by 4D in London) could be located. The plates had a half-etched slot for the rail and a hole in the half-etched section to allow solder to flow from the rivet, through the chairplate to the foot of the rail.

The advantages of this type of construction are primarily strength, durability and the option to keep tweaking the settings of gauge and check rails with a simple application of the soldering iron. The trackwork is now 15 years old and still performs very well.

For the next layout I had thought of adjusting the design of the rail plate to have sections on either side of the rail that fold through 180 degrees to give a representation of the rail fixings. I've yet to draw up the artwork for that, but it would certainly cut out the tortuous process of fitting each spike!

Hope this helps - pics attached of during construction (with apologies for the poor quality)

Track construction 1.png

and the finished article

IMG_6206c.jpg

.

Regards,

Geraint

[Re6/6]

Like Geraint I've only just seen this too.

These people might be worth contacting. http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Track2/tr ... ml#ME-Rail
Code 55 and 40 F/B rail Micro Engineering from the US is stocked.

By their own admission this is a part-time business so no 'next day' service. One would assume that it does still function.

[junctionmad]

Thanks Geraint, your track work looks superb

like you I think I may have to look at a custom etch , Ill PM you re this if I may ?


dave