Sleeper spacing

[LionelRudkin]

I have only recently returned to railway modelling after many years abscence while children grew up and finally flew the nest.

As there is very little available off the shelf for the prototype I am interested in, I decided to take the plunge and go the P4 route. At a recent show in Wakefield I bought ply sleepers, rivets and rail along with appropriate tools and jigs and had a go at building track with reasonable success. Posts in scaleforum have been helpful.

My problem is that I am having difficulty finding out track construction standards. Having studied and measured many photographs I came to the conclusion that rail length was 30 foot with 10 sleepers to the rail. I built a length of track to these measurements but the sleeper spacing looked too wide.

I went back to the photographs and realised that the ones from which I could take meaningful measurements were nearly all side on views of locomotives standing in sidings. I had used these because I could identify the locomotive type and assess rail length from knowing wheelbase measurements.

So far my research into written evidence has only turned up a book published in 1928 called "Permanent Way". The author states:
"For 30 ft rails, 14 ,13, 12 or 11 sleepers were used. For 30-foot rails on C class lines 11 sleepers are specified, the joint sleepers being 1 foot 8 inches apart, and other sleepers 2 feet 10 inches, centre to centre."

Can anybody help me out with more information on the subject. The prototype I am interested in is the Furness Railway in the Alfred Aslett era 1900 to 1914.

[grovenor-2685]

Lionel,
I suspect you may have difficulty getting accurate data, have a look at http://www.scalefour.org/forum/s4-digests.php#23. where our range of available templates can be downloaded. There aren't any Furness examples but there are contemporaries from other companies. You could also try http://www.cumbrianrailwaysassociation.org.uk/ if you haven't already.
Regards

[LionelRudkin]

Keith

Thanks for that information. I checked the templates and it would appear that 10 sleepers per 30 foot rail is right for the pre WW1 era. So it would seem that sleeper spacings were wider then. Certainly the locomotives were lighter, especially on the branch lines.

Lionel

[Paul Willis]

Hi Lionel,

As a modeller of the Great Eastern, I have recently discovered a similar situation. I wanted to model the track that was most likely to be found on a rural branchline.

Thanks to some information from Adrian Marks on the Templot forum, I learned that the correct spacing would be 11 sleepers per 30 foot length for the period that I am interested in, circa 1910. A little later the GER changed to 13 sleepers per 30' to take the heavier locomotives that were introduced.

And yes, you're right that if you're used to certain more modern track, it does look odd at first. For my application of this, you can have a glance at:

http://beerandbuckjumpers.blogspot.com/ ... cings.html

You might want to have a search on the Templot forum for Furness Railway information - there is an absolute wealth of permanent way knowledge that exists on there.

All the best
Flymo

[LionelRudkin]

Hi Flymo,

I hadn't thought of the Templot forum, which is silly since I have a copy of Templot!

Thanks for that.

Lionel

[Neil Smith]

Talk about reviving a very old topic, but...

Lionel, did you get to the bottom of this please? I also plan a pre Great War Furness Railway layout, and have come across conflicting information about the track used. Counting sleepers on photos of FR PWay from the right era suggests 12, 13 or 14 sleepers per length seemed common, both on mainline and sidings, although as often photos were taken in stations/yards, where track may be more bespoke to fit in between pointwork etc compared to out in the countryside, I am not certain that I have got a definitive answer from this. I also understand that the rail mills at Barrow steelworks produced 30' lengths (getting this info from the length of 1918 FR bogie bolster wagons produced to move said rails from the steelworks to the docks for export) - and clearly even 14 sleepers would suggest a 30' rail not a 45'.

Of course the other issue is inside keyed versus outside - again my trawling of photos suggests that by 1910-14 there was inside keyed track still in existence on sidings, and occasionally I think still out on running lines too! I am looking forward to a bit of a mix and match!

Any help would be gratefully received to save inventing the wheel a second time!

All the best

Neil

[petermeyer]

IIRC, and I am sure you will already know this, but you can set the sleeper spacing in Templot. I modelled mine to LNWR spec which had wider sleepers at the join too.

I can't remember how I did this but Martin Wynne helped me a the time.

[Neil Smith]

Thank you Peter, yes I had spotted that feature in Templot. What I am still not yet certain of is which settings to put into it!

Best wishes

Neil

[Martin Wynne]

Thank you Peter, yes I had spotted that feature in Templot. What I am still not yet certain of is which settings to put into it!

Hi Neil,

Stuart Hince has written a tutorial on setting up custom rail lengths and sleeper spacings in Templot. It's specifically for the GWR, so just change the numbers accordingly for your own data:

http://templot.com/martweb/pdf_files/gw ... panels.pdf

regards,

Martin.

[Neil Smith]

Thank you Martin I will have a look at that. Just need to nail down what the numbers are first...!

All the best

Neil

[Brian Eves]

Regarding thing Permanent Way, I came across this website that has some interesting info on it
http://www.oldpway.info
There is an amazing amount of prototypical stuff on there.

Brian

[Neil Smith]

Wow Brian I hadn't come across that. What an amazing resource!

It's possibly not quite yet what I need as I suspect things will have moved on in terms of rail weight, and therefore sleeper size/spacing in the 18-19 years from the 1895 drawings of plain track, but that is a very helpful step forward!

All the best

Neil