Flat Bottoms, half logs and BS11

[Worzels Works]

Good afternoon all

In my search for inspiration for starting out in P4 I've realised it's going to be pretty difficult to get many modelling supplies out here to where I am until I return home to England in October, however I have been doing more research and I am in the process of building up the detailed re writing of the history of the East Cornwall Mineral Railway (yes that narrow gauge I'm afraid, but will be modelled as a scale 2'2 15/16" gauge railway) however in the decision that the narrow gauge would be laid with flat bottom rail I have also been researching images of railway construction, usually it seems that contractors laid lighter rails simply spiked into sleepers, and I can have a crack at that without any need for soldering while I'm working abroad!


Courtesy of https://www.railwayarchive.org.uk

The questions I have currently are the following, what weight rail do we think railway contractors would have used? I've not been able to find too much pointing to that on the open internet and without books to hand thought perhaps the hive mind of the forum might be able to help?

at a bet guesstimate I've taken the region of 50-55lb/yd rail as a starting point. Modern 50lb/yd rail seems to vary around the 4 1/4" mark in height depending on the specification so code 55 being acceptable in model form, unfortunately I don't have a copy of BS11-1905 either which would be ideal, one to look out for on ebay!

this website: https://www.oldpway.info/opw_drawings.html however opened new light and down in the american section there is profiles for 1895 ATSF 52lb/yd rail gives 3 63/64" height, scaling out to Code 52, so I think 55 wll be an acceptable use for representing 55lb/yd rail on the narrow gauge mainline

https://www.oldpway.info/drawings/1895pw_pl33_ATSFRusa_1.pdf

next up is this issue of sleepers and track fixings for the contractors track...


again courtesy of https://www.railwayarchive.org.uk

a thought I had would be to use match sticks suitably cut to length and using the straightest ones I can find, this would give very rough track but I'd like to think it could be built smooth enough to work with just the look of being roughly laid, perhaps using something like a das clay base with track panels pressed into it? certainly space for some experimentation. I'm fairly settled on the idea for using Proto87 track spikes, the only issue is the availability of those or the ME variety back home, any suggestions on suppliers are most welcome.

I'd love to know what everyone's thoughts are on this, if there are doubts that hand laid contractors track would even work, if I have my though process completely wrong. I'm off to scour the forum as somewhere I managed to find a list of 'starter equipment' with product codes for track building.

Cheers,
James

[Will L]

Just in cas4 you haven't found it see viewtopic.php?t=6199

Andy Mr Proto87stores reads the forum anyway so he'll probably pipe up himself in due course.

[Worzels Works]

Perfect thanks Will, that's ideal.

[davebradwell]

Try Scalefour News 94 with letter in 102 for information on rails for light railways. It may confirm what you have already but that's no bad thing. I'm surprised by your square sleepers - rather American - for this country and they may look rather narrow. I wonder if there were any guidelines at the time as timber would be sourced locally.

DaveB

[Tim V]

Have a look at the Bath in Time website https://bathintime.co.uk/ and search for Camerton or Somersetshire Coal Canal, lots of pictures of contractor's track and construction of the branch.

As for rail, you need to look at very light stuff, PECO used to do some light sections. In the mists of time, I used to do narrow gauge and used a 40thou section with a very wide foot, I think it came from the much missed Victors.

[Worzels Works]

Well then gentlemen,

Firstly thank you very much Dave and Tim for your contributions, this is exactly why I took the plunge to join the society, after all this all stems from wanting to model finescale narrow gauge, as to me at least, the use of a whopping great code 80 on 009 is so far out of scale and given the current finesse of N gauge wheel specifications I believe narrow gauge can be modelled much better.

The article in Scalefour News 94 is a gold mine, and changes things slightly, as does the pictures on the bathintime website, I'd seen a couple of those pictures a few weeks back when I started researching 2FS products, and eventually stumbled across Jerry Clifford's tucking mill and his talk about planning and building that layout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFy-T_4pyYg&t=4003s

Taking the information above and distilling it relevant to my own modelling ideas at the top of this thread we can conclude that realistically 50lb rail is probably inappropriate, however I was on the right lines, just thinking too heavy. code 40 flatbottom rail seems to be the way to go, lining up nicely with 30lb rail. Admittedly this is still an educated guesstimate but comparing these two pictures of the Leek and Manifold (35lb flat bottom) and construction works on Great Central in my first post, the feel at least is very similar, so that is good enough for me.


from an unknown user on flikr (work internet won't allow me to get the exact details, but night shift joys of research and being paid to do so )

The sleepers used seem to be of no fixed dimensional specification. and using the link above from Tim much of the track looks simply to be half round logs with the rails spiked directly on top, but what to use to model these? The answer lies in my notes for future ship models, and checking the pages of Cornwall model boats we arrive here:

https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/CMB-Wood-Walnut-Half-Round.html

I am really drawn to the textures on walnut too, so I think some test buying will be in place to see what's what.

The article Dave points to is extremely useful for formulating the Permanent Way profile of the re written ECMR and funnily enough the article was written by someone else modelling narrow gauge to P4 standards and contains a hugely useful comparison between rail weights, gauge and maximum axle loading. and given the use of transporter wagons on my proposed narrow gauge shall be very handy.

again thank you all for the immediate friendly and hugely beneficial welcome to the world of proper finescale!