Dear All,
Following on from my recent post on ready made track options, I am considering the alternative - hand-made track.
Has anyone on this forum used this on their layouts, or are there any particularly well known examples?
I quite fancy it as a means of achieving something consistent and tailored to my own requirements. I wonder though whose standards, if anyone's, is it good to use and is there any source of components? The 2mm market may be of some use, though I should expact it is not that extensive.
Regards,
James Ham
There is a broadly similar discussion taking place on the NGRM Forum at the moment
http://ngrm-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=1810.0
Richard
Good to know I'm not alone...
Armchair Modeller is right though, there's already a lot of content in the NGRM thread that may be of interest to save duplicating it here.
James,
There is a Yahoo group on the subject: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/handlaidtrack7 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/handlaidtrack7)
The topics are mostly American and of the "hand spiked" and wooden sleeper (or should I say tie) variety of track.
Like you I am interested but have yet to given making track a go*. I can recommend Iain Rice's book. Unfortunately it may be out of print. Here is an eBay link (auction ended) though:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Building-Wiring-Laying-PCB-Track-Iain-Rice-/330415855637 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Building-Wiring-Laying-PCB-Track-Iain-Rice-/330415855637)
The Jacobs use PCB track on their layouts I believe, and very good it looks too.
(*Currently soldering two 1 metre lengths of T gauge track together to make a "twice round" folded figure of 8 pizza layout, which is about as far I have got soldering trackwork!)
If you can get into the old 009 (Society) Group on Yahoo there are a set of pdf templates for 009 track and points in there (by Keith Angus I think).
Peco and others sell rail in various sizes. This is geven as a 'code' (i.e. Code 75, Code 40) which is the height of the rail in thousandth of an inch.
Some of the smaller sizes can be hard to get. Code 40 for example is only readily available in the UK from the 2 mm Association (and you need to be a member to buy from them) or in the US from MicroEngineering (who also sell code 55). I have a feeling that Peco sell Code 60 (or 65) flatbottom rail for use as conductor rail for the Southern Railway 3 rail electrics that can be used for 009 track. Codes 75 and 80 are failrly widely available.
By way of comparison, standard Peco 009 uses code 80 (I think, might be code 75) rail wich it would not surprise me if Peco sold at rail for handbuilt track.