009 finescale?

[rod335]

Further to my previous post, perhaps (no, definitely) I should clarify that I was not advocating finescale for everyone. Merely that I dislike the size of Peco rail in photographs of my layout (true scale gauge, Corris). Goods stock runs with Romford wheels, passenger stock with Bachmann/Greenmax and the locos use Black Beetle wheels which are to, I think, EM standards. Tracklaying is not particularly good, in fact in places stock lurches around in a very satisfying manner. However, as those who have seen it will, I hope, agree, running is slow, smooth and reliable. I am not sure that finecsale standards for the track would affect matters much.

To everyone out there who is hovering on the brink, Roger is right. Get something running as a priority. Finesse can, and probably will, come later.

And, by the way, there were FOUR 2' 3" gauge passenger railways in the British Isles!

Rod

[rod335]

Roger

I think (hope?) we are of one mind here. As I'm sure you will have seen, in 'the other place' I have incurred wrath and invective for daring to suggest that we should try to raise standards. Even worse, it appears that I mustn't observe (I think correctly) that some 009 modellers don't really know anything about the narrow gauge and regard as just an excuse to engage their flights of fancy. OK, I have no problem at all with that, why should I? But please don't try to pass it off as serious modelling, which it clearly isn't. If one chooses to hold something up for public approval, they must equally expect criticism as well.

Rod

[B.Meldon]

I tend to agree Rod you do achieve good slow running on your layout and fine scale track would make little difference to the way your trains run.

However many 009 modellers, my self included, would get rather bored just running the same trains round and round all day.
It is considerably easier to get trains running slowly if you do not want to do any running round, shunting or even propelling trains into sidings. It is true that layouts that have lots of shunting and several locos in use are indeed not prototypical and flights of fancy, but to say that people that have these type of layouts do not know anything about NG railways is probably somewhat inaccurate.

As to you using fine scale track, all I will say is has anyone every made any comment to you about the rail size?

Here is a photo so others that may not be familiar with Rod

[petersmith1942]

It is always the same when "finescale" is discussed that threads develop in this way. That is why my early comment was made. I like our Society because of its tolerance of a wide range of tastes and aproaches to ng modelling. I always head for Corris if it is on show and always enjoy it. But I know that after the building stage it would not have enough to sustain my interest as a home layout. I really dont go along with the view that if you exhibit you must expect comments including criticism. There are very few ng layouts in our scale that I dont find something of interest but there are I am afraid myriads of standard gauge layouts these days with out of the box gems that dont attract my interest at all
Peter Smith

[rod335]

Peter

When I made that comment about holding something up for public approval I wasn't thinking about Exhibitions. I was really thinking about posting things on this forum and the other place, which is, I think, a bit of a different matter.

Brian

As you know, operating holds very little interest for me. I actually like just watching trains go by, which, to my mind, is what most (not all) visitors to exhibitions want. Having said that, at the St. Albans exhibition in January, due to circumstances Andrew Burnham ended up operating Corris for several hours and he was doing all sorts of things with the layout, lots of stopping and starting, swapping trains etc. that I wouldn't (couldn't be bothered to?) do and everything, I'm very pleased and quite surprised to say, worked perfectly. And continues to.

Rod

[rod335]

Perhaps I should amplify my previous comments about Corris. Since I was twelve years old, it has always been my ambition to have a model of Corris station. But, if one chooses to reproduce in model form a sleepy station on a sleepy railway where nothing much happened, then the model is going to reflect this. When I finally saw Peter Kayzer's model of Corris, vastly superior, once I had got over the quality of the model, I must say that the operation, although equally superb, disappointed me as it was far too intensive for Corris. But of course, he was putting on a show for the crowd, something which I do not do, with lots of shunting and other train movements.

The concept for my layout was essentially as a diorama which just happened to have a railway in it as opposed to a railway with scenery constructed between the tracks. I appreciate that that approach is not for everyone but that's what I like , the overall picture is much more important than operational interest, which to me sums up what I think of as a narrow gauge railway. There is a thread running in the other place about narrow gauge mainlines which, I confess, I do not really understand. The examples being shown are only narrow gauge because the rails are closer together. If that's what you want to model, why not build a standard gauge railway? Anyway, that's the end of my comments on the matters concerned.

Rod