There is hardly any niftier looking trackwork than dual-gauge, particularly when it is mixed with regular standard and narrow-gauge track. One needs to be very aware how the separate standard and dual gauge trains will use the trackage if the trackage is to be useful.
My friend Don, after making about two dozen normal turnouts with FastTracks jigs and tools, starting making dual-guage trackage using jigs and then “freehand” using just point and frog tools. Here are examples I photographed last night. Enjoy.
That looks very confusing!
That’s part of the appeal!
Excellent Work, can’t buy those in stores!
Mark!
That is more than ‘nifty’ - that is truly inspiring modeling. I love narrow guage as my avatar suggests. Up until now I have been a bit timid about attempting a dual guage layout where the tracks run together (I have a separate HOn30 section of track in my layout plan now). This just might be the kick in the behind that I need!
Thanks for sharing Don’s work.
Dave
that trackwork is excellent! can we see more? maybe a trackplan?
Sorry, that’s up to the Carquinez Model Railroad Society, of which I’m not a member. But I can say the photographed laid trackage is at a town where the standard and narrow gauges meet on the “branchline.” The layout is to be a four-level-decked, and much of it is “mushroomed.” Most of the layout is dedicated to the Oakland/Sparks SP route.
http://cmrstrainclub.org/
Very nice trackwork, and obviously meant to simulate a plausible operating scheme.
All too often, dual-gauge trackwork is added to a narrow gauge layout so the owner can pretend that there’s a standard-gauge connection, usually represented by a tunnel portal and one lonely boxcar.
I model the opposite - a prototype situation where both the `standard’ (1067mm gauge) and narrow(er, 762mm gauge) lines had extensive trackage, including log and goods transload facilities - and not a millimeter of dual gauge track.
OTOH, I have ridden over a stretch of dual gauge main (on trains of both gauges) between two stations, where the two gauges separated to reach single-gauge tracks on opposite sides of the same passenger platforms.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 2 narrower-gauge feeders, no dual gauge track).