If I were to build my own crossings, what material would be most appropriate for the guardrails?
I thought about using styrene for the guardrails, or would actual nickel silver rail be better?
When I look at commercial crossings, it seems to go either way. I looked on the Fast Tracks site, but that was of no help.
Please advise.
Rich
The prototype uses rail for guardrails. So unless there is a reason to do differently, I would (and do) use rail, too.
Some commercial manufacturers use plastic instead of nickel silver for the frogs and guardrails because 1) it is cheaper and easier to manufacture; and 2) makes wiring easier. Using plastic allows insulated (unpowered frogs) and allows each path to be wired independently.
The easiest way to wire an all rail handlaid crossing is 1 gap between each frog pair (4 gaps total). This gives the minimum interruption to the electrical path and the most structural integrity to the crossing.
However, this means that the 2 paths are always linked to each other. If you don’t like that, beyond or at the clearance points for each path is another set of gaps. The crossing is wired through a DPDT switch that selects which path powers the crossing.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
Rich,
I’ve posted a picture from the Walthers catalog strictly for visual purposes to show what I am proposing you do. On the prototype the safety rail such as shown on this sample of bridge track is a size smaller then the main rail. Hence if your running code 83 rail you’ll want to use code 70 rail to make your safety rails. Bend them inward as shown and glue the rials to the ties using cyanoacrylate c/a and then lay in your wood crossing pieces. What I use for grade crossings are the Blair line pieces shown in the last two pics. I have never found the need to use any sort of safety rail as the “wood” pieces act as such. I’m sure if you wanted to fab your own out of strip wood it would be no big deal.
Hope this helps
http://www.blairline.com/miscsce/
They were talking about crossings where two track go across eachothers path, not where a road goes across a rail line. [(-D]
Rick my mistake for not understanding exactly what you were looking for, I see some find humor instead of contributing, hope this helps you in what your looking for. I still would use one size smaller rail such as code 83/70 and glue it in place.
http://www.ccturnouts.com/index.php?cPath=80
A nice tutorial about just what your looking to accomplish.
http://www.spyr.ch/ps/mrr/trackwork/
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/154273.aspx
Fred, Travis and Allegheny,
Thanks for your input. I will go with actual rail, not plastic, for the guard rails.
Allegeheny, those links were very helpful.
That is an interesting comment about the number of guard rails used in the construction of a crossing. At one point in my planned layout, some of the crossings would be cosmetic and unpowered so I am tempted to cheat and only construct guard rails to form the diamond. I have to think about how much work I want to put into it without losing prototypical appearance.
Rich
One basic fact, lost in all of the above:
Modern crossings are constructed of heavy manganese steel frogs bolted together with short lengths of rail. They don’t look anything like ‘built up from rail’ crossings.
I am not aware of anyone who supplies anything similar in any common modeling scale.
My own crossings are constructed from raw rail. The dead frogs are sculpted from wide-headed wire nails and there is a styrene-filled gap where the ‘inside the diamond’ guard rails don’t quite come together.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with hand-laid specialwork)
I have a couple switches and crossings with rail gaurd rails and they look better than the peco insulfrog ones with all plastic components, and Allegheny i wasnt trying to be mean just stating you were thinking of the wrong crossing, but u still had some good things to say about the blair line wood crossing boards
Chuck,
Can you post a photograph of one of your crossings? I am interested in how to finish the inside the diamond guard rails to eliminate gaps.
Rich
I have some Blair Line wood crossing boards on my layout. Pedestrians use them to cross the tracks from the parking lot to the station. They are very realistic.