I’m in the final stages of layout of my railroad and I was considering having a branch that would go modular sections if someday they ever get brought to a show. Is there a national standard at all? is it all club specific?
You didn’t mention scale, in N scale, N-Trak is pretty much the national standard.
In HO the NMRA has some recommended standards on their site. I believe its a 2 track main.
In addtion the Freemo group has a completely different standard for single track main modules.
Local groups modify the NMRA standard as they see fit. For example my NMRA Div. uses 3 main tracks.
Dave H.
The link to the NMRA standards and RP pages is: http://www.nmra.org/standards/
Go to the consist page and scroll down to the module section. Read the Introduction for the basics of the NMRA modules. Dave H makes a good point. Many clubs and organizations using these St&RPs as a basis have altered them to their own needs. Check with whatever group you may work with for their requirements.
Thanks for the links, I can’t say I totally understand it all but now I have a jumping off point.
By the way our table is in HO scale. I was considering our goal to make a section that could have changable modules added that if for some reason that we ever bring our own to some show or others visit they could just plug them in and go.
You definitely want to follow some sort of standard if you want to have visiting modules plug in and go.
Here is a link to our local modular club in HO. Their links page will show you the way to Freemo (Us and Europe) and a few other interesting places.
Andrew
Do you want to limit the kind of modules that can join with yours? Find out what the other modelers in your area use and consult with them. I use the NMRA standard for HO as that is what most in this area use. Belive the NMRA adopted the N-Trak standard for N scale as their standard. Makes sense as why change something that the majority of people use. Al