An old book I once read advocates using O tubular track for the mainline and 027 for spurs or branchlines on the same layout. I don’t think this topic has ever been brought up and I was wondering if anyone has tried this.
Using different color ballast to signify spurs or light track would be the other technique.
Dave Vergun
I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. There aren’t even a lot of 2 railers that bother to switch rail sizes. It isn’t something that the average persin even notices, it’s sort of one of those rivet counter things.[swg]
The main advantage to the O27 would be the tighter curves, especially in an industrial setting.
“There aren’t even a lot of 2 railers that bother to switch rail sizes.”
Most of the layouts I see in MR use Code 83 for mainlines and 55 or 70-something for branch.
Incidentally, the book I’m referring to was a toy train book (not hi-rail); so this technique is not something for just the rivet counters.
dav
I can’t remember who it was but I’m sure I have seen some forum members here that do this. [%-)]
Yes Dave, I’ve seen them too. But I still say that that practice is by far in the minority, even though it is common among layouts featured in the magazines. It is certainly not a practice for beginners, or those who are not extremely serious about accuracy. I consider myself very serious, but wouldn’t consider doing it on my layout. For me, it’s Gargraves all the way, the end. There are a lot more important details that visitors would notice and understand better.
Maybe what I’m thinking of as it relates to 2 rail is the fact that, until fairly recently, to have different sized rails you had to hand lay your track. Now there is flex track available in a variety of sizes. I understand that the book you saw was about toy trains, when was it published 40’s, 50’s? It was way ahead of it’s time. [swg]
Mixing apples and oranges as it were is a bit weird. I am having enough “fun” using O everywhere. I can’t imagine having the height difference problem.
I use O and O27 parallel tracks on the lower level of my layout. The O27 fits very nicely inside of the O track on curves, so I can space the tracks closer together. Here’s a picture of both tracks. The O track is raised a bit using Vinylbed track bed to give it a mainline look:
I ordered some Lionel rails from someone and it appeared to be 027. It is a bit smaller than the 0 stuff, but comes in other lengths, so I use 0 and 027 mixed to avoid 1001 different small pieces of track to fill out the small gaps on the station.
Holes for the connecting pins have to be made smaller/ bigger to get it fit…
Daan, if the straights are 8 7/8 inches (225 mm) long, instead of 10 inches (254 mm), they are O27. If they are 11 1/8 inches (283 mm), they are O34, which is Marx’s wide-radius track, using the same profile as O27.