Can anyone tell me what I would need for making a siding off of an O84 fastrack curve using O72 switch
Debbie
You might get more responses 1) by posting on the Classic Toy Trains forum and 2) providing a clearer description of what you are trying to accomplish. I’m not familiar with specific Fastracks components like O84 curve pieces and O72 switches, and I doubt many others on this forum are either.
The Fast Tracks that you see discussed on this forum usually refer to the maker of tools and parts for handlaid track, and not the Lionel track that also uses the Fastracks name.
In general, I believe the O72 switch has a curved path that matches a piece of O72 curved track, and a straight path. To substitute the switch into your O84 curve will make the curve slightly sharper. The sharper curve may or may not be a show-stopper, depending on what equipment you run. You may also need to add a 1/2 or smaller curve pieces so that angle of curvature totals up correctly.
hope this helps
Fred W
I don’t have any fastrack here, but these are my assumptions: O72 has 16 pieces per circle. O84 has 32 pieces per circle. The O72 turnout uses a 1/16-circle curve.
You can replace two O84 curved pieces exactly by the curved path of the O72 turnout with a straight piece 1.171 inches long (about 1 3/16) at each end of the curve. You should also be able to get pretty close with 2 3/8 inches at one end only. Unfortunately, neither of these lengths is made, nor can they be made up from the shortest pieces, 1 3/8 and 1 3/4. If you don’t want to get into cutting track, a possibility is to substitute two 1 3/8 pieces for the nearly ideal 1 3/16 ones. The circumferential error will be only 3/8 inch total, which is probably no big deal in that big a curve. (See http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/146660/1629389.aspx#1629389 .)
[swg] Hey thanks!!! You pretty much, no, you did solve my dilemma.
I really wasnt sure exactly how to proceed, now I do. Thanks a million.[:D]