Code 100 or 83 on Atlas Layout

No, there are no differences between the two except the height of the rail. All the components are equal.

Mechanically perhaps but code 83 looks one hell of a lot better. There no prototype equivalent to code 100 except for perhaps a very very hundred miles on the old PRR mainline.

But for the average model railway, code 83 is a far better choice as it represents a far more common prototype rail size.

You also mention copying a plan from an Atlas track plan book. Not an 8 x 4 I hope? There are a lot better arrangements than 8x4, which is the size of a mattress, way heavier and no where near as bendable. You also need at least a space of 8 x 12, with a minimum 24 inches of clearance all around, or if you put it against a wall, large areas become unreachable.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

I was actually thinking about the Granite Gorge and Northern, its a 5x9 layout. I chose it because it has lots of things I thought would be fun such as tunnel, bridges a small yard and potential for a turntable. It also could run two trains continuously which would be nice as my 3 year old son has just discovered the hobby as well and he likes to watch them at our local train shop. Finally it was step by step from the benchwork to the scenery which will help me quite a bit.

That said, I'm open to other options or recommendations if anyone can suggest them. I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with flextrak yet but any suggestions on product that I should be using or even a layout would be very nice. I have lots of space - my 24 x 30 foot recroom doesn't house much right now but I would like to be able to move the layout to a new house we're planning on buying in the future.

Thanks!

J.

Just keep in mind that a 5x9 with minimum 2ft access space all round works out to 9x13 minimum space requirement.

And a 5x9 layout is not easy to move. It's possible to build it so that it comes apart into smaller sections that are relatively easy to handle, but it's easier to disassemble it, salvage what you can, and trash the rest. Besides, it's likely that by that time you will have changed your ideas about whst you really, really want in a layout.

Track is fairly easy to salvage if you don't ballast it. Sections such as yards and passing sidings can often be reused as is - just fasten them to the benchwork from underneath, so that you can easily get at the screws that hold them in place. Structures are 100% salvageable so long as you don't glue them down.

A good deal of wire can be reused. All electrical switches and power packs can be reused. If you fasten everything from underneath, and use screws and bolts instead of nails and glue, you can salvage all the lumber in the benchwork, and reuse most of it on a new layout.

About the only thing that's hard to salvage is scenery as usually built. However, if you build separate scenes on independent platforsm, they can be salvaged and reused.

In the meantime, don't worry about moving. Just build your layout, let your son do as much as possible to help you, and have fun. You should be able to get Mom involved, too: a lot of women start out doing stuff like houses and trees, and discover they'd much rather do rolling stock and locos.

HTH&HF

Flex track isn't so bad. I would recommend it in place of the 9inch straights in the yards and long straight sections, until you get use to it and are comfortable bending and cutting it. With the code 83 flex, there are no nail holes in the surface of the tie. You will have to turn it over and punch out the holes from the bottom. You will also have to cut away the spikes from the first two ties so you can put a rail joiner on.

Frank

its a 5x9

would be fun

turntable. It also

year old son

them at our

benchwork to the

Jason,

Having built the Granite Gorge & Northern a while back, I offer A WORD OF WARNING and a couple of suggestions.

WORD OF WARNING: I learned the hard way when constructing this layout the size of "one by" dimensional lumber has changed since that plan was first published. Todays 1"x3's" and 1"x4's" are not as thick or as tall as they used to be. If you don't adjust for that, you will discover when it's almost too late that vertical clearances between tracks aren't what they should be.

Suggestion 1: Forget the 'cookie cutter' benchwork shown in the plan. Build yourself some 'L-girder' benchwork sized for a 5'x9' layout and use insulating foam to build the hills and valleys. It's a bit more expensive, but if your not comfortable chopping up sheet foam to build the ups and downs, just cover the whole table top with the sheet stuff, and use the Woodland Scenics riser system to do it.

Suggestion 2: Use flex track as much as possible. It makes for much smoother transition curves than the mix of 22" and 18" radius Snap-Track shown in the plan.

Suggestion 3: If you use foam instead of the plywood 'cookie-cutter' top, some simple modifications allow the number of bridge piers to be reduced by using either the Atlas 18" Curved Cord Bridge, or Walthers Single Track Truss Bridge to cross the yard tracks on the side near the double track crossings. The modifications to the substructure aren't so simple using the plywood top.

Len

its a 5x9

would be fun

turntable. It also

year old son

them at our

benchwork to the

anyone can

yet but any

layout would be very

house much

new house

round

so that

to handle,

trash the

changed your

Wolf,

If built as shown using the 'cookie-cutter' method shown in the Atlas track plan book, the Granite Gorge & Northern is made up of two 4-1/2' x 5' sections bolted together. So, if necessary, it's actually not that hard to move to another location. There are other reasons, addressed elsewhere in this thread, NOT to use the "as shown" benchwork though.

Len

Len spake thus:

I find this a little hard to believe: so far as I know, the nominal sizes of lumber have been fixed since at least the 1950s and haven't changed. (It's been a *very* long time since a 1x2 was actually 1"x2". They are that size before they go through the planing mill to get dressed on all 4 sides.)

Somewhere about 20 years ago, they dropped the finished size of lumber. This also affected hardwoods that normally get cut on only two sides. I think that it came about from the inclusion of the inital saw cut that made the lumber in the size of the lumber.

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

Flextrack in the long haul is a lot easier to use, and much more reliable, than sectional pieces - you have a lot fewer joiners to kink up the track. Just remember that just because you can bend the track a certain amount, that doesn't mean you can run your trains over it! if at all possible, stick to 24 inch radius curves at the tightest. *

lumber.

sides.

cut that

Because they can't drive?

All I know is I built the GG&N in the 90's, using the dimensions from a copy of the Atlas book printed in the 60's or 70's (Don't remember exactly, I was a teenager at the time I bought it). Almost everything, the vertical track clearances in particular, came out roughly an 1/8th of an inch short of what it was supposed to be using wood purchased in the 90's. Particularly the vertical clearances between tracks.

When I started checking, I discovered all of the 1x's I used measured out slightly smaller than what was shown in the plan. I asked about this at the lumber yard where I got the wood. I was told there had been a slight change to the size of dimensional lumber between the time I purchased the book and when I purchased the lumber. I had, and still have, no reason to disbelieve them as the wood did in fact measure out smaller than the plan shows.

When I checked the current edition of that track plan book against my old one, the dimensions shown are identical. Hence my warning, based on my experience using todays dimensional lumber.

Len

Nominal 2x4s used to be 1 3/4 x 3 1/2; today the 1 3/4 is closer to 1 5/8.

Yes it has changed and it was sometime in the mid 1950's or maybe a little later. I remember helping my dad with some construction work and the 2x4's were in fact 1 3/4" x 3 3/4" now they are 1 1/2" x 3 1/2" PeteC

I know that 83 has more flange room for the wheels as well as looking

100% better.

So Code 70 looks 200% better, eh? What _current_ brands of locomotives or rolling stock (other than old Euro junk with pizza cutter flanges) cause problems on Code 70?

"Code" is a model railroad way of describing the size of the rail. Code is actually the height of the rail (from web to head) in thousands of an inch. Code 100 rail is 0.1 " high, code 83 rail is 0.083" high. Code

100 is overscale (bigger than it should be) for HO. Code 83 is closer to scale for HO although still quite large. Starting a new layout, I would go with code 83, it looks nicer, and everything will run just fine on it, at least anything made within the last 25 years or so. There are some real old models and some stuff from Europe with really deep wheel flanges that derails on code 83 'cause the deep flanges strike the tops of the ties. But I wouldn't worry about it. You are starting up from scratch, you don't have 50 year old legacy rolling stock like some of us do, and anything you buy now a days will run just fine on code 83 rail. US HO makers adopted a wheel standard called RP25 (NMRA recommended practice number 25) way way back, sometime in the 1960's. RP25 wheels have relatively shallow flanges and run well on code 83, and everything made in the US has had RP25 wheels for a long long time now. The European makers did not adopt RP25 until later, thinking that deep flanges helped keep the train on the track when running on the living room carpet around the Christmas tree. So, press on with code 83. Our club layout is all code 83 (or smaller) and every thing I own runs just fine on it. Once you get something running, you can brush paint the sides of the rail rust brown, leaving the rail head shiny. This is more realistic than a bright-all-over nickel silver rail, and mades the rail look smaller and closer to scale.

David Starr

David J. Starr spake thus:

Better yet, if you have an airbrush (and let's face it: you should!), you can paint the sides of the rail with it. I do this to both the ties and rail sides: first I shoot the ties with a darkish brown color, aiming straight down, then I get the sides of the rails with a lighter, more rusty-looking color. I use acrylic craft paints (Delta Ceramcoat) which are a hell of a lot cheaper (and come in more colors) than Official Model Railroad Paints, am not extremely careful, and end up with great-looking track. When done, just wipe the excess off the top of the rail; I use a piece of illustration board as a scraper.

Thanks David.

I knew there would be a problem as soon as I hit send. I really wanted to know how a smaller code will have 'more flange room' than code 100. It just didn't make sense.