FAQ?: Code 70 or 83?

I mix Code 70 track with the Peco Code 75 turnouts.

Which brand of flextrack do you use? Do you need special railjoiners?

Cheers,

Colin

I'd use both sizes of rail. Use the code 83 rail for the mainlines and code 70 for the sidings and yard trackage. This is in line with prototype practice where the main gets the big rail and the yards and industrial trackage gets the older stuff that is smaller. The needs for that trackage isn't as strong as mainline trackage that gets high wear from the high speeds and so forth.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

ME, but modified to suit European appearance.

The standard Peco code 75 joiners work for me!

Unfortunately for me, Code 70 is rather heavy for my era and prototype, but Code

70 is the smallest I can use until I convert all my wheelsets, and I seem to buy more stock than I convert :-(

Yards and sidings tend to get lain with ex-mainline rail when that gets left over from upgrades.

Somewhere on the prototype there must have been huge stockpiles of lifted underweight rail ?!?

Regards, Greg.P.

In Europe that would go for scrap and be melted into new steel.

Elsewhere, where the cost of transport back to a steelworks made this uneconomic said underweight rail became structural steel. In Rhodesia/Zambia as the tracks were upgraded from 60lb rail to 80lb and then to 91lb. the old rail became lampposts all around the townships, telegraph posts, fences, bridges, house foundations, you name it you found it.

Then we built our own foundry to cast brakeblocks and started eating into the scrap piles directly, more recently private enterprise built a steel plant to run on scrap and started in on the lines of old steam engines that had stood for 30 years or more.

Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.