Need plans for ho track modules

theChas skriver:

No direct blueprints, bun anyway interesting:

Klaus

tables of dimensions and diagrams.

The following supply additional information, which may be os use to you:

of information, with a some references and links here and there to standard dimensions, including Fremo.

standard dimensions for this group - some variance from NMRA standards.

original standards. HOTrak is derived from NTrak, the first group to standardise modules.

of pictures, and some discussions. A large page!

General advice: find a module group near you, and/or a meet with a modular layout, and go and talk to the modulers.

HTH

Why, oh why, have they not at least taken a step in the direction away from train set track and dropped the Code 100 requirement for HO?

On 8/26/2008 5:17 PM Steve Caple spake thus:

Just a guess: being modules, railheads need to line up at the seams between modules, so they need to be the same height. Hence the need for a standard, code 100 being about as good as anything else.

Now, if there was some way to rig up an adjustable-height track end at the edges of you modules, you could use whatever rail you wanted to. (Or have code 100 at the connectors and an immediate transition to code 70 or whatever.)

Presumably because many modellers prefer code 100, which is more robust.

OTOH, a local group can go to code 83 if they want. Bridging tracks to accommodate modules with code 100 rail are easy enough to fabricate.

Yeah, almost looks as ridiculously robust as Code 80 in "N" scale!

What you describe could be achieved very easily. It would require the placement of a pair of bolts with nuts and washers on them, underneath the point where the rails leave one module to the next module. That would allow for a fine adjustment of the rail bed, all but eliminating any variance between the tracks on any of the modules.

Brian

Steve Caple wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@40tude.net:

As it stands right now, code 100 is the unofficial standard track of the HO industry. A quick sampling of my hobby shop's shelves show that code

83 track is usually marked quite boldly, to show that it is different and probably not what the average set uses.

My path to becoming a model railroader, not a kid with a train set, involved gradual upgrades. I used as much track as I had for my later railroads, and it's all code 100. Were I to decide to build an HOTrak module, I'd want to use the track I've got laying around first. I imagine many people see things the same way.

But keep pushing for the code 83 if that's what you want. By the time the model railroad manufacturers overcome the marketplace inertia, railroads will probably want to run triplestacks and code 100 rail will be the right size. ;-)

Puckdropper

Free-mo, which is probably the largest module group in the US and Europe, uses code 83. They have constructed literally actual miles of track at shows and conventions. While there is still a lot of code 100 being used IMHO code 83 is currently the standard.

I should have sent a reference to Free-mo. It's;

Because only the interface is standard, with considerable flexibility for length/width/shape, this is a good way to go for someone with just enough space for a shelf layout. Make it removable, and you can take it to Free-mo meets.

BTW, the European spelling is FREMO. See: (English page):

HTH

Try:

Pages 27, 28 and 29 cover corners.

Bill Dixon

Free-mo and FREMO are in fact fundamentally different:

FREMO -- the European standard insists on having the rails brought within a few thous to the module interface. The rails across the module interface are not bridged in any way (no fishplates/ rail joiners or anything -- the modules are aligned by eye and fitted together with bolts and wing nuts.

Free-mo has the rails (i.e. the rail profile -- not the sleepers) cut back 1 inch from the module interface and 2 in bridging rails (plain rail profile) is attached with rail joiners / fishplates between the rail ends after the modules have been mechanically attached with bolts and wing nuts.

The reason for FREMO not to use any bridging rails or rail joiners is that in case someone crawls under the layout rises up just a bit too early and accidentally lifts one module. If the modules move from the interface the result is that rail from one module will be ripped.

The Free-mo approach however allows some slight mismatch in alignment, and in case of double track, the precision distance between double track track centres is not so fatally critical.

Both standards have proven to be very successfull and huge layouts has been built.

Both of these module standards are designed for free form layouts, i.e. there is no standard length of a module, or no standard grid where the layout corners should fit. This means that both FREMO and Free-mo modular layouts are not designed to be built in loop form. Ntrack and HOTRAK on the other hand is based on grid and module lengths and corner dimensions are pre-defined so that the modules can always form a closed loop if so desired.

pekka

Pekka Siiskonen wrote: > Free-mo and FREMO are in fact fundamentally different: >

. . . > Both standards have proven to be very successfull and huge layouts has been > built.

Unfortunately one thing Free-mo seems to have picked up from FREMO is their attitude to the viewing public.

Taking the giant layout at the NMRA national for instance.

The Free-mo layout was a big blob of Flat modules with an occasional body wandering through it and an occasional train running. Next to No public interaction. Almost total indifference.

Now from a Free-mo point of view I am sure it was a great success. Lots of space and freedom to do what they wanted (there might have been an operating scheme but it was not discernible from the outside).

From a public point of view it was wasted space. A 4'x8' Thomas layout would have been more interesting.

I suspect that the show organizers had two conflicting points of view about this. On the one hand they had a layout to fill the space. On the other hand they probably would have preferred a couple of standard modular layouts (any scale) where there was more operation and public interaction.

Free-mo may be happy with this attitude but if so they will have to realize that they are going to have to provide their own venues at their own cost, not piggy-back on train shows.

I still like the Free-mo concept but more and more I see the flaws in the current implementation. As one person who was involved in the setup (and who small be nameless so he doesn't get kicked out - yes Free-mo has politics) said: "They don't even follow their own standards."

Bill Dixon