rail joiners

Well I'm a looter by trade (I take all the high-quality instruments such as guitars, mandolins, banjos and cetera you build and repair)

just kidding...

You'll probably need a bigish hammer! Peco do (or did) a table in their catalogue showing rail height, foot width and head width for each of their rail sizes.

Greg.P.

"Big Rich Soprano" wrote

That's okay!

Should you get over the fence and past the Rottweilers, you'll find that I enjoy a moving target.

Pete

The 'Moving Targets' are worth more points, but the 'clean up' is still such a bother at times.

Chuck D.

"Charles Davis" wrote

See "Rottweilers", above.

Pete

I missed that connection. That'll do er!!!

Chuck D.

hehehe i listened to the same Richard Pryor tapes in the 70's hehehe...

K... Thanks...

Thanks Tony!

And one good turn never goes unpunished... From the Fast Tracks web site mentioned in another thread i found Micro Engineering Code 40 /

55 / 70 / 83 / 100 Rail Joiners so therefore ME has them:

If ME made two different profiles of code 70 track, I would be very, very, very, very surprised.

I would love to see comments from anyone who has experience with two different profiles of same-code track from a manufacturer. I can't see why a company would do that.

On 9/14/2007 9:56 PM Mark Mathu spake thus:

So now this makes me realize I'm confused about track sizes and profiles. So I know that "code" so-and-so corresponds to its size (height, right?) in thousandths of an inch (code 70 = 0.070"). Correct?

But wouldn't N scale code 70 be smaller (narrower) than HO code 70, to be proportionally correct? Or are you saying that it's the same stuff, regardless of scale?

The reason it might be different is that prototype rails of different heights do not keep the same cross-section. Often the foot and head are the same size so that a larger/taller profile rail can replace a smaller rail without replacing sleepers and rail fixings. Code 70 in HO represents 6.09" tall rail. Code 70 in N represents 11.2" tall rail.

I'd guess that there aren't many modellers here who operate/collect both HO and N on ME track, so who is to know?

Greg.P. NZ

Sorry for the tardiness [we've got five kids with a fever, two have pink eye, those of you with kids know how THAT goes]... I assume this is the question you were paging me about?

As far as I know (I'm an HO-er), yes, code 70 rail is code 70 rail irrespective of scale.

I think the best way to see this is to look at the NMRA recommended practice for rail (RP-15.1).

that there is no reference to specific scales with code 70 rail -- the dimensions are set.

But regardless of the NMRA standard, it wouldn't surprise me that different manufactures may vary in some dimensions (but not the rail height) for a given code of track. But when it comes to a single manufacturer, I've never heard of anyone offering a code of track which is different for different scales. (for eample, if you buy Micro Engineering code 70 rail, you'll get exactly the same stuff whether you're an N-scaler or an HO-scaler).

The easiest way is to find a manufacturer who offers a code of rail separately for different scales.

I'm not aware of any. A specific code of track is independent of the scale or gauge it is being used for.

On 9/18/2007 8:46 PM Mark Mathu spake thus:

[...]

Sorry to hear that.

Well, that doesn't make any sense to me, but if it's true, it's true. (It would seem to be the N-scalers who'd be getting the short end of this bargain, by way of oversize rail.)

We've already agreed that it isn't independent of the scale, notwithstanding your NMRA setting non-prototypical "standards".

Regards, Greg.P.

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Keep in mind that the rail "Code" designation is just a short-hand way of specifying the rail height in thousandths-of-an-inch, and has nothing to do with scale in and of itself. E.g., Code-55 = 0.055", Code-70 = 0.070", Code-80 =

0.080", Code-83 = 0.083", Code-100 = 0.100" high rail.

The rail profile is set proportional to the height, not to a particular scale. So if some manufacturer decided for some reason to make rail that was 0.063" high (none do that I know of), it would be Code-63 rail and the profile would be proportional to that height.

I think it all boils down to the fact it's a lot easier to say "Code-70 rail" than "seventy thousands of an inch high rail."

Len