Progress on new street track

[Andy Reichert]

Hello,

Thank you allowing me to join this forum.

My name is Andy Reichert, I'm located in California, USA, and I design and manufacture a small range of specialized track parts for the Proto:87 SIG and and for HO Streetcars, both for my own use and for others who have similar interests. Those include a range of girder rail parts that are close to prototype appearance and scale for HO.

Recently, I have been able to make slotted plain street bases to fit my own design girder rail. However, just now I have worked out how to add a texture to simulate the granite setts around street tracks that are very common in European Countries. So I wanted to show you the effect and ask if this is a good pattern, or if you would suggest changes. I could probably eventually make patterns that are specific to individual cities, if required.



Here is a close up picture of the setts pattern along with the girder rail for standard HO gauge cars.



Here is a sample street section with the setts effect.

My own modelling interests are the USA Pacific Electric and the UK London double decker trams, although I like pretty much like all models of electric MU trains.

Andy

[M.V. Wesstein]

Hello Andy,

Welcome to the forum, great to see you're still actively developing the former "Easy Street Track system"

The setts look good to me, any chance of a 12mm gauge version? Unlike the US, narrow gauge tramways are pretty common over here.

As for your interest in electric MU operations, have you investigated Dutch railways as well as the tramways of The Hague? The latter has taken the concept of the PCC car and ran with it, developing what some regard as the 'ultimate PCC car', the HTM 1300 series. At one time the HTM owned 200+ PCC cars of various ages, only the first 24 had no couplers but the remainder could be coupled up and run as MU trains. They still do, only in the museum, but unlike the daily tours (pre-1993), now they're doing 3-car units. Car 1329 now resides in a US trolley museum, in the Washington DC area IIRC. Another interesting, but sadly historic, tramway company to consider is the NZH. I'm sure Werner can tell you a lot about it if you ask. Otherwise, so can I

[Andy Reichert]

My apologies for mistakenly posting this topic in the "announcement" section. I'd be very happy of the moderator could move it to the normal topic index.

Andy

[Andy Reichert]

Hello M.V.

Werner used the Electric Avenue Rail on his layout for both HO and HOm. The plain rails bends enough to adapt to 12 mm gauge. So if I made City Streetz bases for 12 mm gauge they should work easily. The only issue is with the pre-set radius of the moving points. IIRC, Werner and I discussed cutting a thin slot in one side of the point frame to allow it to be slightly more curved to match the 12mm requirement.



Andy

[Andy Reichert]

see you tube location: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnEmv7U8fos

Andy

[Andy Reichert]

Parts for the "Street Furniture" have arrived so the Street Switches can now be fully detailed.



This is the switch portion of an 8" ( nom. 200 mm) radius turnout laid in a model concrete street section. I also I have made both single and double point versions of the turnouts in 8" and 10" radius (nom. 200 and 250 mm) .

[M.V. Wesstein]

Interesting. They look like metal etchings, so how do you prevent short circuits on 2-rail track? (the US common practice of overhead feed for trolley/tramway layouts is not so common here in Europe) Also, the "operating slot" is commonly located in the middle, but I assume it would require only a slight redesign specifically for the European market should demand arise.

[Andy Reichert]

Hi M.V.

The etchings don't reach the full distance between the rails. There is an small insulation gap. All my systems use 2-rail DCC. So I need to keep the rails insulated. But it does make wiring a grand union very complicated.

Andy

[Per Lind]

Hello Andy,
Do you also have the stone Surface? Looks Amazing.
Do you have some track planning sheet?
-Per

[Andy Reichert]

Per,

I have to draw the stone surface pattern for each separate track section, so it will be another month or so before I can complete those. But it should be available at a sightly higher cost soon after that. Ditto for planning diagrams.

In the meantime you can use the 8" and 10" radii and 2" spacing for suburban track planning, and 8" radii and 1.5" spacing for city track planning. I am considering adding an inner 6.5" radii for city double track, but have not done any testing on 6.5" radius running yet. I'm not sure which commercial trams will work at that tight a radius. All curved tracks will be available in 15 degree, 30 degree and 45 degree sections, single or 8-10 double track.

The various planned turnouts, 8-10 double junctions, crossovers and crossings are listed on the Proto:87 Stores website.

Andy

[Andy Reichert]

Here is a picture of one of the adapters to join "city streetz" to legacy Hartel track.



This changes the track to the Hartel double track spacing and normal HO flangeways. So it works with existing layout laid track.

[Andy Reichert]

The street surface bases for the HO Grand Union track configuration are now complete. Over the couple of weeks, I'll be adding the rails and then performing running tests. Despite the complicated layout, the bases can be wired for 2-rail working. The layout uses 250 mm radius throughout, so all RTR vehicles should run through without any clearance issues. Overall size is approx 600 mm x 600 mm

Al the other Union configurations (half, quarter, 3-way, usw.) can now be easily implemented as well, by just deleting the unwanted routes. Full width streets with sidewalks or just track width only, will be an option.

Andy

[olli hb]

Andy, wow, this is exactly what I need for my H0m-Layout (12 mm).
Please, can You show more details from the tracks and from the switches without the street surface inlays?

Olli

[Andy Reichert]

Hi Olli,

I'm afraid I can't promise much coming soon for a HOm Version of a Grand Union. First I need to know what double track spacing is used for HOm. Model and Protoype. And then I almost certainly have to design a complete new set of rail frogs because most of the frog angles will change. I do want HOm versions as I have several US 3ft 6" gauge (12 mm) models of my own. But, I suspect it will take another year to make a good range.

Andy

[M.V. Wesstein]

Hi Andy,

I'm afraid there's no "right" answer to the correct track spacing. Having looked at various meter-gauge systems in Germany I found quite some differences, ranging from 2.8m to 3.5m and even then it depends on circumstances as at one point I noticed a combined bus&tram stop in Gelsenkirchen with a track spacing of 6m while just 100 yards away it had returned to 3m on simple double track.

De-facto leading H0m brand Bemo uses 46mm track spacing, based on their Swiss NG railway prototypes and I believe Peco adopted that too for their 12mm gauge track range. More of interest would be the Luna track system, as this is specifically designed for trams. That too has a track spacing of 46mm (actually, 46.85mm according to their site: http://www.luna-tram.ch/das-ist-luna/di ... index.html ) so aiming for that would make your system compatible and I assume far less costly.

HTH!