1/32 Promoting Better Wheels and Track

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
"When all is said and done G1MRA aren't really the audience for this stuff."

Which is precisely why I'm focusing this thread on Gauge 1 North and Gauge One Expo, both of which are open to the public.

Previous G1N events have attracted significant numbers of Railway Modellers pondering up-sizing to 1/32.

David
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
A few years ago Richard Donovan as technical secretary raised the issue but got shot down in flames, as usual.

Yes, and that's exactly what my present apparatus demonstrates.

Richard's proposal got written into the G1MRA Standard, but in a very weird, ineffective way, namely as a set of Tolerances.
A few members had a 'Lightbulb Moment' and have adopted it, for example Don Evans in Stafford, with great success.
Understandably though, most members couldn't grasp it when presented on paper.
But everyone does when they see and feel my Demonstration - usually with a 'penny dropping' face.

So my Pitch to G1MRA is:
"Unless you share a track with G-Scale or Vintage, Richard's Improved Standard actually works better than Ordinary Standard, with little or no impact on Sociability."

My Pitch to Newcomers to G1 is:
"ScaleOne32 is well worth considering - it actually works better than the Vanilla stuff and looks streets better too."

So I'm looking forward to seeing Pomparles Sidings again at The Fosse (or whatever it's called these days) so that I can wave people in its direction, not just to gawp at its undoubted loveliness but to check-out the nitty-gritty underpinning it.

David
 

Simon

Flying Squad
Four years on, Roxey Mouldings still has enough ScaleOne32 wheelsets for a spectacular 13 coach train.

Where could such a train run these days, please?

And what are the current alternatives to Roxey and Mark Wood wheels?

David 1/2d

The answer to your first question remains as it was on post no. 20 at the end of 2012 - just over four years ago!

Wheelwise the situation remains the same too. Slaters are the most useful source and their wheels can be "tickled" in the lathe to produce visually better looking wheels. They move nicely up and down their axles so back to back can be adjusted to taste.

I suppose we also have the wheels made by Accucraft in the Mk 1 coaches. By the way, was I the only person that (eventually) noticed that the diameter of the wheels supplied on the G1MC/Accucraft coaches is too small?!:headbang:

British Gauge One - you couldn't make it up:rolleyes:

Simon
 

David Halfpenny

Western Thunderer
Sadly the parallels with British Gauge 3, make all this sound dreadfully familiar .
Added to which, UnklIan, at various stages of life I personally have been caught in the crossfire between:
- the various factions of 00 Gauge, (not including the competing Scale variants),
- 2mm Scale and the Great Leap Backwards called N-Gauge,
- various forms of 0 Gauge - including 30mm gauge,
- G-Scale (What-Ever),
- 600mm and variations on 2' gauge,
- LT's 1432mm gauge and BR's 1435mm gauge,
- C1 coaches and Tight Places under London and Sussex.
There must be many more.

David 1/2d
 

Simon

Flying Squad
Added to which, UnklIan, at various stages of life I personally have been caught in the crossfire between:
- the various factions of 00 Gauge, (not including the competing Scale variants),
- 2mm Scale and the Great Leap Backwards called N-Gauge,
- various forms of 0 Gauge - including 30mm gauge,
- G-Scale (What-Ever),
- 600mm and variations on 2' gauge,
- LT's 1432mm gauge and BR's 1435mm gauge,
- C1 coaches and Tight Places under London and Sussex.
There must be many more.

David 1/2d

Maybe so David, but I am absolutely certain in my own mind that there is a particular corner of Hell* reserved for those that have promulgated the current Gauge One situation in the UK. Immediately post War, well maybe it made some sense - but in the 21st Century it absolutely does not.

Simon

*Possibly a bit harsh, but they can at the very least expect a good "going over" in Purgatory.
 

John Miller

Western Thunderer
As a comparative newcommer to the garden railway scene, I find this historical thread quite interesting from a human behavioral point of view.

This whole subject of the developement and choices of model railway scales and gauges through the ages, seems to me to be a wonderful example of Darwins theory of Evolution and Natural Selection as it passes through cicumstances that are largely independant of the distortions of commercial, economic or social cconsiderations.

What we are seeing here is a natural progression of the reasons for, and consequences of, a variety of historical choices that could only have been made based on the technical knowledge available at the time, with little consideration given to the myriad different ways that the future of our hobby could develop.

The consequence of this is that we are now precicely where we could expect to be in an ever changing and evolving world, especialy if you believe - as the line in the famous poem goes - "no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should" :) So it seems to me that the relatively little change that has occured over the timescale of this thread could indicate that well intentioned folk are spending far too much time attempting to speed up this rate of change with very little to show for their efforts.

I'm afraid that when people like David say ...... "My Pitch to Newcomers to G1 is that ScaleOne32 is well worth considering, it actually works better than the Vanilla stuff" ..... he is in danger of directing them down a path that may be totally unsuitable for newcomers and, at worst, could even lead them into an evolutionary culdesac - not to mention precluding the possibilitiy of venturing into the wonderful world of 16mm.

From a technical point of view, I'm quite surpised how well everything from the different manufactures and all the various sub-divisions within the hobby are working together. I can take a variety of gauge1 and 16mm models to numerous club and private tracks and rarely run into any of the kind of problems raised in this thread, apart from the occasional inconsistency in a nominal 10ft. radius curve - or too tight a radius on a set of points when trying to run something like a Pacific or larger, but all that means is that I might not be able to get it into a passing loop, no big deal. Or my narrow gauge wheels rattle on the G1 chairs, but that's only happened once in three years. Derailments can be a problem, but they seem to be more associated with a poor standard of track laying rather than the design configuration of points - or the matching of longitudinal overhangs of adjacent items of rolling stock is not as good as it should be.

One welcome develpment I see is that some clubs are now incorporating separate tracks for gauge 1 and 16mm trains into their facilities which can only make a good situation even better.
 

Simon

Flying Squad
I'm afraid that when people like David say ...... "My Pitch to Newcomers to G1 is that ScaleOne32 is well worth considering, it actually works better than the Vanilla stuff" ..... he is in danger of directing them down a path that may be totally unsuitable for newcomers and, at worst, could even lead them into an evolutionary culdesac - not to mention precluding the possibilitiy of venturing into the wonderful world of 16mm.

I agree that ScaleOne32 is not for everybody but completely fail to see any way in which it represents an evolutionary culdesac.

As for 16mm scale, that's a completely different kettle of fish and I fail to see its relevance to matters Gauge One:confused:

Gauge One (G1MRA) needs to have some "high fidelity" offering and to have thought it through properly, which it sadly hasn't.

Simon
 

Dikitriki

Flying Squad
Gauge One (G1MRA) needs to have some "high fidelity" offering and to have thought it through properly, which it sadly hasn't.

Simon

It is interesting from the commercial aspect. Wearing my Finney7 hat, we are developing a 1/32 Bulleid Light Pacific which will be as high-fidelity as we can make it....which will be very high indeed.

We have had not a shred of interest from G1, at least not on the pretty moribund forum I am a member of, and I have had no private messages of interest, but a lot of enthusiasm from 7mm modellers - enough to convince us we can cover our not inconsiderable costs. It strikes me there is a cadre of 7mm modellers who are looking to build the most accurate models they can who would love to have a statement piece in G1 of the same standard they expect in 7mm scale.

I am genuinely shocked and disappointed at the lack of finescale 1/32 kits in G1 (with the notable exception of those from Fred Phipps). It reminds me of the time I was looking to move to 7mm from 4mm, 35 years ago, but wasn't prepared to because I would be faced with kits in the larger scale that weren't a patch on those in the smaller scale.

Richard
 

jamiepage

Western Thunderer
As a comparative newcommer to the garden railway scene, I find this historical thread quite interesting from a human behavioral point of view.

This whole subject of the developement and choices of model railway scales and gauges through the ages, seems to me to be a wonderful example of Darwins theory of Evolution and Natural Selection as it passes through cicumstances that are largely independant of the distortions of commercial, economic or social cconsiderations.

What we are seeing here is a natural progression of the reasons for, and consequences of, a variety of historical choices that could only have been made based on the technical knowledge available at the time, with little consideration given to the myriad different ways that the future of our hobby could develop.

The consequence of this is that we are now precicely where we could expect to be in an ever changing and evolving world, especialy if you believe - as the line in the famous poem goes - "no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should" :) So it seems to me that the relatively little change that has occured over the timescale of this thread could indicate that well intentioned folk are spending far too much time attempting to speed up this rate of change with very little to show for their efforts.

I'm afraid that when people like David say ...... "My Pitch to Newcomers to G1 is that ScaleOne32 is well worth considering, it actually works better than the Vanilla stuff" ..... he is in danger of directing them down a path that may be totally unsuitable for newcomers and, at worst, could even lead them into an evolutionary culdesac - not to mention precluding the possibilitiy of venturing into the wonderful world of 16mm.

From a technical point of view, I'm quite surpised how well everything from the different manufactures and all the various sub-divisions within the hobby are working together. I can take a variety of gauge1 and 16mm models to numerous club and private tracks and rarely run into any of the kind of problems raised in this thread, apart from the occasional inconsistency in a nominal 10ft. radius curve - or too tight a radius on a set of points when trying to run something like a Pacific or larger, but all that means is that I might not be able to get it into a passing loop, no big deal. Or my narrow gauge wheels rattle on the G1 chairs, but that's only happened once in three years. Derailments can be a problem, but they seem to be more associated with a poor standard of track laying rather than the design configuration of points - or the matching of longitudinal overhangs of adjacent items of rolling stock is not as good as it should be.

One welcome develpment I see is that some clubs are now incorporating separate tracks for gauge 1 and 16mm trains into their facilities which can only make a good situation even better.

Eh?
 

John Miller

Western Thunderer
I agree that ScaleOne32 is not for everybody but completely fail to see any way in which it represents an evolutionary culdesac
OK - my poor choice of words. When I said - "....could even lead them into an evolutionary culdesac" - I meant to say - ".... lead them into what could be an evolutionary culdesac." And I was talking about the 'track' in the thread title - not the 'wheels'.

As for 16mm scale, that's a completely different kettle of fish and I fail to see its relevance to matters Gauge One:confused:

Yes I agree that it is a completely different kettle of fish - except for the one most important characteristic of all that's common to both - the track GAUGE.

Of course I accept that you may have no interest outside of gauge1, but a growing number of people like myself who, with interests across all aspects of 45mm gauge operation, may like to consider the possibility of running other models on our tracks as we contemplate the future.

Gauge One (G1MRA) needs to have some "high fidelity" offering and to have thought it through properly, which it sadly hasn't.

Well that's fine for individual models - but why would you want to restrict the ability of friends and enthusiasts, with broader interests than your own, to run on your track? Maybe you don't have such friends, but my feeling is that the hobby generally is growing in that direction - hence my comment that tracks that are restricted in the type of models they can accomodate could be in an evolutionary culdesac .... ;)
 
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John D

Western Thunderer
Dikitriki said ' I am genuinely shocked and disappointed at the lack of fine scale 1/32 scale kits in G1'

........when I had my Old Originals hat on I did kits for a LMS/BR Jinty (now available in 7mm scale from Gladiator Models) , Manning Wardle Class L (available now from Mercian) and a Ruston 48DS in 1:32 ......all sold in fits and starts but nowhere near as successful as the Crewe Goods kit I did.....in 10mm scale.

In all cases the most interest came from the 7mm scale fraternity i.e people who knew what was what with an etched kit which sadly G1MRA types hadn't a clue.

John
 

JimG

Western Thunderer
Yes I agree that it is a completely different kettle of fish - except for the one most important characteristic of all that's common to both - the track GAUGE.

Of course I accept that you may have no interest outside of gauge1, but a growing number of people like myself who, with interests across all aspects of 45mm gauge operation, may like to consider the possibility of running other models on our tracks as we contemplate the future.

Well that's fine for individual models - but why would you want to restrict the ability of friends and enthusiasts, with broader interests than your own, to run on your track? Maybe you don't have such friends, but my feeling is that the hobby generally is growing in that direction - hence my comment that tracks that are restricted in the type of models they can accomodate could be in an evolutionary culdesac .... ;)

John,

In the track I'm building in the garden, the terminus station will be laid to ScaleOne32 standards but the continuous run will be laid with a form of universal turnout which will allow anything gauged to 45mm to run through them. I'll use some form of swinging crossing nose to allow this. This means that any Gauge 1 locos and stock will run on the continuous section of my layout. Maybe this is the way the G1MRA should head and advocate universal pointwork in layouts which could have visiting stock. Providers of trackwork might come up with an off the shelf product which would make tracklaying easier. It could also mean that development of finer track and wheel standards could happen while still allowing the developers to take their stock to get-togethers, etc.

Jim.
 

Simon

Flying Squad
….big snip…….


Well that's fine for individual models - but why would you want to restrict the ability of friends and enthusiasts, with broader interests than your own, to run on your track? Maybe you don't have such friends, but my feeling is that the hobby generally is growing in that direction - hence my comment that tracks that are restricted in the type of models they can accomodate could be in an evolutionary culdesac .... ;)

I'm sorry John, you are now talking complete and utter twaddle.

I appreciate that Gauge One is a "broad church", but if you care to read the beginning of this thread it was started by David Halfpenny (a thoroughly decent fellow with all feet planted firmly on the ground and good links to G1MRA at all sorts of levels) seeking to improve a known problem with the existing G1MRA track standard whilst also raising the whole issue of wheel/track interface and trying to get people to think about it and see the issues for themselves.

The conversation has since then gone on to include the wider "attitude" of G1MRA to scale and modelling and may yet lead to other interesting areas of discussion. Whilst I might have said that I didn't want to discuss G1MRA on the NFS brake van thread, I think it is fairly and squarely fair game on this thread so "roll on my beauties" to nearly paraphrase Mr Valentine in a well known film.

However, and without wishing to cause offence, I can't see that anything you have said contributes anything to the thread. Rather you seem to delight in raising obscure and irrelevant red herrings and have finished up by asking an irritating hypothetical question (coloured italics above).

I'm sure I will regret this, but isn't 16mm scale mostly practised on 32mm gauge? I thought narrow gauged prototypes running on 45mm track were called "G scale" - which has its own society. And of course 16mm modelling has its own very fine Association which produces a magnificent newsletter and puts on an equally magnificent show every year at Peterborough.

Gauge One essentially represents standard gauge operation on 45mm gauged track, with odd "deviants" being allowed along for the ride.
 

unklian

Western Thunderer
Nice one Simon, and I am with Jamie on the Eh? to John Millers rather pointless ( unintentional pun ) ramblings. Personally I am all for people ploughing their own furrows as far as making models as finescale as they can. If anyone wants to follow suit then all to the good. I think in general this is how P4, S4, S7, 2mm finescale, 3mm 14.2, P87, have all developed over the years ( and hopefully ScaleOne32 as well ). If others are content with the compromises involved in universal type standards then they can sit and watch their trains lurching through their trackwork and I will shake my head and walk away. This might seem to some as antisocial, but I have found the finescale fraternity to be anything but, and even if we cannot necessarily run trains on each others layouts, there is still a mutual appreciation of the rightness of what each other is doing.
Sorry was I starting to get a bit philosophical there :oops:
 

John Miller

Western Thunderer
I'm sorry John, you are now talking complete and utter twaddle.

Oh dear - what a pity you seem to find it neccessary to resort to personal aspertions - apart from invoking the 'H' word, few things are as sure to bring reasonable debate to an unsuccessful conclusion than the loss of mutual respect of the participants.

However - I will try just once more to put my view across.

I appreciate that Gauge One is a "broad church", but if you care to read the beginning of this thread it was started by David Halfpenny (a thoroughly decent fellow with all feet planted firmly on the ground and good links to G1MRA at all sorts of levels) seeking to improve a known problem with the existing G1MRA track standard whilst also raising the whole issue of wheel/track interface and trying to get people to think about it and see the issues for themselves.

In spite of your implication to the contrary - I did indeed read David's opening post and I believe he - as he admitted himself - has failed to grasp the fundamental issues under discussion here when he said .... " I'm convinced that the great bulk of G1 enthusiasts don't grasp the issues. I certainly didn't"

Not only do I find that rather patronising towards the G1 community, but he then goes on to claim he has an insight to the problem by virtue of his professional association with full size railways. In my view it's this that has led him to attempt to treat the symptoms, rather than the problem itself, by failing to appreciating just how different the model situation is from it's full size counterpart.

Because of the implications for public safety and liability issues, full size practice has to operate within a complex set of regulations, standards and legislation, all of which are concerned with the comparitively narrow range of design parameters applicable to standard gauge railways. The complex conditions at the wheel/track interface at places like the check rails, point frogs, etc. must be be managed within very close tolerances to satisfy the high level of due care required when lives are at stake.

David's mistake is to assume that many of the problems of unsatisfactory running in our model sizes are analogous to full size operations when this is just simply not the case. As I said before, it constantly surprises me just how compatible the range of wheel standards are with a similar variety of track standards in our model world, which would tend to indicate that there is nothing wrong with the G1MRA or any other track standard in common use - it aint broke so don't try to fix it.

Now here's the real point that David's missing - the majority of his percieved problems of - track wear - erratic running - jumping points - binding in check rails - flange climbing - etc. etc. are largely down to the way we're are USING the track, not problems with the track or wheels themselves. When I say 'USING' the track, I mean that a few simple precautions are all that is neccessary to ensure that the variety of manufacturers wheel standards continue to glide smoothly through the various kinds of track they may be required run on with the minimum of fuss.

Examples of things to consider might be - compatability of couplings - body mount or bogie mount couplings - flexibility and range of movement of coupling mountings - matching overhangs between adjacent rolling stock - avoid running through 's' bends with restrictive radii - don't run vehicles through points that have less than the minimum radius rquired - make sure there is no possibility of buffers locking, especially when mixing 1/32 and 10mm or other scales - use of ball bearing wheels where possible - ensuring that both track and wheels are within gauge - don't just stick to the minimum parameters that the manufacturers ask for - go for the maximum possible that space and cost allow - and so and so forth.

No amount of upgrading track specifications and imposition of more restrictive design philosophy will be effective if these kinds of issues are ignored.

However, and without wishing to cause offence, I can't see that anything you have said contributes anything to the thread. Rather you seem to delight in raising obscure and irrelevant red herrings and have finished up by asking an irritating hypothetical question (coloured italics above).

No offence taken .... :)

I'm sure I will regret this, but isn't 16mm scale mostly practised on 32mm gauge? I thought narrow gauged prototypes running on 45mm track were called "G scale" - which has its own society. And of course 16mm modelling has its own very fine Association which reduces a magnificent newsletter and it puts on a magnificent show every year at Peterborough.

All my 16mm stuff is 45mm gauge and the trend away from 32mm will only become more evident as the bigger models like the Roundhouse Garrett and larger American models become ever more popular.

Gauge One essentially represents standard gauge operation on 45mm gauged track, with odd "deviants" being allowed along for the ride.
"deviants"? - surely not .... :eek:
 
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