Recently I have been playing with Templot and I now fully understand that to get the best out of Templot one needs a fair understanding of prototype track. It suits me fine since I'm going P4.

I have made up several plans for a 3 platform terminus with engine headshunt for a 1980s layout and have only used 3 turnouts in the design ( I will show them in due course ) But I have no experience at building P4 trackwork and so need a simple plan to help prove that my locos and stock will run over 1000mm radii track. That will be stuck on 6mm ply on an old wardrobe base. ( 1200mm by 520mm )

What I have done here is a REA B6 crossover with 1000mm radii curves off both exit roads without transistion. If anything I convert can run all along that then they should be able to cope on my proposed layout. I have done all the timber shoving.

Can I get away with using FB rails on those BH turnouts?

If anyone has any suggestions for my test track, I would love to hear it, please.

Jonathan Wells wrote: Recently I have been playing with Templot and I now fully understand that to get the best out of Templot one needs a fair understanding of prototype track. It suits me fine since I'm going P4.

I have made up several plans for a 3 platform terminus with engine headshunt for a 1980s layout and have only used 3 turnouts in the design ( I will show them in due course ) But I have no experience at building P4 trackwork and so need a simple plan to help prove that my locos and stock will run over 1000mm radii track. That will be stuck on 6mm ply on an old wardrobe base. ( 1200mm by 520mm )

What I have done here is a REA B6 crossover with 1000mm radii curves off both exit roads without transistion. If anything I convert can run all along that then they should be able to cope on my proposed layout. I have done all the timber shoving.

Can I get away with using FB rails on those BH turnouts?

If anyone has any suggestions for my test track, I would love to hear it, please.
I'd consider swapping one of the turnouts to right hand, that way you can test stock through LH & RH turnouts; sometimes things catch only going one way.

You could use FB rail, but my experience is that turnouts are harder as there is extra filing (eg. stock rail at blade) and the filing jigs that are available are for BH rail.  Will you model need FB?  If so give it a try.  But I suspect that a 1980s terminus had a mixture of rails.  Rhymney in 1999 was all BH.

Richard

Richard Spratt wrote: I'd consider swapping one of the turnouts to right hand, that way you can test stock through LH & RH turnouts; sometimes things catch only going one way.

You could use FB rail, but my experience is that turnouts are harder as there is extra filing (eg. stock rail at blade) and the filing jigs that are available are for BH rail.  Will you model need FB?  If so give it a try.  But I suspect that a 1980s terminus had a mixture of rails.  Rhymney in 1999 was all BH.

Richard
Good suggestion, Richard - I'll have a look at changing the plan to incorporate a RH turnout. I had thought that having 2 curves going opposite ways would check the turning of bogies both ways but the ability to run through check rails and vees need to be tested too!

I have decided to use BH rails for the test track, I know that a lot of stations had BH rails well into the 21st century eg Lincoln so I might adopt BH for my terminus.

Thanks for your comments, they were helpful.

Version 2 attached herewith.