Templot Club Archive 2007-2020                             

topic: 3720Double sleeper at rail joints
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posted: 18 Jul 2020 17:14

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Hi
I'm having real bother with this one. I'm trying to create swiss jointed track. The photo below shows what I'm after.

412_181154_070000000.jpg412_181154_070000000.jpg

The track panel in the centre has a double sleeper under each rail joint and there are 51 sleepers in each panel with the first and last one having its outer edge directly under the rail joint. Since the pitch of the sleepers is 600mm (23.62 inches) that makes the rail length of each panel 30 metres (1161.102 inches) long. I've had a go at creating this custom arrangement in Templot but have never quite succeeded as seen below...

9k=9k=

The right hand end sleeper is in the right place with its rail joint but I cannot get the one at the opposite end of the panel to appear in its correct position creating the double with a rail joint between them. Even though the Rail Joints - Normal menu item is selected, no rail joint appears except at the right-most end of this never-ending panel and I cannot get sleepers 50 and 51 to appear in the data entry panel.
The data I have entered is as seen below...

412_181207_570000000.jpg412_181207_570000000.jpg


With each subsequent sleeper 23.62 inches away from its neighbour...


412_181208_140000000.jpg412_181208_140000000.jpg

What am I doing wrong?


posted: 18 Jul 2020 18:22

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Alan McMillan wrote:
Hi
I'm having real bother with this one. I'm trying to create swiss jointed track.

What am I doing wrong?
Hi Alan,

You are living dangerously :) -- Templot has a hard-coded limit of 52 sleepers per rail length. If you wanted more than that it would mean a lot of faff with bonus timbers.

a few points:

1. you can enter mm instead of inches by prefixing with a letter m. i.e. enter m600 to enter the spacing instead of 23.62"

2. I guess the sleepers are actually 250mm wide, so the first spacing is 125mm.

3. 51 sleepers means 50 spaces of 600mm = 30000mm.

4. plus 2 x 125mm = 30250mm rail length -- enter m30250 for rail length.

5. then enter m125 spacing and 50 spacings of m600.

6. don't enter the final 125mm.

p.s. are you sure it's not 50 sleepers per length with the end ones 300mm from the joint? They surely need a small gap between them for maintenance?

That would give 300 + 49 spaces x 600 + 300 = 30 metres rail length exactly. :)

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 18 Jul 2020 18:53

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin Thanks again as always for your wisdom. I didn't know I was running Templot "hot" by doing this! :D Swiss sleepers are actually 260mm wide and there is no gap between the double sleepers at the ends. If you look at the photo you can see they're tight together although these ones are steel and so the chamfer on each one gives the impression of a gap. I've got lots of photos that show this arrangement and it's used extensively in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to my certain knowledge...at least it was until the advent of CWR track. The double sleepers are bridged by a special flat-bottom chair that grips the fishplate and so there can be no gap between the timbers. It does give you a better ride than British track did as the joints are fully supported instead of sitting in the gap between two timbers which leads eventually to the joint dipping with a consequent drop in ride quailty. Anyway, I digress. I took the picture I posted here and blew it up until I could count the timbers in that panel. It's 49 spaced at 600mm centres with the outer two having their edges directly under the rail joint.

I'll post the result of your advice Martin. Thanks again.

Regards

Alan
Last edited on 18 Jul 2020 18:56 by Alan McMillan
posted: 18 Jul 2020 19:49

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Alan McMillan wrote:
Swiss sleepers are actually 260mm wide and there is no gap between the double sleepers at the ends ... It's 49 spaced at 600mm centres with the outer two having their edges directly under the rail joint.
Hi Alan,

That makes the spacings to enter:

1 spacing of 130mm from joint

1 spacing of 470mm

48 spacings of 600mm

1 spacing of 470mm

leaving 130mm to next joint (don't enter this)

making a total rail length of 30000mm and 51 sleepers.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 18 Jul 2020 22:47

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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At the risk of repeating myself, thanks again Martin. :thumb:

All the Best

Alan

posted: 19 Jul 2020 09:38

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin
I've created the panel with the settings you gave and the sleeper spacings are fine, but the end rail joint doesn't appear. I've used F4 to roll this out and it never appears. There is also a gap between one panel's sleepers and the next. I've tried shortening the rails in the custom data to make them line up with the last sleeper but that doesn't seem to work either. The rail length entered doesn't seem to be picked up by the program and so no end rail joint even though the first one is there.

412_190434_400000000.jpg412_190434_400000000.jpg

Could this be a bug?

Regards

Alan

posted: 19 Jul 2020 10:42

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Hi Alan,

Please could you post your box file?


edit: see below

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 19 Jul 2020 11:39

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Certainly Martin. Here it is. The control template in this box file is the one in question. Bottom left and separate from the rest of the plan.

Regards

Alan
Attachment: attach_3113_3720_Anderbad_Mk2.box     65
Last edited on 19 Jul 2020 11:39 by Alan McMillan
posted: 19 Jul 2020 11:40

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Hi Alan,

I'm sorry, you have hit a hard limit in Templot. The maximum number of sleepers per rail length is actually 49.

I will see if I can increase this a fraction, but a significant increase would need a re-write of great chunks of Templot. :(

p.s. no need to post your box file.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 19 Jul 2020 12:02

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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p.s. Alan,

Thanks for the file. We were cross-posting.

The missing rail joints is a bug when the sleeper count hits the maximum. I will get it fixed. Thanks for reporting it.

I'm going to create and post a kludge box file shortly which should hopefully allow you to just about get to 51 sleepers in 3 metres, but you won't be able to edit them in 226f.

cheers,

Martin.


posted: 19 Jul 2020 12:23

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Thanks very much Martin. That explains why I couldn't get the fiftieth sleeper to appear in the data box and it also explains the gap between adjacent panels...they're two sleepers short. :?
To be honest I could get away with a 49 sleeper panel if it makes your life easier. I'm not that much of a rivet-counter that I'd really notice the difference over that sort of length and it's as sure as night follows day no one else will.


Alan
Last edited on 19 Jul 2020 12:26 by Alan McMillan
posted: 19 Jul 2020 16:23

from:

Alan McMillan
 
Edinburgh - United Kingdom

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Hi Martin
I've cracked it!
I've used a 49 sleeper 29-and-a-wee-bit metre length and it works. Even the rail joint is there. It took a bit of jiggery pokery to get the double sleepers tight together and lined up with the joint but I got there in the end. I have to say the slight shortness compared to the SBB prototype doesn't really worry me. It's not in any way noticeable and it saves you lots of work which wouldn't be right given the vanishingly small number of Templot users who are likely to want a panel this long or longer. As always though, you're a star for offering to do it and I thank you again for all your help.
Kindest regards

Alan

412_191118_190000000.jpg412_191118_190000000.jpg

posted: 22 Jul 2020 21:38

from:

Julian Roberts
 
 

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I remember seeing track joints like the ones you describe Alan, in Belgium in the late 70s when I worked there for a year. I thought it looked a much better design than we used to have in Britain and wonder why it wasn't the way we did things here. Mind you that was in the context of one of the worst rail accidents that happened in my formative years, that at Hither Green in c1967, where a rail joint broke.

posted: 22 Jul 2020 22:07

from:

Martin Wynne
 
West Of The Severn - United Kingdom

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Julian Roberts wrote:
I remember seeing track joints like the ones you describe Alan, in Belgium in the late 70s when I worked there for a year. I thought it looked a much better design than we used to have in Britain and wonder why it wasn't the way we did things here.
Hi Julian,

Some pre-grouping track used very close joint sleepers. The problem then with chaired bullhead track is that if you place the chairs so close to the joint, there isn't room between them for a 4-bolt fishplate, and shorter 2-bolt fishplates must be used.

Experience was that 4-bolt fishplates are so much better at keeping the rails aligned and level that the joints required less maintenance, even with the joint sleepers further apart. Wider joint chairs are used on the end sleepers, so that the rail is supported as close to the joint as possible. (4mm joint chairs are now available from C&L.)

Flat-bottom track is different, in that fishplates can be fitted over some types of rail fixings, rather than needing to be between them as for chaired bullhead.

cheers,

Martin.

posted: 23 Jul 2020 08:11

from:

Phil O
 
Plymouth - United Kingdom

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I assume that this type of joint is only possible with machine packing, I think it might be somewhat problematic with traditional bar packing.

Cheers

Phil

posted: 26 Jul 2020 08:03

from:

Julian Roberts
 
 

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Hi Martin

Apoligies for slow pace of this train of thought.

I think the question I had in my mind was, why largely having gone over many years before to FB track, were our joints so different to those on the Continent?



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