Banking your curves

I ballast my railroad so I used wood shims from pine stock, tuck them under the rail side I want raised and then gently screw the track down. The ballast hides the shims.

For a 0-42 curve I use 1/16 wood pieces.

starting 1" before the curve.

my 2 cent

Andre.

I use stiff clothesline

I used 1/8" stripwood for a 6" superelevation at the outside end of the

ties but highly recommend 1/16 (3") or 3/32 as absolute maximum.

The 6" looks much too high when viewed from outside the curve.  I taper

the elevation down to 0 through the length of the easement (about 24"

long on my layout).  If you don't use easements the outside rail should

transition from 0 to full height should be split equally between the

tangent (straight track) and curve.

 

For more information (and optional math) than you ever wanted to see

about easements and superelevation go to:

http://www.nmra.org/member/datasheets

And scroll down to:

D3b.1 - Curves, Superelevation and Easements

 

One additional note.  If you superelevate curves you may need to adjust

the one truck side-to-side tilt on some cars.  If one at least one truck

does not have enough ability to accommodate the rising outer rail

it will derail.  Just loosening one of the truck screws a bit usually adds

enough play to stop derailing.  Your favorite 4-12-2 my have some trouble

negotiating a highly elevated curve.

Note that Jim Scorse used the term "superelevation" in his post above. In real railroading, that is the term used to describe raising the outside rail on curves. Those curves are said to be "superelevated" with a certain number of inches of "superelevation" depending on the degree of curvature and the operating speed on the curve.

For super elevation I use a strip of N scale cork roadbed under the outer edge of my Homosote roadbed.  I use 30" easements to transition from straight to curved fixed radius.  Shirt cardboard shims are progressively stacked  to transition to full  superelevation in the same span.

 

Ed Rappe

I do what Ed does, except I use N scale foam roadbed.  It works rather well and its easy. Just be sure you have the vertical easements (transition from flat to banked) as Ed and Jim say

 

Ditto on what Ed and John have stated...the N scale foam or cork will work well.  I went that route and I am very happy with the results.  I think my easements are about 35" or so...and that makes for a nice transition into the curve.

 

Chris

Like J-Daddy, I use wood shims for door window installations that are available at my local ACE Hardware. They are installed to provise a scale 6 inches elevation to the outer rail on the curves.

What a great scene! That's the way I remember the PRR from back in the 1940s & 1950s.

 

I have a question about your beautiful looking PRR position light signals: why is the 3rd indication from the left, showing "clear"? Wouldn't that allow a train to run into that caboose?

I agree with Jim.  1/8" basswood at the outer edges of the ties.  Tried 16 gauge wire originally, but it had too much flex and inconsistency.  I experimented with 1/16" basswodd, but the tilt of the cars wasn't very evident through the curve so I went with the higher 6" scale super elevation.

 

Dave

Hot Water asked:

 

I have a question about your beautiful looking PRR position light signals: why is the 3rd indication from the left, showing "clear"? Wouldn't that allow a train to run into that caboose?

 

Ha! You caught me red handed! Those lights indicate the position of the turnouts up ahead.   I find it challenging to run my railroad and talk to visitors at the same time. So I put in place lots of visual indicators such as these.  Normally I set the lights correctly when taking a photo (as I did on the second track from the left) but I forgot the third one over.

 

While I generally strive for prototypical accuracy, it is lower down in priority than avoiding collisions and tripping powered frogs

 

By the way that is a kitbashed MTH signal bridge which will disposed of as soon as I build one that is appropriate for the catenary that may go up someday

 

Oh, and thanks for the comment.

For anyone riding NJ transit through Metro Park Station in Edison, NJ... that's one place you can EASILY observe banked track going right through the station itself.  A bit unusual I'd think, since stations are typically located where track is pretty much level.  But Metro Park is an exception... and it's quite noticeable (with 4 tracks if I recall right) -- both from a visual standpoint as well as when getting on/off the trains there. 

 

Some day I'd like to measure the slope, 'cause it's definitely significant.  Gotta keep those through-trains moving on schedule when they're cruising through the middle tracks of the station! 

 

David

The track going through Middletown, Pennsylvania station is banked and the catenery work around the curve is quite intersting also. I have a few pictures of it but not in the computer.

Metro Park replaced the Iselin station which was 1/3 mile futher east on a short tangent section next to Green St.  The 'new' much larger commuter site hard alongside the Garden State Pkwy allowed for plenty of parking but required the curved platforms.

BTW, I believe tracks 2 and 3 are super-elevated a greater amount than track 1 and 4.

 

My current test loops have 1/8" superelevation on the 70 and 74" curves.  It looks great, but next time I will cut it back to about 3/32".  Too much of a good thing, and I have the occasional operating problem - the top edge of my articulated coach actually made contact, so I had to add a sixteenth to the separation and diaphragm.  Some large locomotives needed extensive work to keep the flange of the forward driver from riding up onnthe rail.

I used 16 gauge wire placed under the edge of the Gargraves ties. Easy to place. gives a uniform elevation and is easily hidden by the ballast