Just a quick question about Street track size

Superstreets and EZ Streets are the same thing but there is a color difference in the plastic.  I don't have a piece in front of me to give you the width.  I will say that, side by side with no gap, you can pass a superstreets vehicle and an IR trolley.  The IR likes O-21 dia curves, and it has been posted that if you remove a limiter screw on the trucks, you can clear O-16s but you'll prob have some slowing and overhang. 

Superstreets and EZstreets are identical track except for color of plastic.  EZ is darker, as if it is new asphalt and Super severla years old faded.  They are both otherwise the same and you can mix them in the ).  They are exaqctly 2 3/8 inch in breadth. 

something to keep in mind is that even a short vehicle like atrolly sticks out a lot and you should experiment to make sure you leave enough room beyond the street edge for clearance.

Thanks guys. and Lee I'm glad you mentioned the trolly size because clearance is exactly why I'm asking. Its pretty tight and I may have to move some things.

If the MTH is single truck then you can probably get away with D-16s

So a second question, what kind clearances would I need for my trolley to go around a 21” dia curve.

thanks, I'm having enough trouble with 21D and I wish they had something closer to 30"

Not sure what you mean by single truck, but if you mean that it would have only two axles, neither of which pivots, then it's the reverse.  Vehicles, be they trolleys or 'Streets trucks with fixed (non-pivoting axles) have wheels that don't turn into the curve  (top in diagram).  Many trolleys have a relatively long wheelbase and they fight (friction, even trying to ride up and derail)going around the tighter turns. the Lionel trolley has a short enough wheelbase that it will make it around D22 no problem, I recall though it does not like D16 that much. 

A vehicle that has even one two-axle, pivoted truck (bottom) goes around a curve much better, and can do tighter curves.  One that has two pivoting trucks (like this but at both ends) can go tighter still.

For example, you can't get a BEEP, with its two fixed axles much farther away from each other than the Lionel trolley, or an 'streets vehcile, to run on 'streets curves, but you can get a BANG - a bigger loco but one with pivoting two-axle trucks to do so.  I don't recall if I had to modify one of my BANGS to do this, by arranging for the trucks to pivot to a wider angle, but I ran one on 'streets a lot, back when I had it rigged as three lanes (middle lane for the trolley) just for the fun of it.  

A trolley with two axle trucks that both pivot will do better if its trucks will pivot to an angle so they can fit 22 and 15 curves (some won't go beyond about O-27 angle without modification - you have to open up the space or otherwise make arrangement for them to pivot more.

You'll need the D21 curves for a trolley.  I have the older superstreets and 

Love the product.

Wow Lee, I wasn’t even aware or even thought of pivoted axles in vehicles. You always amaze me.

I’m going to have to buy the E-Z Street D-21 Curve track sections because it’s the only thing that’s going to fit around some bridge piers.

Sorry but I still have more questions. Are EZ Streets banked?

I was ordering some track and I noticed that the straight track has Straight To

Curve,  Curve To Curve Track and Straight To Straight.  I just don't understand.

The straight to curve is a straight section with wider flangeways to ease the vehicle into the curve.  They are not banked.

On our club layout we can run a Lionel Christmas trolley through the D-16 curves OK.  We haven't tried a postwar trolley yet.

Thanks John, I was looking for instructions for this track and I can only find catalogs.

Ok, so let me get this right. I want at least two straight sections about 2 to 3 ft on each side with a curve in the middle, I was hoping for an angle of somewhere between 22 to 45 deg.

If I have it correct I will need a couple packages of 10” straight, 1pk Straight to Curve Track, I pk 21" Diameter Curve, and possibly 1 pk Curve to Curve Track if 22 deg doesn’t work.

That sounds pretty reasonable.   Have fun!

Thanks

What came with the SS trolley set, D21s or 16s?  I will agree though that a wider curve is always easier on equipment. 

SS and EZS do have three different short straights to accomodate curves.  One has a narrow flange groove, just as the longer straight sections do.  The second has a wide flange groove, and the third has a wedge shaped flange groove.  The idea is that as you approach a curve piece, which all have a wide flange groove, the short pieces will transitition from narrow to wide.  You will need a selection of all three shorts. 

Narrow

Wide

Transition

Interesting.  I haven't seen the wide flangeway straight before.  I just used the transition piece between the long straight and the curve and it seemed to work OK.  I don't run it too fast though, maybe the speed makes a difference.  Or maybe that is used to go between two curves, like in a "S" curve. 

John

Yeah, it's best between curves.  I think it's for when you need just a single short between curves, if you had room for two you could run transitions back to back. Of course you could run more than one, it won't hurt anything. 

You really do need to follow the instructions for "Streets" - use the transition from every straight to curve, use the wide groove straights between curves.  Doing so assures that the flanges of a vehcile don't hit the junction coming out of a curve - they don't jump the rails that often when they do but they bump and  clatter and run erratically for a moment.  Some of the larger vehciles will dismount the rails if you don't have the transition pieces in place: they need the extra space because their flanges are as such an angle. 

Thanks Montclair, the photos really help. Now I can see what the difference actually is.

And Lee, do you know where I can get a copy of the instructions? I’ve been searching for them but all I can find is Instruction for some track program that includes E-Z streets.

What do you need the instructions for?

http://www.lionel.com/media/se...ents/72-1149-250.pdf

Well it would have been helpful to me before i started this thread, but now that i just read through it, I guess it has all been covered here.  

Anyway thanks for the link

That shows exactly why I converted my 4-wheel trolley creation to a 6-wheel version. It bogged down noticeably on O27 curves due to the sharp angle-of-attack with a rigid 4-wheel configuration. It has battery power to the single rear axle.

It's made from a salvaged prewar Lionel-Ives 1690 car.

I haven’t even pulled this trolley out of the box and run it yet, but now I think I may have made a mistake by buying it. It’s a replacement for my ON30 trolley that I used with HO track and was so much easier to fit in. My only problem was maintaining the track with plaster around it to look like a street.

I’ll probably go ahead and order the Street track since I’ve had this Bump-n-go Trolley for awhile and can’t return it, but I think I’m going to buy another ON30 trolley.

I have not seen a copy of the Superstreets instructions for years, and do not kow of any that Bachmann has put out.  the one's I had (doubt I could find them now) came with an RTR set I bought to get started.  The main thing to remember is to always use the transition pieces anytime you go from the narrow groves (on long straight sections) to the wide groove pieces (all curves, the short wide-groove straights meant to go between them).

Thanks Lee, Montclaire gave me a link to Lionel's instructions and it says pretty much everything I've seen posted here,so I don't really need it anymore

Who makes the EZ streets and who sells them. I am getting ready to add my trolly line

Bachmann makes them.  You can find it on their website.  Also, some internet stores, such as Klein (modeltrainstuff.com) have a lot of stock on their site.  Unfortunately, Bachmann current offers only the one type of vehcile (the Ford panel van) - many of the others including particularly the vintage truck are very very hard to find.  Fortunately for me, I bought up a lot of stock near the end so I'm okay. 

THIS REGARDS WHY YOU NEED THE TRANSITION PIECES, BOTH THE OBVIOUS REASONS AND ONE THAT IS NOT SO OBVIOUS.

I wanted to add this earlier but realized it would be difficult if not impossible to explain without this diagram and I both had to go run errands and take a while to draw this.  Here is the diagram, I discuss it further below;

When I first got into 'Streets, I thought the only reason that you needed transition pieces was for the problem shown in the top diagram above. Without a transition piece in place (as shown), a vehicle exiting a curve was likely to have its flanges hit the edge of the narrowed grove at the head of the straight, either derailing or at least making an unwelcome bang and wobble.  I reasoned that I did not need a transition piece when the vehcile was going the other direction from that shown -if the vehicle in the top diagram was existing the straight and just entering the curve, there would be no edge for the flange to hit. 

Since I was making two-lane roads everywhere, with traffic flow restricted to one direction on each side, I thought I could leave out half of the tranistion pieces: cars in each lane would never be going back the other way.  I only needed transition pieces everytime traffic in a lane exiting a curve into a straight, but not when it left a straight into a curve.   When I ran out of transition pieces while building my roads, I left them out in those cases.

And for a while, it worked, at least with the vintage truck and the panel van and the short little school-bus vehciles.  But when I first got the big UPS-like panel vans, which have the longest wheelbase of any stock 'Streets vehicle, I discuvered the second reason you need a transition piece, and why you need one on both the entry and exit of every curve.  The bottom diagram above shows a vehicle leaving the straight into a curve on a section without a transition piece.  The front axle flanges did not hit an edge because there was not one for them to hit when leaving a straight into a curve, BUT, a split second later, as the vehicle is well into the turn and only the rear axle is still in the narrow straight-section's grove, there is a moment where that groove is not quite wide enough to accomodate the flange at the angle the vehicle's geometry wants to pivot the whole vehicle at that point.  The wheel flange has no choice but to work itself up halfway, or more, out of the groove and off the rail.

Among 'Streets vehciles, this particular (lower diagram) problem only seems to happen to the UPS-like panel van.  The other vehicles can get by without the transition piece when going into a curve.  However, for vehicles like trolleys or bashed "Streets vehciles that that have fixed (non-pivoting) axles, and long wheelbases and particularly if large diameter wheels compared to other 'Streets vehicles - they need it too.  

Thus, my recommendation anytime is to use them both going into and leaving.

Interestingly, an example of not following the instructions and this reocmmendation is the Photo on the cover of QGR run 260 (the last Christmas issue).  If you carefully look at the 'Streets road in the background (just above the trolley) you can clearly see a curve to straight without the transition piece in place.  I don't know whether this scene was just staged or if any attempt was made to actually run the trolley.  However, given it has pivoting trucks and rather small wheels, this particular trolley will probably run through that point in either direction okay, but a little roughly with a bang on occasion.  A transition piece is called for in the 'streets instructions and recommended (the trolley would run much smoother there) - and  it is required if you are running a trolley with non-pivoting axles, such as the Lionel trolley. 

For this reason I now always put in a transition piece as the instructions call for - going into and out of every curve.

With Super Streets and or EZ Streets it has been pretty much trial and error for me.

Bachmann don't have an FAQ for EZ Streets on their website, nothing on how to wire EZ Streets. Basically Super Streets was made for trolley operation and other very small size engines.

I had a small loop of Super Streets and powered it about every three feet, works best as a loop as power returns to the starting point.

With K-Line's Super Streets; you hook up power to the 10 inch section, 5 inch sections will only let you power the outside rail, Lionel's Fastrac hookup wires will work for this, as finding small terminal spades was very difficult for me.

Lee Fritz