The first trials of flexible ribbon rail have come through. I would welcome views on how these look. The rail is flexible, and whilst not rigid, does not sag over a 100mm length, which is about the distance between the bunkheads on the ribbon rail cars. It does have horizontal movement which would move as the ribbon rail moves around curves. A 15" radius will not be a problem. Questions relate to colour - changing it will be difficult as this is a proprietry colour and in the quantities we are talking about would be difficult. This is close to the rusty colour, but may be a bit dark. rail profile - the two trials do not look exactly like rail, but are a reasonable profile. In the larger rail the top is too rounded. In the smaller, the base is not wide enough. We hope to have a third mold which has a flatter, narrower top to the rail, a clear waist, and a full flatter bottom. The width is enough to get eight strips side by side on the ribbon rail cars. lengths - we have achieved over 4ft of continuous ribbon so far. Longer than that will be a problem, but it can be joined although not very easily. Is this long enough for a reasonable consist, or do we go for longer, but lower quality? We would welcome comments. Peter Peter Harris N Scale Kits
Regarding colour, I don't want to speak too much on that because the computer I am on right now isn't known for color accuracy. Having said that, it looks good to me, and I think most modelers will "rust it up" a bit anyway so you appear to have a good base for that. It is impossible to tell much about the rail profile from your photos. I would show an end-profile of 4 or 5 pieces, and maybe the different molds you've done. I don't think it has to be perfect, but it needs to give the look of rail enough to trick the eyes. About length, here's my take. If I were marketing cars, I'd do sets of 6 or 12 cars. So, here's the breakdown: (based on 50ft cars, there may be 40ft cars as well, not sure what you have planned) 6 Cars - 22 1/2" 12 Cars - 45" 18 Cars - 67 1/2" 24 Cars - 90" CWR is 1/4 mile long in length, typically. That equates to 99". I saw reference to 30-car trains, so this jives with the numbers. I would think that except for N-Trak guys most modelers would do some selective compression, but I think 12 cars would seem pretty short...I was thinking 18 to 24 would be about right. So, 48" might be a little short. However, keeping in mind that modelers will need to anchor the rail in the middle of the train, it might be acceptable to splice them at the anchor point. Just a thought.
Good to see progress Peter. Would it be possible to post a somewhat larger photo of the ends of the 'rails'?
The trouble is were talking fairly tiny here, with a reasonable camera without a good focal length. I have tried two here, but even when I enlarge these, the definition is not very good. Any suggestions will be tried! Peter N Scale Kits
I would agree with the comments from Doug A. The 48" +/- range might be the best workable range from a stand point of manufacture, shipping and end use. Some will make longer trains, once on their layout. Still 48" is a long piece of detail to add to an N scale car-set. This is an interesting project that I've not seen done before. I hope the details work out......... Steven
I could use those - and am watching this post with interest to apply to this continuous rail consist I'm building.
As far as I know, most new sections in the U.S. are delivered in 1/4 mile lengths. That would work out to 8.25ft in N-Scale. However if I could get 4ft lengths I would be very happy.
packing and posting How flexible is it going to be? Will it be able to be coiled for packing and posting?
I think that it will be important to be able to ship world wide - it will be coiled on a ribbon drum. At present it is almost too flexible, and the problem is trying to stop any sag between bulkhead bars on the ribbon rail consists. It is a balance between the size and correct profile. It is a compromise. The larger profile has more integrity, the smaller profile is rather too flexible. We tried to include a wire in the extrusion, but this has proved too complex. The rail has a stiffness delivered by the profile alone. We will be tooling a third prototype on Wednesday. Thanks Alan, I will send all three after the Wednesday run. A slightly better attempt below. The differences between the two tools can be seen. The third tool will have a flatter rail top, a tighter waist, and a wider flatter bottom. We are able to make the strands a bit longer I think, but 48" seems to be a reasonable compromise on length v quality too. It also wraps around a drum for s&h and display OK too. It has been interesting so far. It seems well worth pursuing. I will let folks know. Regards Peter N Scale Kits
Hmmm, I could use some rail even without the rail train. The ARR just drags it into place: They limit the lenght of drags to 8 miles at a time because it gets too hot from sliding on the ties. (notice the smoke)
Great progress Peter! If this pans out more, then I can't wait to see pre-production samples of the cars. The rail looks good to me. I'd go with the stronger rail but I'm not sure what radii I will have on my layout extensions. Maybe make both, for those that would have tighter radius curves.
Those are looking awesome! They would go perfect with my MOW train im planning. So are there cars being made also? Four feet is plenty long enough. Will the machines that actually lay the rail be made to, if not please do :yes9rq:
That's the plan - not sure about the head end cars that do the laying though. We are planning the carrier cars, with racks of rail - hence the need to sort out the ribbon rail first. Somewhat unusual approach to tracklaying there - loved the smokin' rail. Peter N Scale Kits
Is there any approxamite cost? I thought of another use for this. Alot of raillines leave the old rail on the sides of the ballast for a while, thesse could do the job. :thumbs_up:
I dont think they are that long the standard is either 125 metres or 25o metre lengths. The rails are either thermit of flash butt welded on site.
Couple of links I found just goofing around on Google... http://www.mnnr.org/railroads/welded-rail http://trackgang.railfan.net/images/up/cwr.html http://www.robl.w1.com/pix-5/I-810641.htm http://cencalrails.railfan.net/mow.html Note there are a couple of references to the rail being a quarter mile long.
I've got some shots of some SP MOW rail train equipment being used outside of Bakersfield in January 2005 to share...but having problems with railimages at the moment. Will keep on trying as I know there are plenty of Espee fans here ;-)
