Peco code 80 and Code 55

Good day

this is my first time using Peco Flex Track. The code 55 track has a double web as I heard it called. Will this pose a problem when I try to connect it to a piece of Peco code 80 track? The flex track seems to have no give (stif) unlike Atlas flex track which is easy to flex.

My goal was to have siding tracks lower code just to make it more realistic. I have seen some sort of transition track from 80 to 55. Is this piece of track really necessary? I have not been able to find it in shops, or on Ebay.

Will Peco code 80 flex track, connect with Atlas code 80 flex track? I know it will not connect up with the code 55 because of the double web. However I'm not really sure of that either.

What is the point of this double web any way?

Peace to the group

Art

 

All you need to do is shim the code 55 track to make up the difference in tie width. The rail will actually join with no issues.

 

"The code 55 track has a double web as I heard it called. Will this pose a problem when I try to connect it to a piece of Peco code 80 track?"

No problem at all; the Peco C55 double base is the same height as Peco C80. I haven't tried connection to Atlas C80 but have observed while connecting to Shinohara code 70 that the base widths can be different and may need to be filed slightly.

 

On my old layout, I mixed Atlas and Peco Code 80 and Peco Code 55 freely (mostly Atlas in staging yards and non visible areas). No trouble mating up any of them, other than the Atlas rail joiners were typically looser than the Peco, so I always used Peco rail joiners, unless I found a particularly sticky piece of rail, then sometimes, the Atlas joiner would work better.

 

For about 25 years, I had a layout with Atlas flex track and Peco turnouts. They worked well for me; I was a complete novice at n-scale modeling when I started my first home layout.
I recall that I did not care for the Peco track because of the rounded rail head and the lack of pre-drilled holes in some ties (sleepers).

 

What about peco 55 to atlas 55?

 

I have connected Peco code 55 to code 55 rail I used on a Central Valley truss bridge. I imagine that rail is very similar to Atlas code 55 rail. I filed off the rail base on the Peco so that only the code 55 base was left. Then it's a simple task to connect with rail joiners. I prefer to use the Peco joiners.

 

Nobody is saying anything about it, but Peco track's tie proportions and spacing look nothing like any prototype track in North America (or anywhere else either). This means the ties are way too tall, way too wide, way too short and spaced way too far apart (both 80 and 55). The alternatives are Atlas 55 and Micro Engineering 70 and 55, both of which look exponentially better (more prototypical) than any N-scale Peco track.

If you're not willing to learn how to make your own turnouts, the best RTR solution is Atlas turnouts and ME flextrack (and their #6 turnouts). Both brands can be intermixed, with the ME tracks having finer spikehead details than the Atlas 55 so there's no interference with pizza cutter flanges as there is with Atlas 55 track.

It's a great idea to delineate between mainline and siding trackage and track height (weight) is one way to represent the difference between heavily trafficked track and lightly trafficked track. That said, the rail height isn't the first thing your eyes will see if you were to go actually look the differences in prototype trackage. The first thing you see is that lightly trafficked trackage has a lot fewer ties per mile than heavily trafficked track. Then, you'll see the ballasting is usually a different color and texture, then you'll see that the color of the ties are way lighter than mainline wooden ties and are much more crookedly attached to the rails.

With Peco 55 flex, since the ties are the same size and spaced the same distance apart as the Peco 80, it's hardly worth it to incorporate it into your layout scheme to represent lightly trafficked trackage if the difference between the tracks is ONLY the height of the rails. With Peco 55's buried rail protocol, cutting the spacers between the ties to spread 'em out to represent lightly trafficked trackage is impossible.

I know this may raise some hackles out there, but it's not said to be denigrating, but it is factual. If you are concerned about representing sidings and branchlines with shorter rail (which is prototypical) why aren't you concerned about the other highly visible unprototypical characteristics of Peco track??

Here's my solution. If you're locked in to Peco track, represent your lightly trafficked sidings and branchlines with different color and texture ballast, paint and weather your sidings and branchlines differently than your mainlines...and don't worry about the track height. If you haven't bought a lot of Peco 80, I'd use the Peco 55 instead overall.

Here's a photo of my good friend Nate's (Nato) layout which I've laid track on and scenicked. His preference is Atlas 80 because he had a potful already purchased, with Peco 80 switches. He has a branchline which runs parallel to the double-tracked mainline, and the only difference in "track" is the weathering and ballast color. This really differentiates between mainlines and branchlines as you can see in the photo:


However, if you went with ME or Atlas 55, you could hand-lay code 40 trackage to represent your sidings and branchlines, manipulating the ties, weathering and ballasting for a much more obvious difference between mainline and lightly trafficked trackage. Here's a photo of my medium trafficked Park City Branch, which diverges at Echo on the UP in Utah. Mainlines are ME code 55, and my Park City Branch is hand-laid code 40 on PCB ties (every fifth tie).


Notice that there's not much visible difference you can see between the code55 mainlines and the code 40 branchline. The main difference is in the color of the ties and the texture and color of the ballast. The Park City Branch is a "medium" trafficked branch the UP traveled with the Park City Local twice a day, so it was well-maintained. Less well-maintained sidings and branches would have a lot fewer ties, they'd be crooked, and they'd be really bleached and cracked. The rails wouldn't be nice and smoothly aligned either, so rails that "squiggle" slightly from side to side are fun to model.

Hope this helps in the lightly-trafficked-trackage modeling attempts.

 

Didn't think this was a thread on the looks of track, but of course you are right. I went to an op session on a fine N scale layout, made with Atlas C55 on top, but with Atlas code 80 on lower staging. Whenever you look down, the difference in look really jars the eye. The old stuff really looks toy like, and C55 (ME looks good, too) looks soooo much better.