Yet another Unitrack #6 spacing plea

[ia909]

Hi all,

I'm at the planning stage (been there for about six years now), and trying to make sense of Unitrack geometry. I've read loads of things today and have seen something, somewhere on the net that suggests using a 15 degree R282 (20-111) piece with a #6 turnout brings the track centre spacing back to 33mm.

I'm looking at building passing sidings and feel the 49.5mm you get with a #6 and its corresponding 718mm curve gives too wide a right of way (some 7.4 metres).

Has anyone tried this, and if it works, what combination of straights are needed to link up to a similar arrangement at the other end of the passing loop? Finally, whilst I'm trying to keep the minimum radius to at least R381 (13 3/4"), would a very short R282 piece immediately after the diverging road of the turnout cause problems - there may be the odd occasion when I want to run some of my 6 axle US stuff (AC4400's, and SD70's) for a change?

Thanks.

Ian   

[cteno4]

ia,

actually the R249-15 looks to bring the r718-15 in the #6 turn out back to the 33mm from the looks of it in railmodeler when i mock it up. the R282-15 looks to put it at closer to 34mm spacing. of course you do get a little wiggle room with unitrak so you  could have that 1mm jog happen in the first piece of track after the curve back.

i would definitely test things like 6 axle locos thru this, its a pretty tight S turn. that being said our club has used r315-15 curves in our yards in the past when we threw them together on the fly and shinkansens could maneuver through them pretty well...

im pretty sure these parts are in the basement i can check with the unitrak to make sure.

cheers

jeff

[ia909]

Thanks Jeff,

Yes, I guess 33 or 34mm wouldn't make too much difference, but I couldn't go down to a 249mm radius. If 282 doesn't do it, it'll have to be Peco flex track.

Best

Ian

[cteno4]

ill see what i can dig up in the basement to test it.

other issue with using the smaller radius with the #6 is that the linear joint spacing goes wonky and you my have to do some real fiddling with straight lengths to even things up or cut track.

i guess if you dont use it for main running but just some storage, going thru the short 282 after the #6 should not be too bad, but again might be best to test it with your equipment first. thats whats nice with unitrak you can mock things up before you cement it into your plans!

another thing to be wary of is putting curves leading right into a point or 90 crossing. both have given us trouble in the past on the jrm layouts in unitrak. even short straight sections make a big difference. something to do with the truck being tilted and/or twisted as it comes out of the curve and hits the point blade and frogs or the crossing frogs. just a bit of straight seems to let the truck go flat and straight and make it through a lot better. this is especially true on the points and curves with shinkansens.

cheers

jeff

[ia909]

Thanks Jeff I appreciate that.

I always try to get at least a car length between a curve and a point whatever track I'm using and strangely I've never been a fan of curved points. Probably just as well!

Regards,


Ian

[Mudkip Orange]

I've done it with R249's but you end up using a lot of the short straight track pieces (64mm, 62mm, 45.5mm, 29mm) to get the parallel straight tracks evened out.