Hi everyone,
Thanks very much for all the great and thoroughly
informative replies made on this topic
Now that I understand the issues, I have a
spot on my model railroad where the application of such a guard rail would be
thoroughly appropriate, and I'd like to do so. My question now becomes, has
anyone done this, and if so, how did you attach the guard rail so it would stay
put? I'm thinking that gluing it to the ties means gluing it to slippery
engineering plastic, and most glues don't do a very good job with this.
Furthermore, in my case, this work will be done on an NTRAK module that travels
to shows as part of a modular layout, thus it is subject to constant twisting
and flexing and heavy-handed rail cleaning by others, and I want the rail to be
secure as can be.
Note that in my case, I will be retrofitting the
guard rail onto an existing section of track, in case that was not already
clear.
Suggestions?
Thanks in advance
Claus Schlund
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2020 3:04 PM
Subject: Re: [RealSTMFC] inside running
rail of the curve will be accompanied by an addition guard rail
Dennis, as usual, shares interesting information. Enough so
that I went back to the Cyc., which mentioned the repositioning of the low
(inner) side guard rail relative to the high side running rail (the gauge
between the guard and opposite rail being 4’ 6 3/4”). It goes on to say for
sharper curves, a guard rail may be applied to the inside of the high side
rail, with the same relative gauging.
For the sharpest curves, a third guard rail may be applied to the inside
of the low side rail - this one to support overhanging blind driver
tires.
All of the pictured applications used lighter rail for the guard rail,
with special chairs that both braced the guard rail and raised guard
railhead's height to the the same plane as the running rail. They also allowed
the base of the guard rail to overlap the base of the running rail - no
shearing required in that case. One additional guard rail implementation
called for the guard rail to be laid on it’s side to take advantage of
increased section strength (deeper girder) and plenty of meat in the sideways
railhead to accommodate wear.
All of these descriptions had a caveat that all guard rail use was
considered objectionable due to increased costs (material and maintenance), so
should be used only in special cases.
Matt
On Jul 24, 2020, at 2:15 PM, Dennis Storzek <
destorzek@...> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 23, 2020 at 09:02 PM, Jim and Barbara van Gaasbeek wrote:
There may be other reasons why the HTC could get away with such
absurd track radii without guard rails.
There was... the size of
their motive power. Freight cars of this era were fine with those tight
curves, and the Harlem Transfer used a boxcab diesel with trucks that were
hardly any longer wheelbase. Even before the diesel the motive power was a
tiny 0-4-0. But mainline railroads tended to use larger power for local
switching; six couple and smaller eight couple power being common. These long
rigid wheelbases had problems with tight curves. The first modification needed
was to widen the gauge... as much as 1-1/2 or even two inches, and this has
been done. How can I tell? The standard flangeway for guarded curves on 4'-8
1/8" gauge track is just under 2". This is so small that it is not obtainable
with standard rail' the bases interfere with each other and the base of the
guard rail needs to be sheared. However, when the gauge is widened the guard
rail moves in tandem with the opposite running rail. The photos presented have
the guard rail so far from the running rail that there is room for spikes in
between. The gauge has been widened at least 1-1/2" to accommodate steam
locomotives.
Dennis Storzek
