I frequently find things lay out differently than my 10 year old version of RR Tracker designs, and last pm i found to my puzzlement that Gargraves 031 sections seem to be identical to Marx 034. Any comments?
stuartmit I frequently find things lay out differently than my 10 year old version of RR Tracker designs, and last pm i found to my puzzlement that Gargraves 031 sections seem to be identical to Marx 034. Any comments?
Marx used outside diameter("O-34") for radius designation, GarGraves uses center rail, generally(this varies even between plastic vs. wood tie track).
Rob
I have noticed that Gargraves track has a larger size curve radius even in 031, closer to 32.15 inches. Also Gargraves larger curves are larger than Lionel in radius, Gargraves 042 is more like 43.25 inches. I have not seen any differance in plastic verses wood ties in Gargraves curves. The major differance in Gargraves is electrical hookup, as all three rails are electrically seperated from each other, not so in Lionel tubular track.
Another track that has differant dimensions is Ives track from the 1930's, even shorter straights than Lionel's 10 inch straights. Seems like every maker of track has their own dimensions.
As for using a computer design program to do track layouts, from my experiance is; that somebody can sell snowballs to an eskimo. Computer programs don't take into account for track variance or the track not fitting 100% against the other track. They can give you ideas but don't count on it 100%.
Lee F.
phillyreading...I have noticed that Gargraves track has a larger size curve radius even in 031, closer to 32.15 inches...
Which is quite a contrast to Lionel O-31, which is 28.28" diameter.
Many years ago my buddy and I built railroads for folks. Once, an architect asked us to build a shelf railroad that he had laid out using some sort of computer program.
We told him it would not work, he started screaming at us about trying to force him to pay more money for us to design it for him, when HE was the architect.
Okay.
We told him we'd do it as he designed it, and that any tear out and redesign afterwards, he would pay for.
Smug SOB said fine.
We did, it didn't, brought him in, he counted all the pieces as we had laid it out, exactly as per his drawings, and then we got to "fix" it.
When I buy boxes of "stuff" in any scale, any templates or discs for computer layout planning just simply go in the trash before anything else.
Dave
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