At the Fort Smith (AR) Trolley Museum open house on 7/13/14, I demonstrated that it is, in fact, possible to run Lionel Fastrack over a prewar 104 Standard gauge bridge:
(the cars in the foreground? Why, that's two foot gauge equipment!)
Anyhow, the Fastrack and the 104 weren't what I call 100% compatible...
This can, I believe, be attributed to the fact that the Fastrack isn't matched terribly well to the bridge proper and, in fact, is riding above the deck far enough to cause problems.
I will tackle modifying Fastrack to fit this bridge in a future instalment. For now, however, what I'm in the process of doing is modifying the existing standard gauge track on the bridge to take regular O gauge trains as well! How? Read on!
For each 14" Standard straight you modify, you'll need 1 10" O (not O27) straight:
The reason this stunt works at all is that Lionel Standard and O use the same height rail:
First, dismantle the O gauge section completely. Since we'll be using the existing Standard gauge third rail, the former third rail will be repurposed into running rails. Very ecologically sound!
Next, the O gauge ties are clamped to the Standard third rail. Make sure the insulators are sound and aligned properly.
The original running rails are in place, ready for the third rails to be spliced in. Note the O gauge tie locations.
The former third rail, having been bisected off camera, is spliced into place and is ready to be trimmed off:
And trimmed to length!
The final step prior to installation is to trim the O scale ties flat, as they'll be down on the bridge deck.
And here's the bridge, ready for customers!
Hope you found this informative and useful! As I say, I'll be going into Fastrack modification to fit this bridge in a future article; for now, I'll be converting the track on the bridge ramps and getting a couple of O to Fastrack adapters.
Mitch
Great minds run in the same direction..
http://www.tinplatetimes.com/Modern%20tinplate/FiveRailTrack/track.htm
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Hah! Indeed.
Ive always thought that gauntlet tracks in O scale would be cool if someone could unravel the engineering nightmare that the separation of diverging routes would entail. Have two routes actually merge ...just thinking about it gives me a headache but it would be very cool.
Quite so. I'd say this is one area where two-rail has the advantage... ;-)
I'll go you one better: I've always wondered how hard it would be to create an O31/On30 dual gauge system. Think about the logistics of that operation for awhile! AC vs DC. Flange widths vs rail height. 2 rail vs 3 rail. Scale vs toy. Radius vs diameter (which can be different depending on who made the track and how they measured it).
Still, if someone could work it all out it would be cool.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
For O-On30 dual guage, just use 3 code-332 rails (or any model rails with good sharp railhead corners) and offset the center rail to create the 16.5-millimeter gauge, probably about 2 millimeters. Use the outside rails as the common (as you would for O-gauge anyway) and switch the center rail between the AC or DC supplies needed for each train.
Bob Nelson
Code 332??? I do believe you made that up!
http://www.switchcrafters.com/ez-catalog/X381875/14/SC-AR-332-16
http://rldhobbies.com/aluminumcode332track.aspx
http://www.gardenrrsupply.com/rail-code-332-aluminum-6-x-8-pieces/
http://www.elmassian.com/trains/track-aamp-switches/track-aamp-rail-material
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