Superelavation for track? What height?

[canazar]

I am getting ready to start building my new HO scale lay out and I have a 5 foot radius right in the middle of my lay out. It is the end of a finger type extention that will be just a mainline run of double track. I thought it would be a perfect place for "banked" or super elevated as some had refered it too. Question is, what is height is good? I was thinking .030 would be good. Any thoughts or expeirences?

Thanks

John K[8D]

[selector]

I'm not sure what you mean by .030, John, but I'll guess you mean the percentage equivalent of 3%? I think you may find that to be a bit much, but the best thing for you to do is situate that curve temporarily as you think you should and then put a loco on it to see if the tilt is a bit much..or not enough. Surprisingly, I found my EZ Track superelevating to an extent all on its own! Not much, but enough to make me grateful, since I had forgotten to do it before I glued it down (D'oh!)

Please consider a test section, and then go from there.

-Crandell

[cacole]

Superelevation of model railroad track is strictly for appearance and will not help performance of your trains at all -- if you make it too drastic, it can actually be detrimental by causing derailments. Real railroads only superelevate curves that are traveled regularly by high-speed trains. Model trains don't have the same characteristics of the prototypes on curves, and superelevating can cause you to pull cars off of the track on long trains.

On an HO scale club layout with 24 inch radius curves, I put only two thin strips of manila file folder material under the outer edge of the crossties for superelevation. Raising the out rail any more than this caused derailments.

[canazar]

Ok good points. Well, what I ment by .030, is 30 thousands height. Would be very close to the thickness of a paperclip. I mention that because at work I have welder with lots of wire that i was going to cut and use for shims.
I realise that it wont help much in performance, but it would like look cool since it will be the center peice of the layout..

Cacole, how does your track look and work? I woudl guess that would be about 1/2 to 2/3's the hight I was going expeirement on. Thanks for the info, be in touch

Best Regards
John k

[Anonymous]

As I said in another thread in this forum about this very subject a few days ago., we discussed this at length on another RR forum and when the thread finally died, the jury was still out. Some liked the way it looked and had no problems running their trains. Others had many problems with trains pulling in towards the center of the curve & derailing.

The best you can hope for is that the effect is visually pleasing & you have no problems. To that end, shim the tie ends, & run a variety of trains at a variety of speeds & in both directions. Hold off on ballasting until you're sure you are happy with the results.

Wayne

[selector]

Agreed. I have found that very little adds up to a lot at the stack height of a steamer. Agree, too, that it looks natural for your high-speed mainline. I superelevated the curves on my mine spur, also a grade of 3.6%, but just enough to give it that quaint look. I would do it again, but not as far off vertical as I did this time.

[mcouvillion]

canazar,

This was discussed here several months ago. I'm assuming that your track is HO. If so, I can help. When the track was laid for our club layout, we built templates that included transition spirals and tangents for alignment. When the track centerline was marked, we also marked the location of the end of the tangent / beginning of the spiral and the end of the spiral / beginning of the arc of the curve. We didn't know what to use for superelevation, so we used 1/4" wide strips of masking tape. We placed long strips of masking tape on glass panes and cut them to width with a hobby knife along a metal rule. Depending upon the thickness of the tape, you could layer it like we did. We started with two layers of tape from about 1 foot before the spiral (on the tangent track) to cant the train up before the curve, then went to 4 layers of tape at the beginning of the spiral, then to 7 layers of tape starting at the beginning of the arc of the curve. The layers continued to the corresponding location on the opposite end of the curve. The effect is subtle but noticeable. There is no problem with too much elevation. It is really neat to watch the trains lean into the curves.

Let me know if you need any additional information. Good Luck.

Mark C.

[dehusman]

If you truly have 60" radius (not 60 in diameter) then superelvvation won't be an issue. 6" is about the max on a real railroad, .030 is quite reasonable.

It should look fantastic as a train leans into the curve at speed.

Dave H.

[canazar]

Thanks everyone.. I did some digging and found the rise on the our club modules is .030. But we have had some problems with the transtion which were built before my time. Ia m considering useing .023 instead of .030 just make it a bit more managable in case I have to stop one on it, dont want my double stacks containers tipin over....

Now, thoughts that occured to me as I write this, my track will be double main all the way around with the outer line being more or less the main/main. there will be lots swtiching running off the inner. So, maybe use .030 on the outer line and .023 for the inner to help in case I have to hold one up. Or, like the one fellow mentioned, I will expeirement and find out. Chances are, I will never ballast the track. This layout will be up for no more than 1 - 2 years (hopefully) when we will move. I just run the cork painted gray with primer and use a little around the edges for looks. Makes it so much easier to pull it up and re use it. It will still be a month or two before I have it up. I will post what happens with the different sizes

The lay out will be 5 foot round so the actual trackage will be around a 28" radius and a 26" radius. I wish I could do a 60" radius .... how freakin cool would that be

In case your wondering about the sizes, I have LOTS of welding wire at my shop that is perfect for the spaceing. I have two sizes, .030 and .023. .. I like the tape idea for doing the transition parts. Cheap and easy to setup. Thanks for that

Best regards
john k

[Leon Silverman]

The critical issue is to follow Mark C's recommendation about extending the super elevation 1 foot beyond the tangent of the curve. The reason for this is than model trains and locomotives, even ones with springing, have very rigid trucks. If the superelevation ends right at the tangent, you have a situation where the truck on the tangent is tilted up by the truck at the other end (still on the curve). The curvature of that track imparts a centrifugal force on the other end of vehicle. Since the flanges are now above the railhead, you have a derailment.
This also means that you want to avoid turnouts or crossovers on a superelevated curve or at the very end of that curve. Model trains cannot adjust.

[canazar]

Leon,
You nailed it on the head. That is what was wrong with the club modules. The transition was to short and it would rock the car too much or it would lift a truck and float off the ralis. The reason I picked the section of my lay out to do it, is there would be no turn outs and I would have plenty of room to have track into the curve and out of the curve.

Man I canrt wait to start building bench work... Hopefully tonight maybe I can put up the first peices...

[bgrossman]

I recall reading an article on superelevation within the last couple of years, but the problem is that I can't remember if it was in MR or a Kalmbach book on laying track. The author placed thin strips of styrene plastic between the roadbed and the outside edge of the ties on the curves. He moved into the curve with first 0.01", then 0.02", and finally 0.03" thicknesses on the major portion of the curve. The reverse order is used, of course, to exit the curve. The strips were painted and then covered with ballast.

Bernie

[mcouvillion]

Mr. Silverman,

Thanks for the support and explanation on why the canting should start before the curve. As mentioned above, we used masking tape in layers. It is cheap, quick, and easy to work with. Just use a 1/4" wide strip under the outside rail.

I did place several turnouts in the superelevated curves. Our curves are 45" radius and we used Peco large radius turnouts. The diverging route is 60" radius of curvature, so it hides real well in a 45" radius curve. The actual diverging route is the straight section! I had to shim the entire diverging route to the same height as the outside of the curve (or a little higher), then gradually taper off down the straight section to ground level. The trains don't have any problems with it, but the track has to be properly and completely supported. I don't think I would use cheap turnouts in this service. Peco or Shinohara are all I would consider for this application.

Mark C.

[Leon Silverman]

Bernie:
I recall reading an article on supereleavation a while ago. I sent in my comment to the magazine about the superelevation , but it was never published. My recommendation was based on experience with the tender from a Boswser T-1 (with rigid eight-wheel trucks) that would derail when it went from a turnout immediately onto a superelevated 30" radius curve. Once I flattened the curve, the derailments ceased.