I was watching a youtube video layout tour of an OO scale (I think - maybe it's HO) Hornby based British theme layout yesterday called Everard Junction. This layout has a helix on each end of the layout that connects to a staging yard underneath. The amazing part is that each helix is triple track of Hornby raidus 2, 3, and 4. If I understand what I read at the Hornby website, that translates to 17.2, 19.88 and 22.5 inches. He says it's built with a 3" clearance.
Assuming 1/2" roadbed, a 17.2" radius yields a 6.5% grade. The trains he runs are not really long, but still respectable. I counted 7 passenger cars behind a single diesel locomotive. He does mention that steam won't get up the helix, but I'm still impressed.
What factors let him get away with substantially tighter helixes than the 30" minimum that's usually recommended here?
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I wouldn´t say better, but different!
First of all, European rolling stock and locos don´t have wheels according to NMRA RP 25, but they follow NEM standards, which allows for deeper flanges. It´s not the old fashioned pizza cutter thing, but not as fine as RP 25.
Better to stay with a 30" radius for a helix!
Second, cars usually have truck-mounted couplers, which allows for negotiating tighter curves.
Third, most locos have traction tires. While this helps climbing up steeper grades, it also adds to the residue on the rails.
Some years back, a friend of mine tore down a nicely built layout, just because the helix he built using the typical European 14" (+ something) radius was too tight. While the locos came through it without any problems, the following cars always derailed at speeds just a tad higher than creeping along.
I don't know the answer to the title question, but here are some things to consider based on my experience with the UK:
There appears to be a much higher rate per capita of train and model railroad enthusiasts in the UK, when compared to the US. I don't have hard figures but I do have some non-scientific evidence.
1) I visited a shop in South Shields England last December which had a large long wall full of magazines and periodicals for sale. I counted 37 different railroad related publications there. Here in the US, you'd be lucky to find a quarter of that many.
2) While in the UK last December I visited a modelers home - a person who used to post here and other forums fairly often, and also visited a model train club in Sunderland England. There I met many ethusiastic club members and they testified to the popularity of the hobby there, and to the much higher per capita rate. US modeling was a popular component of their club. A number of those Brits had traveled multiple times to the US to railfan and go to MR conventions as well, so they did have a basis for making their comparisons.
Of course compared to the US, people in the UK on the average have much smaller homes, so space is much more limited. The modeler I visited actually had a basement with a semi-generous amount of space - most people I visited had no basement and any spare bedroom would have been small compared to here, so space is a challenger in the UK. Despite that, model railroading seems to be much more popular than in the US.
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It would seem to me that the limited space available to enthusiastic British modelers translates to more meticulous modeling.
Dan
I don´t want to open a can of worms, but one notable difference in modeling is that the Brits still do an awful lot of scratchbuilding. Aside from Hornby, Bachmann (UK) and Heljan (for Diesels), there are an uncountable number of small kitchen counter businesses offereing loco and rolling stock kits. It takes quite a lot of skill and talent to assemble those kits!
British railway modellers like to share their work with others. There is hardly aweek without a model train show and layouts are built to be shown there. There are a number of inspiring videos available in the Internet - is worth risking a look!
Also add in that most of the rolling stock is shorter than typical US cars - still lots of the 4 wheel wagons and even the passenger cars, at least if you aren't modeling the modern era, are not the 80+ foot monsters run here in the US. They didn't run huge long trains, either, they ran more frequent shorter trains - keep in mind the distances are much shorter and towns much closer together.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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Most of the freight rolling stock is shorter yes, but passenger cars are far more prevalent in the UK vs. the US, so UK modelers would be more likely to be running them being they are so much more common and part of the RR scene. Being that they are around 8x feet, they are still fairly long cars (or monsters as you called them) so curve radii is still a significant factor. Same in Germany when visited there on four lengthy summer visits.
That said, American modeling in the UK is very popular. At the club I visited, I'd guess at least half of the trains/layouts there were running US HO trains, and one was running US G scale trains - including a D&RGW SD45 and SP GP9!
Randy - a standard European passenger car is 86.7 ft. long and a regular freight train usually has 40+ cars behind the loco - not that short, I´d say. The days of 4-wheel bobbing cars are long gone, unless you model the 1960´s.
I think Sr Maddog's first post answered my original question.
It's surely the combination of traction tires, truck mounted couplers, and deep flanges that makes that tight/steep helix work.
In case anyone is curious, here's a link to the video that got me interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgZDGjTwL7s
Actually, only the locos & passenger carriages that have truck/bogie mounted couplers in that video, the freight wagons of the four wheel variety are body mount. Looks like Kadee NEM362 series in use too.
Don't they still use some four-wheel freight wagons for some tasks? I know there was still some of that type used on the main in Australia, up till the 1980s.
I was reading British model railroad magazines (a local hobby shop stocked them for a couple years) at the time Bachmann entered the market with British prototypes. At that time the Bachmann products were considered as big improvement over the British ready to run then being made. In contrast many US model railroaderds had another name for Bachman. It was "Botchman"
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Keep in mind what Bachmann offered in the US is not the same as manufactured for other countries. Bachmann, or it's parent company, make more products sold to the rest of the world and the US market, that you referred to as Botchmann, is only a limited part of it's line of products. It's a BIG assumption that what is sold in England is of the same calibur as the products which used to be sold in prior to ~2005 or so. Bachmann's more recent offerings in the US have seen siginifcant improvements too, it is worth noting, although not for everyone.
Bachmann products made for the UK market, both in OO scale and N scale, are certainly not the el-cheapo products that we sometimes still associate with the brand. These are well-running, nicely detailed locos at prices which are affordable not only to the affluent.
Wow, I hit a nerve.
Bachmann entered ther UK market at the time they were greatly improvering their US product line, but their locomotives in particular still had the bad reputation in the US.
I bought my first Bachmann N scale in 1968. I considered most of their N scale freight cars from that period to be equal or better to any offered at that time. Their paint and lettering was among the best at least matching ATLAS and better than ConCor. While not detailed to todays standard they still stand up pretty well. Their shorty passenger cars (actualy based on Japanese prototype) made a nice passenger train on the very tight curves common in that period. It would be nice to have them today as bashing fodder and detailing with aftermarket products. Most of their Diesel locos were clunky looking (for instance their GP40 was oversize but strangly fans, grills, etc were to proper scale). They ran as well as other brands and they replaced them with better models over the years. In the mid 1980's I bought a number of their steamers. They were not bad looking for the period and are a good basis for detaling.
DSchmittWow, I hit a nerve.
No, you didn't hit a nerve, rather what you know about Bachmann in the US simply doesn't translate to the UK market. As I mentioned, Bachmann makes a lot of products for different markets - so all that you know about Bachmann in the US is not relavant on other markets as is the case for many other things in other countries.
... and they put their luggage in the boot of a car, whereas you have to stowe your baggage in the trunk!
Back on topic - there are a great number of kitchen counter businesses catering for the British railway modeller, supplying kits, detail parts, services. All of this at still affordable prices, much lower than what I have to pay in my country. British layouts always have a very personal touch to them, due to the care for detail.
The British have WAAAAY better British railway model layouts than we do, but we have way better American model railroads than they do. :)
Metro Red Line
Well said! I think that sums it up very well.
I think this thread might have something to do with far away fields looking greener. Yes, the Brits have lots of great stuff available, but so do we. However, they don't have different laws of physics so those apparently small radii in the mentioned helix have to come at some cost. It would be nice to know what the cars weigh that their locos are able to pull up the small, steep helices. If they are anything like the three British Railway passenger coaches that I own their cars are very light weight indeed. I know that's a very poor sample to measure by. However, seven similar length very lightweight North American coaches would probably perform just as well under the same circumstances.
No offense to the OP.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Metro Red Line - objection, your honor!
Take a look at Jon Grant´s "Sweethome Chicago" and "Sweethome Alabama " layouts. This guy is setting standards!
hon30critter...those apparently small radii in the mentioned helix have to come at some cost.
That was the basic question - what cost are they paying?
hon30critterthey don't have different laws of physics
Then why do they drive on the left side of the road?
hon30critterNo offense to the OP.
None taken. But Sr. Maddog answered the question in the first response to the original post.
I think rrinker put his finger on it- the equipment is significantly smaller, even though the scale is slightly bigger. In OO, the track gauge is also slightly narrower than full standard gauge, which helps on the curves. In the UK, the fine scale modelers typically go to something like the "Protofour" or "EM," which are slightly wider. you can look online at some of the clearance plates for British stuff- it's smaller than the UIC (Continental) standard, and significantly smaller than the American standard.
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MidlandPacific - I think you are getting a few things mixed up here. OO scale is 1/76, but rides on HO scale track of 16.5mm. Prototypical would be 18.2mm. Some British modelers lay there own track to that gauge. It´s called EM or P4.
Standard Diesels and the bigger steamers are just about the same size as there US counterpart. Of course, British rails never saw behemoths like the Big Boy, Challenger or the Triplex. Put a British OO gauge Mikado next to a US one and you won´t find much of a size difference.
As I said in my first reply to this thread, British model railroads are not better, but different. The same applies for the other way around.
Sir Madog Metro Red Line - objection, your honor! Take a look at Jon Grant´s "Sweethome Chicago" and "Sweethome Alabama " layouts. This guy is setting standards!
riogrande5761 DSchmitt Wow, I hit a nerve. No, you didn't hit a nerve, rather what you know about Bachmann in the US simply doesn't translate to the UK market. As the old saying goes, assumption is the mother of all .. As I mentioned, Bachmann makes a lot of products for different markets - so all that you know about Bachmann in the US is not relavant on other markets as is the case for many other things in other countries.
DSchmitt Wow, I hit a nerve.
No, you didn't hit a nerve, rather what you know about Bachmann in the US simply doesn't translate to the UK market. As the old saying goes, assumption is the mother of all ..
As I mentioned, Bachmann makes a lot of products for different markets - so all that you know about Bachmann in the US is not relavant on other markets as is the case for many other things in other countries.
A good example of the difference in Bachmann quality in their HO products was when the Chinese Spektrum 2-8-2 SY steam engines were imported. Their level of detail was far higher than the other US Spektrum engines. They SY engines also ran extremely quiet in comparison to most of the other Bachmann trains.
Hi guys
The answer is no I am sure you could list the good and bad in the US model railroad world.The UK is the same good and bad.
However your small 9'X12' layout would in the UK be considered to be large and most of the layouts seen in the US model press would in the UK be concidered beyond the wildest dreams of most people.
The US did for a while try OO scale it did not take and was more gauge acurate than the UK one.
On the assumption of same scale and gauge most US modern large locomotives steam or diesle would in all likely hood get stuck in a UK tunnel given the much smaller UK loading gauge.
These days the UK has bogie rolling stock trucks to you.
There are still some 4 wheeled wagons but not the little wooden ones still much loved by many of the UK modellers.
The UK modellers do seem to scratch build more and seem to have more cottage industries to provide for the more specialist interest railways.
If the UK are better railway modellers with better trains etc it has to be all down to one thing and one thing only.
Well they did invent railways as we know them and export them to the world
Every one else adopted then addapted them to suit there local national conditions
The Very early US railways bought UK trains and quickly dumped them and got ones suitable to the US conditions made in the US the smart ones started with US made less teething problems from what I have read.
So I think the truth is more along this line the same but differrent
But having smaller layouts they have more time for the smaller details.
regards John
Do the British have better stuff than we do? With the World's economy so closely linked together, my thoughts are that the British have exactly the same “Stuff” that we do. However, I do notice that the Brit’s are builders of Models and not as RTR oriented as we seem to be. This is evidenced by the fact that their hobby magazines are oriented towards building models.
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NP2626 Do the British have better stuff than we do? With the World's economy so closely linked together, my thoughts are that the British have exactly the same “Stuff” that we do. However, I do notice that the Brit’s are builders of Models and not as RTR oriented as we seem to be. This is evidenced by the fact that their hobby magazines are oriented towards building models.
In all fairness though I think this is one of the important factors that allows the US based modeller to have that large basement / train room empire
Imagine how long it would take if everything had to be scratch and kit built.
The UK levels of RTR are rising the gaps are slowly being filled.
I think the RTR has its place it gets trains moving faster and after that first train can run then who cares, the rest will look after its self acording to the inclination of the layout builder.
I wasn't making comment one way or the other about Ready to Run, only that the British still enjoy building models!
Right, but John raises an important point as to why the contrast - if the Brits had as many large basements, would they have as much time to devote to scratch building or the like, if they instead had to devote much their limited time building that basement empire - all that room finishing, benchwork, track laying, scenery, electrical wiring, backdrops, and so on require copious amounts of time, which IMO, is helping to drive the demand for high quality RTR trains in the US market. If I were retired, and had the time to "do it all" then maybe I would be trying my hand at the kits and scratchbuilding more, but I have a family and job etc. and what little time I do get right now is going into the layout, and not train building.
So John aptly points out that if one doesnt have the space/layout to steal away tons of time and instead can devote most of you hobby time to the models, then there will be much more of a focus on that. My wife was born and raised in England and I"ve been there with her several times and seen first hand, it ain't like the US there, and the space we have here is a much rarer thing for the average Brit, so the whole line of reasoning by John follows and is logical.
NP2626With the World's economy so closely linked together, my thoughts are that the British have exactly the same “Stuff” that we do.
I can't imagine a Walthers Proto E-unit pulling 7 full sized passenger cars up a 6.5% grade on a 17.5" radius helix. The Hornby stuff is certainly different from what we have in the US.