Hi
I was down at my favorite librariy ( Barns & Noble) with my coffee and scone reading a trains mag. when I noticed a story about diamonds and how in the last decade(?), the replacements have a small ramp for the wheel flange to carry the wheel slightly higher. That way the wheel doesn't beat up the dimond, Should save railroads lots of money.
Has anyone tried that on scale, might take the clunk out out of running?
Have a good day.
Lee
What you were reading about is called an "OWLS" diamond -- One Way Low Speed. Effective only where a rarely-used line crosses a busy main line, where the rarely used line's train must cross at reduced speed.
Probably could not be duplicated on our models due to their light weight and tendency to derail on such a crossing.
If you type 'OWLS Diamond' into Google or other search engine, there's lots of information available about them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange_bearing_frog
I used to have a 1-1/2" scale outdoor railroad. The aluminum frogs were designed to lift the wheel tread slightly to help prevent wear on the (soft aluminum) frog point. I wound up deepening the groove with an abrasive wheel because some of the wheels with deeper flanges would hit that pretty hard.
In HO, the old "pizza cutter" flanges would sure bottom out on a lot of frogs and guard rails!
Ed
Riding through frogs on the flange?
Been there. Done that.
You kids may not recall, but Lionel 022 switches have/had a strip of metal that REQUIRED the flange to ride through the frog. That activated the automatic point throw.
(other)Ed