Rails RP 25 wielen.
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TRAMS AND CARS
HI My name is Cornelis (Kees) de Groot. We emigrated to Australia in 1983. I am building a large model railway layout with a significant station and inner city areas on one side. The countryside is on the other side of the room. The prototype is Dutch set between 1970 and 1999.
The tramway points and crossings are made by hand and built from scratch. Because of Covid I could not get hold of copper clad strips so I cut my own from a piece of double-sided PC board of 300x300 mm. I cut them free-hand with an angle grinder (wear a mask). Consistency of width was not of a major concern because these sleepers will all be covered by road paving.
All point work is made using Peco 83 stock rail from an approximate drawing. Then using track gauges the points and crossings were made in a logical sequence. All openings were cut in situ using a Dremel. Generally the rails were laid first, and where continuous, the grooved rail was laid at the same time.
The points were based on a 1990’s design from Tramalan, which in concept is similar to Proto 87. However in both cases one has to deal with numerous loose bits whilst this method is more uniform. For the pivot, I used a brass countersunk screw 4 gauge cut off just under the head. The countersinking in the PCB board forms the running surface. The screw is then retained by stock rail partially spanning it but not connected to the screw. The only thing connected to the screw head is the switchrail.
The crossing took about 30 hours to build.
The grooved section is formed with the use of Micro engineering Code 55 of (unweathered because of soldering) rail to create the effect of grooved rail. I used 54 lengths. Where grooved rails is created using flexi track only, it was used on Peco Code 83 with wooden sleepers. This method only works with that particular track. It does not work with code 83 from: Tillig, nor Peco concrete sleepers and others. The reason the chairs are too large. Wheel flanges should be about 0.6 mm higher than the wheel. If using P25 wheels, then near the frogs copper or brass strips should be used to raise the grooved section so to be level with the railhead, this to keep the bogies (with P25 wheels) tracking OK. The grooved rail is about 0.3-0.4 mm lower than the rail head and the same will apply to the paving so that track cleaning will not damage paving surface. Like with all hand-made points the wheels need to be set to a specific dimension and with code 83 the back to back distance should be 14.5 to 14.6 mm instead of the standard 14.3 mm.
Tram rail where pavement will be laid. Code 83 Peco with Code 55 from Micro engineering glued with plenty of superglue rotated 90 degrees on the side.
Crocodile clips to hold track in place
Gluing in a full section of code 55 rail
