From: Alan Lambert Lone Star Flyer Club Arlington, Texas No experiment needed. You will find out that the flange is needed. That is also why the track is kept in gauge. Look at mainline prototype curves. Large radius except near yards or side tracks because of speed limit on track. Oh, another facter to ponder. My 2 cents worth. Alan --- On Fri, 4/8/11, Walter Jopke <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Walter Jopke <[email protected]> Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: Staying on track To: [email protected] Date: Friday, April 8, 2011, 9:37 AM Very nice analysis. What this means for scale trackage, of course, is the need for much more attention to detail to the track and wheel gauges. If we put down the track such that the gauge is too tight (or the wheels too far apart) - that is, that the flanges are pinched against the rail - there is no opportunity for the wheels to ride up on the bevels (they are already fully at the highest radius on BOTH sides) and hence the opportunity for a de-rail. I thought about this some more before hitting "send". I have paid very little attention to wheel profile standards. I went and looked at both a set of American Models and S Helper Service "scale" wheels. With the naked eye, I could see the bevel on the wheels but just barely. How do these really compare to the prototype? Given the weights of our scale rolling stock and motive power, I am wondering if our wheel profiles are more for show than function and we really do depend on the flanges to keep everything "off the ground"? An interesting experiment comes to mind. Take a set of wheels and grind the flanges away. Run a freight car equipped with these wheels on a well gauged piece of straight track. Will the car stay on the rail? Try the same on a very wide radius curve (scaled down prototype mainline curve). Walt [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
