Superelevation

Greg Elmassian said:
Did you do any easements for the superelevation, and what is the max distance "up" you went?

Thanks, Greg
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OK, Totem Pole curve (the totem pole is SWMBO's rotary washing line :devil::devil: ) is an 8 ft curve at its tight point and the difference in rail height is 3mm.

Horseshoe curve, which isn't really a horeshoe, it's more like a hairpin i.e. not quite 180 degrees but hairpin doesn't sound like railroad language, consists of flexi leading in, 1 x 8ft, 2 x 10fts, flexi going out and the difference between rail heights in the middle is 5mm.

Having packed the ballast at the mid point to something that looks reasonable, I just use my finger tips as a ballast tamping machine to gently pack under the sleepers either side to obtain a natural transition. It's not precise, but then when you look at some 1:1 narrow gauge track, it ain't far off the real thing :mask::mask:

At the end of the day, it's just the way that I play with my trains >:)>:)>:)>:)
 
I think you have to balance what's needed with what looks right, ie - for what we need would be hard to see as the high on the outside rail on the real railway maybe only an inch or so on a low speed line, which when scaled down would only be 1/2 a mm or so. looking at a curve on say the west coast main line, with an 80mph speed the high of the outside rail would be around 6 to 9 inches which would give what Rhino has at 5mm.

another thing to consider is that on the real thing we have suspension/springing in 2 areas, a model has, well none!! unless you count the slack/slop in the axles.
so if you want a bit of elevation then I would put a bit of lift on the outside rail, run all your stock through it until you find a balance of what looks right and your rolling stock is happy running on, as Rhino has done
 
Greg Elmassian said:
Not to start a war, but I find it impossible to believe that adding superelevation caused an Accucraft shay to run better.

If this is really true, then you have something else wrong with that locomotive, i.e. the geometry of the suspension cannot be enhanced by adding this extra dimension.

I'm only stating this because someone might read this and assume that adding superelevation would enhance operation, there are mounds of evidence to the contrary.

Greg
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Well greg, you may not believe it etc but just like Rhino (as I posted in the thread at 19), I too have experienced the benefit of a little superelevation with a friends recalcitrant finescale-wheeled Accucraft 2 cyl T boiler shay.
The shay worked perfectly everywhere else on my layout except for the bit where the ballast needed a little 'extra' on one side around a curve to bring it up to, well,.... superelevated. It was tested with two different spirit levels and the track did need that little extra.
It is a fact that the superelevating worked, it is a fact that it was only one curve, and it is a fact that the shay did not have a problem anywhere else, it is a fact that everything else except for some other finescale wheeled stock would negotiate the curve absolutely fine. So whether it was due to the superelevation, the direction of the wind from a butterfly's wings or because 700 million people in China stopped jumping up and down at that particular moment, ... it worked.

I can remember someone telling me on a forum, a few years back, that I would strip every gear in my locos because I had a maximum 10% gradient on my layout. Not, may strip them, but I would absolutely strip them and the poster didn't believe my measurement of my gradient if I didn't actually strip the gears. Even with multi heading I would be doomed to shed loads of knackered gear axles.

It is now 11 years since I first started my railroad and many people have seen the gradients, in the flesh, and really believe them when they see them and some have even measured them just in case I was exaggerating, but I can honestly say that I have not stripped a gear because of the gradients. USAT, Aristo, Bachmann, LGB, Accucraft locos and no stripped gears.

So the moral is... no-one knows it all for definite and sometimes science ain't the whole story.....
 
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