Track Gauges

Today saw the arrival in the post of these two excellent OO9 track gauges. Some of you will have already seen these, as they were turned for me by Paul and he has already blogged about how he made them.

I'd recently started a discussion over on the Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling forum about forming tight curves (unfortunately you need to be a member to read this), and a number of people suggested that instead of trying to tightly bend flexitrack I should instead build my own track. The problem was that I had no idea what height of rail I wanted to use and all the commercial track gauges are designed for specific rail types. Paul suggested that he could easily turn a set of gauges that could be used with any height of rail, and so we now both have a set of OO9 track gauges, and will both be having a go at building some track (the photo shows them sat on some standard PECO crazy track).

I'm going to start with some plain track, although Paul says he might start with a point. Given the fun I've had getting good running through shop bought points, I'll definitely not be building my own just yet, but plain track seems doable.

While the track will be OO9 it won't be for the mythical 77 Box Lane layout, as I'm still not entirely happy with the track plan. I do, however, have a new track plan in mind that will allow me scope to practice track laying and more scratch-building of structures. That plan though will wait for another post.

Thanks again Paul, hopefully the track will look half as good as the track gauges!