I gave just become aware of the new 36" gauge procedural track and couldn't wait to try it out. Most disappointing.
Whoever designed it has just provided standard gauge track reduced to 36", without realising that narrow gauge tracks were used because they are cheaper and can handle smaller radius curves. As a rough guide, all dimensions should be related in the ratio of 56.5" to 36".
What I see as errors:-
Track segment length is too long, narrow gauge curves become a series of flat sections.
Guard rails, the crossing wings (frog) and the moving point blades disappear on a typical 36" gauge junction.
Anything made that is close to a narrow gauge junction shows a red error circle and does not work.
A cosmetic problem is that the sleepers/ties are too regular and too close together.
Did anybody in N3V do any research on this before they did any work on it? Did any narrow gauge user get asked to test it before release?
Thanks for trying, pity the result is not as good as it could have been.
I hope that when you make 24" gauge track (I hope you will), that will be made correctly.
Peter
Peter, I checked the new proc track last night and I have to agree it has a few problems.
[EDIT removed comment]
"Guard rails, the crossing wings (frog) and the moving point blades disappear on a typical 36" gauge junction."
"Anything made that is close to a narrow gauge junction shows a red error circle and does not work."
I didn't see a problem like this with any of the junctions I made using the track. In the past I fooled around with the new proc track and made some 36" ng track with it. I never saw a problem like this either. The 3 rail dualgauge track I made did have problems with a missing blade, 2 missing frogs and many guard rails but 2 blades, a frog and set of guard rails were produced for one of the gauges. Both gauges switched properly even though the visuals were not correct. I use 2 spline in my 3 rail dg track so that's not surprising.
I only tried making a few turnouts in Surveyor with the new stuff from the DLS. I usually make my ng turnouts based on prototype dimensions for #5, 6, 7, 8, 10 including some half numbers and custom ones as required. Last night I was just eyeballing it for a quick test so there might be some crow in my diet down the road. Some of the extra features of the track were slow to appear for some reason. Also I didn't run the new track in driver yet.
[EDIT] I went back and took a closer look and dl'd the correct ng track this time (<kuid2:523:1172:3> Auran Track TS2009 36in - Procedural). I was able to force the turnout into the a fairly sharp radius with the red circle appearing indicating improper formation. But most the time all the pieces were there. The blades were quite distorted in some cases - very long and thin. The turnouts are made following algorithms in the code so there are limitations on what can be produced. I corrected the blade problem by reducing the point of switch to point of frog distance. However I would not use any of those TOs - they were too sharp imo.
IIRC when the procedural TOs were in development (over 2 years ago so this is nothing new) N3V had access to various standards for turnout construction. Probably all were sg but that shouldn't preclude correct construction of ng TOs since gauge is included as part of the real life design process. I have a copy of a TO construction spreadsheet that includes making prototype sg and 36" ng TO's. IIRC the ng are checked against those on the D&RGW [
EDIT: For the record the spreadsheet had standards used by D&RGW but for sg turnouts. The ng data used to generate turnout dimensions is based on Walter F. Rench's book, "Practical Trackwork Switch Stands, Switches, Frogs, Crossings and Slip Switches", General Publishing, New York, 1926. Provides data for 2', 2'-6", 3', meter and 3'-6" turnouts including separate categories for mainline, mining and industrial usage.] If I get some time I may go back and generate a full set and dmp the vector data into a trk file to see what they look like using this procedural track.
"A cosmetic problem is that the sleepers/ties are too regular and too close together."
On this one I can't agree with you at all. If anything for my use the tie length is too short, it should be 6-7'. Of course not all NG RR's followed the same standards for their track. I model the East Broad Top RR, a 36" NG coal hauler in the Appalachians Mountains of South Central Pennsylvania. Check out the following pic taken at the wye in Robertsdale, PA on Broad Top Mt.
Typical EBT track - 36"ng with regular, even and closely spaced ties (from
www.spikesys.com/ebt collection of EBT pics). This is the kind of ng track I model. So obviously we'll have to disagree on that one Pete.
Please check out this -
link - to a few more pictures that include some good shots of the track at various locations along the EBT's main line and yards from early 1950's. To me it looks very regular, even and closely spaced. The Easty's big mikes that arrived 1918-1920 time frame and loaded steel hoppers were pretty rough on the track. They didn't skimp on it. That's why they didn't encounter major problems when they hauled sg rail cars on 36" ng trucks. One of the pics on the page linked to above shows a sg gondola on ng trucks near the coaling station at the Rockhill yard.
Regards,
Bob Pearson