Don't understand chairs vs rail

Looking for some seasonal track and came across that are labelled: "chairs-left/right" "rail-left/right", I found the "how to build" and they talk about these things in there, but I confess I still have no idea what exactly they are talking about but that does not really matter. I guess my question is, is chairs better then rail? Does one cause the shimmering effect while the other does not? I noticed that chairs uses less LOD than rail (500ish vs 1500ish) so chairs would be easier to draw (no?).

So, totally confused, not sure which to go with so anyone who understands these things and can explain would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Chris750
The 'chairs' are the components that hold the rails down to the sleepers/ties. On American and Australian (and likely other regions), these may just simply be a pair of spikes holding each rail to the sleeper or a steel plate with spikes or screws through it; whilst on UK tracks these may be a cast 'chair' (bit like a bracket the rails sits into) with spikes or screws holding it to the sleepers; for more modern tracks these will probably be the 'spiral' clips (aka 'pandrol' clips or similar) and a steel plate or mounting depending on the sleeper type.

You'll find that the assets named 'chairs-left/right' and 'rail-left/right' are the component assets of a procedural track (you'll also find sleeper splines as well), and so won't generally appear for separate use in-game.

So you would need to combine the 'track' (ballast) spline with the appropriate sleeper, chair, and rail assets to make a working procedural track. Which you use is up to you, but you will need to have all of them in the main procedural track asset for it to work.

Regards

Thanks Zec. Ok, so that is a ton of work to lay down track, I am sure there is a demand for such a thing otherwise they would not exist, but it it a bit more then what I am looking for. Thanks for the help.

Chris750 said:

Thanks Zec. Ok, so that is a ton of work to lay down track, I am sure there is a demand for such a thing otherwise they would not exist, but it it a bit more then what I am looking for. Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

Actually you'll find just the track already complete in Surveyor. All the "other" items are components part of that track.

Fascinating Read on CHAIRS,

In all the years I have been around Railroads, I heard Spikes, Screws, Lag Bolts, and Pandrol-Clips, and lots more by Manufacture Name.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention when we learned about Sun Kink and other types of Rail issues......

So now I know what the Word Chairs means in Rail attachments........

Thank you sharing this information.

This is an example of a UK rail chair, presumably so called because the rail just "sits" in it.

Here's one with a short section of rail held in by a wooden "key". Spring metal keys are more common, the keys are always on the outside. Note the railway company initials and date cast into the chair, GNR 1897 for Great Northern Railway.

It's worth noting that until the 1950s most main lines in the UK used bullhead rail, as seen in the picture, rather than flatbottomed rail. The original reason for the almost symmetrical profile was so that when the rail head was worn, the whole rail could be turned over and reused. But it was found that the base of the rail developed slight corrugations from contact with the base of the chair, so reusing the rail was abandoned, however the almost symmetrical profile was retained.
Relaying of main lines with flatbottomed rail and baseplates, initially with elastic spikes, later pandrol clips, started in the 1950s, to cope with heavier and faster loads, but many secondary lines still have bullhead rail. My local heritage railway recently installed a brand new bullhead set of points (turnout), the chairs are cast with " LU 2019", meaning they were manufactured for the London Underground in 2019.