LMRA Newsletter

Lubbock Model Railroad Association

Staying on Track - Mar 2006

Meetings at Highland Baptist Activity Center, Quaker Ave. and 34th St. - first Monday of each month at 7:30pm.

March 6: Randel Bittick - video of his home layout. Let Randel know if you would like to do a clinic this year.

Mailing list: groups.yahoo.com/group/LMRA
Web page: railserve.com/lmra

Other events coming this year:

Godeke Library - Mar.13-17 Mon. - Fri. Setup on 11th Sat.

Arts Festival - April 20-23 Thur. - Sun. Setup on 20th by 6pm. - Fri. and Sat. 10am-8pm. - Sun. 12-5pm

Dates not set: Playday,Home layout tour, Windsong, Carrillon, Cowboy Symposium, Old Mill Trade Days (June?)

Dues due

If you haven’t paid yours yet, give it to Dave at the meeting (cash, check or money order). You can also mail a check to the address on this newsletter. Individual memberships are still only $12, family $18.

LMRA
P.O. Box 53674
Lubbock, TX 79453

T-Trak yard designs

I designed some small yards in Z and N scale. If you would like to see some for HO or another scale, let me know.

None have any s-curves, and all sidings are straight for easy coupling-uncoupling. You could leave out any sidings you didn't want. If you want longer sidings, just make the modules longer.

I tried to use 2 important principles learned from Paul Mallory's book "Design Handbook of Model Railroads": 1. no s-curves, and 2. keep switching tracks straight. 

1. An s-curve is track shaped like an S with two opposite direction curves that are not separated by a car's length of straight track (including the straight part of the turnout). They are a major cause of derailments, especially for longer rolling stock. With the ends of the cars hanging off opposites sides of the tracks, the sideways pull on the couplers can yank cars right off the track. This can happen in tight crossovers too, so if you can use some flex track to add some separation between tracks being crossed-over, it will help. Many published track plans are loaded with s-curves, so learn how to spot them. It is best to switch short cars in a small yard, because the straight track between curves may often be short. And you may want to limit locos used in switching to 2 axles per truck. 

There is also such a thing as a vertical s-curve, where the same type of s shape in the form of a "hill" next to a "valley" can cause cars to uncouple as the end of one car goes up and the other goes down. That shouldn't be a problem in t-trak, since the modules are generally so short, but keep it in mind; and put some straight track between vertical curves as well.

2. It is easier to couple and uncouple cars on straight track, since the couplers line up automatically (if in good alignment).  You can see these at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/t-trak/files/ and http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/ttrakz/photos - Two of them in are below. The “big” yard is about 3 X 4 feet and has 67 sidings and turnouts (z-scale). Of course, you would probably just pick out a segment of it if you have limited time and money. The other is about 11” X 39”.