How close should a platform edge be from the track

[Steamport Southport]

12 hours ago, doilum said:

Worse than a crab?

 

I've not got a Crab so can't comment.

 

Just that out of all the RTR stock I had at the time the Hornby Hall seemed to be the worst for clearances. So that was what I always used to make sure nothing else would foul things like buildings, platforms and signals. The Mainline Manor, Mogul and others never seemed to be a problem.

 

I'm wondering whether it was over wide where the cylinders are or if it was the bogie/chassis that was the problem. I must dig it out at some point.

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/66111/hornby_r761_hall_class_4_6_0_kneller_hall_5934_in_gwr_green/stockdetail.aspx

 

 

 

Jason

[DCB]

4 hours ago, TheSignalEngineer said:

 

@DavidCBroad

Not surprised that there's no gap between the locos in the top picture. Track centres in 12in to the foot are approx 11ft 2ins so at 4mm scale wouid be 45mm. 38mm would be about right at 3.5mm. Do you model in HO?

 In the photo there should be clearance between locos cylinders,  38mm is 9ft 6" and no 20th century GW loco was wider than 9ft over cylinders,   The issue is the the locos have overscale Hornby cylinders. Another photo in the sequence shows two panniers passing, The track shown is where a run round loop  passes the platform and not somewhere two outside cylinder locos pass.   Lots of full size railways have tracks which had and still have insufficient clearance for GWR   8ft 10" outside cylinders .   The photo also shows  the platforms are too high.

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, sharris said:

 

38mm is cutting it a bit fine even for H0 (it scales up to about 10'10").

I found places with track centres about 10'10" including one on an ex GWR Broad Gauge line used by everything except Kings and 47xx class. 

[TheSignalEngineer]

The definitive drawing for lines constructed up to fairly recent times was that included in the 1950 Requirements book.

 

 

Platform dimensions are basically the same as the 1885 version except that the minimum height was raised from 2'6" to 2'9" at some point, possibly the 1925 update. The 1885 version also states that the lines should be laid to leave as little space as possible between the platform edge and the carriage footboards. 

[AyJay]

My platform is on a curve and I found building the platform to be a nightmare! Even after careful use of marker pen, I found I was running all of my carriage and locomotive stock forwards and backwards, whilst marking any tight points with a pencil and then 'resculpting' the offending edge with a scalpel.  At one point, I even had to lift the platform sidewall and move it back a few mm's.  When building the platform, I would have placed the sidewall a bit further away from the track and allow for the surface of the platform to overhang a little bit.

[DCB]

TheSignalEngineer    Great drawing.     The issue is though that some 00 stock is over scale in width, not so much over the bodies but over the cylinders.

The stock width is interesting I guess it is WR as the permitted  width is even wider than the Centenaries at 9ft 7".    Mk 1s are 9ft 2" or 37 mm  ish wide which is pretty close to  the Hornby Mk1's  width .  So far so good but the problem comes with Hornby steam locos (and possibly other manufacturers) and their over width cylinders, The old Hall/ Saint is a bit of a pain at 38mm or 9ft 6" when it should  35.5mm but the Hornby  9F, which I think is current, is 39.5mm over cylinders which is 9ft 10" and plain ridiculous.   Obviously if you keep the platform tops low the cylinders may go over them but then again models with outside motion brackets like 8Fs and GWR 43XX, 28XX, 41XX etc are wider lower down, so the track to platform edge dimension has to be a lot greater than scale to compensate for both the underscale track width and the overscale cylinders.

I found the clearance above the platform to be illuminating, 3ft 4" which means 3ft is an absolute maximum for the platform surface,

That is where I went wrong in having the walls 12,5 mm plus the surface making around 3ft 6". 

[RexAshton]

Great info 'The Signal Engineer' but it's also important to remember that the 6'00" dimension between adjacent running rails has to take into account that most modellers use narrow gauge track so e.g. setting 00 track to the correct prototypical 6 foot way would almost certainly result in passing locos and stock colliding as the track centres would only be 38.5mm. The drawing specifies a minimum track centre dimension of 11'2" or 44.7mm (ish) in 00

[doilum]

On 19/11/2019 at 22:02, Steamport Southport said:

 

I've not got a Crab so can't comment.

 

Just that out of all the RTR stock I had at the time the Hornby Hall seemed to be the worst for clearances. So that was what I always used to make sure nothing else would foul things like buildings, platforms and signals. The Mainline Manor, Mogul and others never seemed to be a problem.

 

I'm wondering whether it was over wide where the cylinders are or if it was the bogie/chassis that was the problem. I must dig it out at some point.

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/66111/hornby_r761_hall_class_4_6_0_kneller_hall_5934_in_gwr_green/stockdetail.aspx

 

 

 

Jason

This was almost forty years ago when I found my new crab fouled the platform on a recently completed layout. If I remember correctly, we had the same clearance issues on the club layout of the time due to the overall width of the cylinders.

[TheSignalEngineer]

On 20/11/2019 at 22:01, DavidCBroad said:

 

I found the clearance above the platform to be illuminating, 3ft 4" which means 3ft is an absolute maximum for the platform surface,

That is where I went wrong in having the walls 12,5 mm plus the surface making around 3ft 6". 

The West Dock at New Street was a bit high as it was used for loading Brutes. I found out when I went to take a possession one night and there was a 323 EMU parked where I was due to do a survey. 

The West Dock was the only place it could be put out of the way. The steps overhung the platform edge due to the curve, well actually not quite. Nasty scraping noise and the body tilted a bit as they hit it and rode up onto the edge stone.