Building some turnouts and think I am a little too close on the space of 5.125 inches. A scale man would have a hard time walking between 2 Shays.
Would 5 1/2" or 5 3/4" be better?
Hi Dennis,
If you arrange two Aristo #6 turnouts as a crossover you’ll get 5.875" center distance. The same center distance applies in a ladder when built with #6.
The same also applies when using the wide radius turnouts.
Thanks will work with that dimension.
Been looking at two different turnout drawings. One is the #5 Garden Railroad and the other is a #4.5 Templot and both are measured differently for the R#.
The Garden Railroad turnout is measures from rail inside to inside and the Templot is measured rial outside to outside. They are almost the same turnout on paper.
Dennis,
I would look to using 7 to 7-1/2 inches center to center. you have not stated scale but in 1:20.3 would not go any closer.
Al P.
I thought the recommended distance was something like 2.5 inches from the rail, IIRC. So that would be 5 inches between rails, or 6.75 between center-lines of straight track. But that is for “standard gauge” models. So Al’s 7 to 7.5 inches sounds like a good number, on straight track. Curves need to be spaced out farther to compensate for the overhang and under-hang of cars. When in doubt, add a safety “fudge factor”. It would give you space to plant some ground-cover and maybe dump some (scale) trash.
It still comes down to what you’re running; is it 1:20.3; 1:22.5 or 1:24?
Wouldn’t you take the standard prototype track spacing and then adjust to your scale?
Greg
Twelve feet is “typical” spacing on 3’ narrow gauge tracks, though I’d not classify that as a consistent rule. That scales just around 7" in 1:20.3. The sidings on my dad’s railroad are around 6" apart. He runs 1:24. Mine are 7", and I run 1:20.3. I don’t know I’d want to be a brakeman between two passing trains regardless, but with 12" spacing and locomotives that generally max out at 9’ except for the really wide ones, that gives you a scale 3’ between passing trains.
Later,
K
Do like I did, take two pieces of track, place them side by side, put the Shays on them, then pull the tracks apart until they are a pleasing distance apart. Do the same on curves.
The Metre gauge RhB in Switzerland is typically 180" between centres on straights and 200" b/c on curves . If you round the metre up to 40" you get 4.5xgauge on straights and 5.0xgauge on curves .
For some daft reason , we measured this at Landquart and Chur without getting hit by a train .
That to some extent has to be governed by the length of the wagons and the bogie centres ;
though these were made to fit the loading gauge originally , it may be that a requirement for longer stock forced a change to the present width .
I believe that on the line down to Bellinzona , there is a restriction on which stock can use the track because of geographical features forcing a tighter loading gauge , it is similar on the Chur-Arosa route which in any case , I seem to recall has a different operating voltage .
Most of the RhB is single track , so these measurements really only seem to apply to station trackwork (stating the obvious) , but I would imagine the standard would apply anywhere .
Whatever the theoretical spacing , you only have to go a bit barmy with getting a large loco and you either have to adjust the track , damage your loco , or stick it on a shelf to admire it .
And as Steve said , if it looks right , it probably is .
Mike Brit
Dennis Cherry said:
Thanks will work with that dimension.
Been looking at two different turnout drawings. One is the #5 Garden Railroad and the other is a #4.5 Templot and both are measured differently for the R#.
The Garden Railroad turnout is measures from rail inside to inside and the Templot is measured rial outside to outside. They are almost the same turnout on paper.
To double check the center to center distance - and everything else that needed checking - on my prototype I used the GIS info provided by the Swiss Canton where my proto is located and compared that to the info I had in print (lots of print!). Low and behold it looks right in the garden. Amazing what happens when you know what the proto does and take that as the yardstick.
The dimension turns out to be 200mm in 1:22.5 (just shy of 8") in that space they used to have low level (top of the rail) platforms. RhB also had a regulation for those stations with the nifty platforms between the main and the house track. With two trains meeting, the train arriving first used the house track and would leave as soon as the opposing train entered the station i.e. extra security for those getting on or off either train.
But that was in the good old days, before they rationalized operations and did away with trains that stopped at every station. On our model railway in the garden it is somewhere between '69 and '75 in the upper Albula Valley, with all the nifty “back then” stuff included.
If I was planning for tight track spacing I would be thinking about overhanging equipment coming through a curve and being able to get my fingers inbetween the cars to uncouple or rerail.
A RR friend told me of a time he got rolled between 2 trains due to tight spacing. He was able to drop to the ground and avoid being seriously injured.
The more room the better.
I’d be thinking about being able to get my foot between the two trains to re-rail a car.
Todd Haskins said:
If I was planning for tight track spacing I would be thinking about overhanging equipment coming through a curve and being able to get my fingers inbetween the cars to uncouple or rerail.
A RR friend told me of a time he got rolled between 2 trains due to tight spacing. He was able to drop to the ground and avoid being seriously injured.
The more room the better.
As far as planning goes, in the AR track planning forum we had a number of N-scalers who were all hot to trot to get the center to center in yards as per proto.
It was OOPS time 
when we pointed out that not only is it almost impossible to read the car numbers, it is impossible to get one’s fingers in between without derailing some other equipment.
If only we could find a N scale car knocker… 
Steve Featherkile said:
If only we could find a N scale car knocker…
The way it is going there are fewer and fewer of them in 1:1, apart from that the N-Scalers would need to replace all the plastic wheels with metal wheels to make them ring.
Snicker. Perish the thought. Horrors! The expense!
“The more room the better.” Amen.
Center-to-center track spacing on the DC&M is a nice round eight inches. No clearance problems anywhere.
And…it conforms exactly to prototype (which is imaginary). 
Steve
Gee, what an interesting conversation. I had my (imaginary) foreman, Tom Morrow, read this thread. He is not very interested in figuring out track spacing for the P&CS. I guess having a single track mainline has its advantages.