Waiting for R104 9V switch - a case study of station geometry

[Ashi Valkoinen]

Hello fellow Train Tech members,

As most of you know, FXBricks announced their track system for LEGO trains offering wide radius curves and R104 radius points and crossing, and more important, these are meant to be compatible with the 9V train tracks made by TLC. If you missed, you can read about in details at the following references:

Announcement
Updates
Eurobricks topic

As some of you know I'm building 1:45 scaled trains using LEGO-bricks, and while trying to make them move on R40 geometry the 64-72 stud long passanger cars don't look good on such geometry. The reason I stick to 9V and this way I got mad at R40 geometry is simple - in our LUG, Hungarian L-gauge Railway Club (MLVK) some members still use the old 9V-system to run their trains and - however I'm running all my trains through SBrick or Infrared V2 receivers - I kept the metallic tracks for backward compatibility, and, honestly said, these LEGO-tracks just look better and more realistic compared to the full-plastic ones.

I'm really happy to see FXBricks starting on R104 (or in their terminology, P40 = point with 40 studs long straight section) points and also on custom size straight, like 4 (=length of flexitrack), 8 and 32 long straight. However we don't have these new tracks in our hands, I went forward in BlueBrick layout software and made the future design of my current train station. Since I have really no time to rebuild all my platforms according to the new track geometry given by these new products, I tried to make a tracks layout with these items matching the older, R40 based geometry - and during the try and error method I discovered some possibilities. In this text I'd like to show you how it went. I also avoided the use of exceptional "return" curves designed for custom points. 

(If you want to plan R40-geometries for station, this guide could be useful: 
https://brickmodelrailroader.com/index.php/2017/01/02/lego-9v-train-track-geometry-by-ashi-valkoinen/ )

Image 1.: My current train station at the latest event I participated. I think the image tells itself why I don't want to alter the width of these platforms and change the founds of the whole setup.

Image 2.: This print shows the current train station (down) and my future plans (up). Due to the length needed by R104-geometry it will be longer with 5 32×32 baseplates - 125 cm. Some lengthening was needed because of the longer space need of R104 points, other was needed to keep the platforms' useful length. 16×16 orange baseplates show the 9V connection points, red marks the insulations.

(You can find HERE a higher resolution map exceeding the forum allowed image width.)

And now let's see the geometries in details. For first, the right side.

Image 3.: The right side of my station geometry, current (below) and future (up). Basically R104 points do the job what LEGO's R40 failed to do - connecting two paralel straight tracks having an offset of 16 studs (8 studs between sleepers). This arrangement is quite common on LEGO-layouts, and except cutting 9V points for a single connection (see current version) or using non-9V PF-crossover we have nothing in R40 to smoothly connect paralel tracks. But TLC's R40 can connets according to standards paralel tracks with offset of 32 studs (placing one straight between the turnout parts of two points), which is not so easy to do with R104, they geometry is better for ladders with 16 offset tracks.

 Image 4.: it wasn't easy to line up the last track with the old platform. Unfortunately placing two straights beetween the turnout part of two R104 points resulted in one studs wider platform, which I wanted to avoid. And then remembered, that Holger's method of long radius curves is not only suitable for grand curves, but useful on smaller scale. The image shows the difference between fully connected track pieces (left) and not fully connected pieces, where there is a little (less than helf stud) gap on one side of the tracks connected. This method here served my good, but you can also think about it when you are in the nedd of a half or one stud displacement perpendicular to the track lines. You can also note this small line-up on image 3.

Image 5.: And the left side... well, it's a little odd, but at least needs no major modification of my current setup. The uppermost track turn to paralel with platform with one R104 and one R88 curve, used together. The R104 point under the road turning back can be replaced with two full R104 curves and remove that track - but is a good new storage place for one of my electric motor units.

Image 6.: Using long radius curves technique again - as stacking the R104 points gave a displacement from me current platforms I needed to turn back somehow - and long curves are the way to do it nicely. On these amount of baseplates the small rebuild of the platform is a fair and afforadble price for me (in time) - and fortunately a long-radius curved platform was tested 8 years ago when I designed my very first trains station. You can note here one piece of TRIXBRIX 1/16 straight - my station was always powered from both sides to train can roll over on this with no problem.

Image 7.: My much more smaller station 8 years ago - now a build I used there will return in some altered form.

So summerized - with the use of S4, S8 straights, the R104 9V points, R88, R104 9V curves I managed to plan a layout close to the current one based on R40 geometry. I'm hopefully looking forward on FXBricks releases, however, being more than 10 years in the hobby, it's almost irrelevent if I can use this at the end of 2020 or 2022. :)

In BlueBrick layout software I used the R104 point of TRIXBRIX released some weeks ago and BrickTracks R88 and R104, since they were in my library already.

Cheers,

AshiV

Edited April 20, 2020 by Ashi Valkoinen

[Selander]

Nice to see your detailed and well considered plans ?