zzap64

Great tutorial. I love this forum, it really brings out the old scientist in me :)

I think I'll give that one a shot tomorrow, ease it in and then nothing too drastic after that (i.e. 2 plates per track length). Straight and then straight and on a curve sounds like a plan :-) The blue track has groves all right, but I thought the rubber "tyre" of the wheel might work better on a smooth track. I need some instuments to measure all this traction, friction and momentum! Where's my old school physics book when I need it... ;-)

I'm looking into building an incline myself and notuiced that the link above to ngltc.org doesn't work anymore, but thank goodness for archive.org :) http://web.archive.org/web/20080705054916/http://www.ngltc.org/train_depot/inclines.htm I tried a plate per track incline today and rapitly ran out of space and bricks! so then I tried a brick per track, which seems to work okay but as mentioned in the article, the train does slip when trying to start from a stop position on the incline. I'm mixing it up a bit by having a modern power functions train on the old blue tracks so I wonder if it would slip less on new tracks but I think I'll go for the 2 plate at a time suggestion anyway. I also remember seeing in an old Lego ideas book where they used minifig legs between the sleepers and the pillars to give a smoother angle, so I tried the same with hinges (e.g. http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/3937 I used a single stud width top but I imagine a double would be (or seem) better). Next step is to order more 4x2 bricks for pillars and I think I'll try the technic method as well, e.g. a long technic peice as the 2 vertical columns, pinned to the smaller horz pieces. :)

I had forgotten about all those crossovers all right! Once the timing was right though..... ;-)

So this is why blue tracks have gotten a bit rare / expensive on Bricklink! ;-) Great accomplishment. Would be great to see 10's of trains running on the track at the same time.

Interesting, although I'd have to be ordering a fair few of them to justify the $17 shipping charge to me :(

I got my hands on a PF light set (8870) to put in my 9739 cargo train. I was assuming I'd be able to light up the front and back lights with my one set but it doesn't look like it's set up like that. It's either both of the lights at the front or both at the back. Back in the 80's the lights came with a prism that did allow one light block to light up both front (or back) lights. Is such a thing available for the current PF lights? I did search on the shop on lego.com but didn't come up with anything. Paying €7 for a couple of LEDs and a bit of wire seemed expensive enough to light up the train, but if I need two sets to light up the front and back lights... well that's very expensive! :(

I've seen them all right. A good idea but I've a big supply of blue junctions now and would have to do 4 conversions of blue track to PF track.

I don't have any double track 12V crossings just a modern single one, so there's no technical reason for my parallel tracks needing to be right up against each other, I just liked the look of it, but with the current layout I now have, it doesn't leave room for stations etc. since for a lot of the layout, there's now 3 parallell tracks right up against each other :) It does look nice and compact though! ;-) Will post a picture later. @MrBlue, wider trains does make a good reason to have more space between all right.

Emm, very nice! It should look a bit more tidy than the way I have it at the moment. I guess it's all about cancelling out the curve changes by the direction of the junctions etc. @Legoless. I see your point about more straights, the train (Cargo #7939) tends to sway a bit with all those junctions and the blue junctions aren't that secure so the odd derailment does occur. Trains may hit eachother, I only have one going around at the moment, must try it with a stationary train on a parallel track as well. The majority of my white sleepers are new (to me) but generally in good condition, I think the light of the photos makes them look whiter than they are however. I have double the amount of sleepers with my blue track, so it is actually quite stable. I used to assume it was the clips on the grey rail sleepers that made them so much more stable, but it's the extra sleepers that make most of the difference... of course since I discovered this a couple of days ago, I now don't have enough sleepers for all my rails again... after just buying around 200 of them x-)

Thanks guys. The solution seems to be keeping the curves out of the picture all right (although probably not for the 9V since the junctions are different). Here's what I have now. (Apologies for the image quality, I only seem to have 100K of uploads per thread :( I assume this changes after I'm here longer?) I tried to move the tracks closer together at the beginning and end but the issue with 2 curves not equal to the curve of the junction seems to be the problem again, but I solved this with another junction and then a deadend track (for storage etc.), marked by my son's teether (since he kept on grabbing the standing up sleepers I had there! :) ) Andy, I can see the advantage of the gab between the tracks for a station etc. but I kinda like the look of the tracks right beside eachother as well...

Hi all, I'm trying to figure out how to do a crossover for 2 tracks in parallel and haven't had much success either trying myself or Googling. Maybe it's just not possible with the track geometry...? The crossover on the right of the attached image is ideally what I want, but of course there are no track pieces like this, so I have tried my own solution on the left with Track A and Track B. There is a horizontal and vertical displacement of 2 studs or so as you can see, this I assume is due to the fact that while the straight part of the junctions is the same as two regular straight tracks, the curves of the junctions are not equal to two curved peices of track. :( I want two ovals of track where trains can run on each independently but can cross from A to B and also from B to A without having to reverse etc. Is it possible? Can anybody direct me to a layout etc. were it has been done?