Neon Noir Designs

[Martijn Meerts]

I printed the A4 version of the catenary, pasted it on some thicker cardstock, and gave it a quick test on the layout.

 

 

This is 2 of them roughly in place. The track here is the Tomix 33mm spacing. It fits really quite well. Height wise they're a bit low for this Chinese loco, but adding a (3D printed) base would solve any height issue.

 

 

 

These are the same 2 gantries, but I left the track indications in. Spacing between the track and the masts seems pretty good. Just ignore the 3rd track for now 😄

 

I have to say, even just printed and plopped in place with some blue tack, it makes such a massive difference in how the track looks.

 

[Junech]

The catenary looks pretty nice! Really makes me think about putting it on my 3 segments. I guess I will need to look into that before starting with other things and taking up space that I would need for it.

Will you do these things aswell:

 

(location: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.3669141,136.6258068,3a,75y,13.62h,99.58t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1shpTCq8NtDcsRsiSVKV280Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-9.57534679686357%26panoid%3DhpTCq8NtDcsRsiSVKV280Q%26yaw%3D13.621594158365212!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQwOC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)

 

[Kamome442]

Thank you for taking the time to do that @Martijn Meerts

The height is going to an interesting issue, I was sent a bunch of images of different trains with callipers showing their pantograph to wheelbase heights. The range was from 34.98mm for a Kato EF64 up to 40.16 for a Tomix EF510. I guess in reality they would not run a pantograph at full extension unless going through a level crossing or something similar however I don't want to damage anyones trains. Certainly a 3D printed base allowing you adjust the heights would be a very good idea. 

Here is an image of the catenary set with a 40mm gap from the rail head to the bottom of the wire. The isolator is different type and doesn't hang as low a the standard one. I just wanted to use matching parts for consistency:

I set the sleeper depth for Peco track at 1mm as I didn't have an accurate measurement to hand it would be a little more than this. Kato is 7mm and Tomix is 6mm.

 

I was also sent pictures of an etched kit for the above style of gantry and oh boy it was pretty! The kit has been made up so I am not 100% sure how it went together but I have worked some of the separate parts it used. What really impressed me was the fact it had actual L-beams not just as a half etch detail. I am going to have to come up with some special to compete.

 

@Junech I will definitely be be doing the tensioners, I already have the dimensions for the spring type, they are not as cool looking as the counter weights but I am still trying to find accurate dimensions for that style. There are lots of interesting details on gantries, in rail yards they often have handrails running along the top of them so I will try to do lots of little add-on parts later.

 

I picked up a test etch for one of the sets of catenary today.

 

A long way to go but it is going to be worth it!

Joe

 

[Kamome442]

Oh I forgot to say, along with all the new images and information sent to me was the details and dimensions of another style of catenary 🫣

Once I have completed the drawings I will share the new design.

[Martijn Meerts]

8 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

Thank you for taking the time to do that @Martijn Meerts

 

No problem at all. Let me know if you want more things tested 🙂

 

[Kamome442]

Thank you Martijn.

 

I have drawn the additional design, it is very simple.

[Junech]

22 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

@Junech I will definitely be be doing the tensioners, I already have the dimensions for the spring type, they are not as cool looking as the counter weights but I am still trying to find accurate dimensions for that style. There are lots of interesting details on gantries, in rail yards they often have handrails running along the top of them so I will try to do lots of little add-on parts later.

 

I hope that you stumble upon the dimensions. And yeah, there is a lot about the full catenary setup to look into. Will need to look further into it as well before starting to build anything in that regard...

[Kamome442]

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[Kamome442]

Catenary Progress

 

I have been working on the dimensions of the horizontal truss using the different track spacing for each manufacturer. It seems like I can replicate a similar look for each track system by increasing the trusses length by 5mm intervals.

 

I started with Peco dimensions as they are very similar to the Shinkansen tracks on Yurakucho. I mirrored the spacing of roughly 16mm between the track and the legs on the layout and rounded it to 60mm. I added 5mm for Kato track at 65mm and 10mm for Tomix track to get a 70mm spacing. Then looked at the dimensions for a Kato 2-track portal. The space between the two legs is around 80mm, dropping that back to Peco the spacing would be a 75mm span:

 

 

If I were to create six lengths of truss I could make three 'realistic' versions (60mm, 65mm, 70mm) and three 'regular' versions (75mm, 80mm, 85mm). I think that would offer a lot of flexibility. 

 

I would be interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

Joe

 

[Junech]

Just a quick thought:

Did you look into the additional space needed in curves?

[cteno4]

Yes Im guessing that tomix and Kato catenary poles may take that spacing into consideration.

 

jeff

[Kamome442]

10 hours ago, Junech said:

Did you look into the additional space needed in curves?

 

Awesome point Junech, I did draw up the portal to Kato dimensions because I was thinking about the legs needing to align to holes on elevated sections.

You are right the curves would be a more obvious purpose for the spacing. The narrow dimensions are fine on Yurakucho but that is because I am using real world curves. I have a Kato starter set somewhere. I doubt the curves are the tightest radius but it should give me some idea of overhang if I run some long cars around it.

 

I was looking over the dimensions of the etched catenary I was given. The dimensions are around 75mm for a two track spans. 

It might make sense to make somewhere around 75-80mm the standard dimension.

[Junech]

I looked up into the NEM norms and found this formula in NEM 104 to calculate the overhang:

 

 

E is the overhang

R is the radius of the curve

A is the distance between the axles/bogie

 

So we would need to find the longest distance between bogies and the widest width of railcars for each radius.

 

The widest you could go would be the smallest track radius with the biggest railcar:

The smallest Tomix radius is 103 mm, and the N scale NEM values would lead to a width of 28mm and a distance between bogies of 130mm.

 

Putting that into the formula gives us ~23mm overhang. Adding half the width leaves us with ~37 mm.

The parallel track would have a 140mm radius and a ~19mm overhang, adding up to ~33mm.

Adding everything up says we need 107mm total just for the railcars so going up to 110mm for 2 track catenary would be necessary.

 

But you wouldn't run the longest railcars through the tightest curves 😅

 

The standard T-Trak would need 80mm catenary with ~75.5mm of space for the railcar.

 

So we would need to do a bit of thinking on this one...

[Kamome442]

Oh no Junech, I am getting flashbacks to that time I tried to work the cant angle for a curve. 

Firstly thank you for taking the time to time to look that up and give a detailed and easy to understand breakdown. 

Also well done for getting further with a formula than I ever would. My method to solving formula is to stare at the screen for ten minutes wondering what the life choices I had made to bring to this point. Then just go sod it, something like this will do:

 

I do have an uneasy sense that someone will always find an obscure longer railcar from the annals of history or lay a tighter curve than I have planned for.

I will check the dimensions for Tomix and Greenmax plus any others I can find. It would be interesting to know if all the manufacturers have settled on a similar standard or if they they have all reached different conclusions.

 

 

[Kamome442]

Thinking about it, I assume the space between the tracks remains constant on the curves so that you can run parallel loops, that spacing allows for passing trains.

Time to dig out my Kato track 🤪

[Junech]

53 minutes ago, Kamome442 said:

so that you can run parallel loops

 

You won't be able to run that max-size NEM railcar in parallel on a R140/R103 double track since the overhang of both cars would be more than the distance between the tracks. So, the track with the bigger radius would need to increase to a radius that would allow the railcars to pass each other. The bigger radius curve would need to increase its radius to half the width of the railcar + the overhang. So you will end up with an R243/R103 curve with tomix track and have a total distance of 175mm. That would result in using the 4-track wide catenary...

 

That leads me to the result that for Tomix, Kato and any other fixed track, you wouldn't need more than double the standard track-width for catenary length on a double track. If more would be needed, you would need to increase the distance between tracks to the next radius to let railcars pass each other. And if you do that, you would go with a 3-track wide catenary or even 4-track/5-track wide catenary.

 

So Tomix would be 75mm catenary and Kato would be 70mm catenary at least from the calculations point of view. But that follows the NEM standards, which are European...

[Kamome442]

The set track curves I have are 315mm radius so not a particularly tight curve. The longest body cars I have are a Class 800 IET (prototype 26m coach) and I figured I would test a Shinkansen coach as it has a different loading gauge to the oddly narrow trains in the UK. I chose a 700 Series because it's the best looking 🤭 and it has a broad front end.

Side by side the wheel placement is roughly the same with 800 having a longer overhang at each end.

 

Clearance is fine at the car ends, they barely go beyond the edge of the track. The 800 is more pronounced but even then the overhang is under 5mm.

    

 

The nose of 700 sticks out by a similar amount.

 

Clearance on the inside is more pronounced and again the 800 overhangs more. I am actually not sure the 800 would be to happy going around a much tighter radius, the longer ends do make quite a difference, the coupler was almost over the outer rail.

  

 

 

[Kamome442]

7 minutes ago, Junech said:

You won't be able to run that max-size NEM railcar in parallel on a R140/R103 double track since the overhang of both cars would be more than the distance between the tracks. So, the track with the bigger radius would need to increase to a radius that would allow the railcars to pass each other. The bigger radius curve would need to increase its radius to half the width of the railcar + the overhang. So you will end up with an R243/R103 curve with tomix track and have a total distance of 175mm. That would result in using the 4-track wide catenary...

 

Interesting.

 

10 minutes ago, Junech said:

So Tomix would be 75mm catenary and Kato would be 70mm catenary at least from the calculations point of view. But that follows the NEM standards, which are European...

 

Good to know, I wonder how much different loading gauges would affect the amount of overhang.

 

 

[Kamome442]

19 minutes ago, Junech said:

That leads me to the result that for Tomix, Kato and any other fixed track, you wouldn't need more than double the standard track-width for catenary length on a double track. If more would be needed, you would need to increase the distance between tracks to the next radius to let railcars pass each other. And if you do that, you would go with a 3-track wide catenary or even 4-track/5-track wide catenary.

 

This rather nicely brings up another part of the design I have a looking at. The position of the brackets to hold the overhead wires. 

A lot of the reference in formation I was sent was taken from the World Kogei brass kits. Similar to the plastic catenary the position of the insulators and the Y shaped brackets that hold the lower arms it fixed in a position. Something like this:

 

This seems rather limiting to what you can do. With what Junech mentioned running a wider gap between tracks would put all the mounting points in the wrong place. I have drawn a couple of examples of design differences I have noticed, there are many more. For the 3 track example it is quite common to run two tracks under top mounted connections and the third with a side mounted arm (top right). For the 4 track example it seems quite common the use the longer span with less fewer tracks (bottom right) to reach over obstructions such as access roads or platforms. 

 

I am thinking about making the various connections separate so that they can be moved around to suit any track plan. Using the Y shaped support as an example I was thinking of something like this:

 

There would be a little fold down tab at the top to help with alignment:

 

This could then wrap around two sides of the gantry and be glued or soldered in place:

 

 

 

This would mean more construction however I feel that it would be worth it to allow more freedom to create what you want. If you just wanted a simple representation of catenary you could even them off. Let me know if you like this as an idea or if you would prefer them to be fixed.

Joe

 

[cteno4]

LOL as i was starting to read this and looking at the first illustration of the Y the same method popped into my head for it and to just glue or solder it where you want and as i scrolled down there it was in total 3D graphic glory! Nice work joe.

 

jeff

[Junech]

2 hours ago, Kamome442 said:

Good to know, I wonder how much different loading gauges would affect the amount of overhang.

 

The total distance between the center of the track and the "safe space next to the track is the overhang + half the width of the railcar. NEM also says that the overhang is equal on both sides of the center. I guess there is just so much distance you can have between the bogie and the front, and in general it shouldn't be more than half the railcar's length... (Which I assume would be the only way to have a bigger overhang at the front).

 

Making the brackets an individual part is really important. Besides the normal zigzag path a wire has on the straight track, you just can't accommodate for all possible distances the masts will have in a curve. And the distance the wire is off the center in a curve (which it always is) depends on the length of each segment...

[cteno4]

Having the brackets separate will also free up a lot of etching space as the brackets and wire holders can be packed into a tight etch space then. 

 

Why not just make one or two cross pieces and folks can just lop them off at exactly where they want them. The connection plates will hide the last bit at the posts so doesn’t matter if not perfectly ending on a V. I realize you will know they are not ending exactly perfect under the plate, but you wont see it visually! Things can be symmetrical if folks measure out from the middle to clip off each end evenly. May save you from trying to figure out all the spacing folks may want. Same would go for the mast heights.

 

jeff

[Madsing]

Very interesting. I'll buy 😀

 

I have measured the size of some of the standard Tomix and Kato catenary masts for reference. There is a lot of variety.

 

First, Tomix 3050 (https://www.tomytec.co.jp/tomix/products/n/3050.html). The distance is 75mm. The masts sit just outside of the fence when using wide tracks.

 

Tomix 3004 (https://www.tomytec.co.jp/tomix/products/n/3004.html) is a bit wider. 80mm.

 

Kato 23-063 is wider, 83mm (https://www.katomodels.com/product/n/kasencyu)

 

Tomix triple track are either 112mm or 117mm

 

This is the manual of Tomix 3007, with a lot of useful measurements Tomix 3007.pdf

 

Marc