Track spacing

[Lawrence]

Question on straight track spacing.  Imagine a two track station, at either end of the approach are pairs of Kato No4 points connected to allow track changing, then two straight through sections of track.  What gap should I have in the centre of the two tracks.  Measuring it roughly between the inner edges of the track bed it seems to be about 9mm, does this sound about right to you guys?

[Darklighter]

The standard track (center) spacing of Unitrack is 33 mm and that's also the spacing you get when you use two #4 turnouts for a crossover. As the width of the track bed is 25 mm, there should be an 8 mm gap between two parallel tracks. But a 9 mm gap should be fine, too.  ;)  

Edited January 22, 2014 by Darklighter

[Lawrence]

Thank you Darklighter

[Densha]

Now that we are talking about track spacing.... I've been looking at some island platforms to use with my Kato Unitrack. There's one with a width of 40mm (Greenmax kit) and one with a width of 37mm (Tomix). Do you think it's possible to somehow make it fit? Maybe even more difficult is trying to fit it so that the spacing in both height and width from the train is correct.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Densha

[Darklighter]

For island platforms you would normally use double the standard track center spacing, i.e. 66 mm. That leaves a 41 mm gap, so the Greenmax platform should be fine. I guess the gap between platform and train will be a little bit bigger than with a Kato platform because the Kato platforms have a larger "overhang" (at least that's what I recall).  

The height could be adjusted by placing some foam, cardboard, styrene or cork under the platform.

[Lawrence]

I had to glue some cork on the bottom of a Greenmax platform kit to bring it up to train door height because I am using kato track, it was only a couple of mm

[Darklighter]

I guess the gap between platform and train will be a little bit bigger than with a Kato platform because the Kato platforms have a larger "overhang" (at least that's what I recall).  

Just a small correction: The overhang of the newer platforms (with tiles) is pretty large but they are only 1 mm wider at the top (42 mm) than at the base (according to Ken's excellent website: http://sumidacrossing.org/ModelTrains/PassengerPlatforms/ ). So the size of the gap doesn't differ as much as I expected.