Joining UniTram and Tomix: a shorter solution

[velotrain]

I've been slowly trolling through old threads, and came across the "Getting out of the Loop" one on joining UniTram and Tomix wide tram track.  I thought there must be some way to do it in a shorter space.

 

I was looking at a Kato S62J conversion track, and wondered if I could coax another 4mm of separation out of it.

 

I sawed all the way back to where the "pavement" begins, making a small circle at the end so the stress would hopefully radiate, vs. continuing in one straight line.  The design of the piece makes me think that it will be stable, and I can spread it without any flexing.

 

I popped out the connecting elements from the Kato track, and sawed off the connecting tabs from the Tomix.  The Kato rail-joiners disappeared (just as well) with the connecting tabs, and the ones on the Tomix track are huge for N-scale.  I bought some Atlas code 80 joiners, planning to use them - they slid easily onto the Kato rail, but didn't come close to fitting on the fatter Tomix; the height is obviously the same, but the bottom of the Tomix rail is very wide and it mangled the flanges of the Atlas joiner.  I finally used an old HO scale joiner; I only found one, so had to slice it in half and then reshape it.  I suspect even a HO code 83 wouldn't work, and there's no capability of filing the Tomix rail.

 

I used a file on the sawn end of the Kato piece, to give a slight angle to each side.  This was to discourage the Tomix pieces from wanting to splay apart.  I reinforced this by filing the end of the Kato piece after inserting the separation tab; doing this made me realize there's no reason to file any earlier, as it's much easier at this point, as you just file the end flat. 

 

I used 5-minute epoxy to add an Evergreen styrene spreader at the cut between the Kato tracks; otherwise  there's too much pressure on the rail joiners for this to work.  I think .188 x .188 would be the best stock to start with.  You could make this longer and then file the sides to completely fill the gap, perhaps even painting and adding ballast if you wish. 

 

I added a length of styrene (.040 x 125) underneath the Tomix pieces to even up the railheads.  I also used epoxy to join the two Tomix pieces, as well as connect them to the Kato section.  I used the only Tomix wide tram track I currently have, but think you could just make the modified S62J an independent section of track - if you built it sturdily enough.  If doing this, I'd permanently attach rail joiners that are large enough for the Tomix rail.

 

I recognize that the rails meet at something less than 180 degrees, but my Santram easily negotiated it, as did the Bachmann Brill (donor chassis for a Shapeways box motor) or Peter Witt that I received today.  When doing surgery like this, I find it's helpful to lightly file the inside of the rail joint, and perhaps the rail tops, using a flat jeweler's type file.

[katoftw]

I probably would of just used some lengths of peco code 80 track and the correct joiners for kato and tomix sides.

 

It is a good bit of track bashing to create the system you have, but it has me asking... Why really?

Edited August 1, 2014 by katoftw

[cteno4]

Interesting track bash. Shows what you can get away with many times with sectional track and there is more than one way to skin a cat!

 

One of our club members has had good luck melding kato ant tomix rail on a curved turnout and crossover corner ttrak module. He used two tomix mini radius points and a 15 crossing and whacked the finetrack lengths to pull it back to 33 spacing. He used the unitrak converter to move between the two kinds of track (even though listed as atlas converter it convieniently mates perfectly with finetrack). It's a fun junction

 

http://ttrak.wikidot.com/substation-junction

 

Jeff

[velotrain]

Jeff - I'd seen that module before on the T-Trak for Trolleys page on the Easy Trolley site.  Looking at it carefully, I realized that I'd given the wrong designation for the Kato conversion piece I used.  It's actually 40021, while the S62J goes from 37mm to 33mm - as used on the T-Trak module.

 

His track plan shows the crossing as Atlas 2568 - which is 60 degrees, but is sure looks like 30 degrees in the photo.

[cteno4]

Yes it is a 30 my bad and it is atlas, easy to whack back and fit into the mix I think is why he used the atlas, ill ask Phillip. Just goes to show how much you can mix and match pretty easily, this was all kitchen table work for him.

 

This all works reasonably well but some trams don't like it on the curve.

 

Jeff