Switch construction rail lengths

[EnidPuceflange]

Now apologies everyone because I *know* this was posted here before but I've just spent 20 minutes searching and I simply can't find it.

Somebody at a point in the past posted either a table or a link to a table that gave the frog-to-points rail lengths for various switches. I was doing fine while ever I only build #8 switches but now I need #6 and #5 as well and I'm a bit stumped.

Many thanks in advance
Enid

[BAdams]

Is this the post you were thinking of?
https://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/vi ... =8&t=80444

Brook

[Greg_Lewis]

I've got some prototype switch drawings that I scanned for some other thread here which I don't remember much about. They are too large to post here but I've put them on a server so anyone can download. There is a lot of data there that might be useful if scaled down. The files may take time to download depending on your connection so give them some time.

http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~gregl/SP_switch_1.pdf
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~gregl/SP_switch_p216.pdf
http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~gregl/UP_switch.pdf

[SteveR]

Moderators,
What about removing the "E-Bay Sales" forum and adding a "Track and Switches" forum?

All,
In the post that Brook referenced, one member says frogs are straight. Here is a great picture that Pennsy Fan sent me.

More fun.
SteveR

[Harold_V]

Moderators,
What about removing the "E-Bay Sales" forum and adding a "Track and Switches" forum?

I have requested of the board administrator a review of your (good) suggestion.

H

[rkcarguy]

East coast RR's often had curved diamonds, frogs, and all kinds of weird stuff in terms of track, having to fit it all in between existing buildings/industries where no one ever imagined needing a 300' turn radius for a train. It's rather fascinating to do google image searches for turnouts and look at the busy stuff that comes up.

Lay one of these in large scale lol!

[Greg_Lewis]

Moderators,
What about removing the "E-Bay Sales" forum and adding a "Track and Switches" forum?

I have requested of the board administrator a review of your (good) suggestion.

H

Oh please, please, no. First, searching for the thread subject words "track" and "switch" I find only a total of 11 threads since January. Certainly not so many that we need to fracture the board into yet another subcategory. Second, breaking the board up into many categories makes it that much harder for folks to follow and contribute. Threads can get lost in a plethora of categories and not be seen by someone who might be interested. This entire board already has 29 categories, some of which look to be minimally used and could probably be dropped. If my memory is correct, the railroading section here began with Live Steam and the marketplace, and has split into five categories, one having only 99 topics since it appears to have begun in 2016.

Sure, the eBay sales spot has seen no action, so take it down. But please don't clutter this place up with another subcategory that just doesn't get enough discussion to warrant it.

[SteveR]

I defer to Greg. The internet is becoming a veritable tower of Babel with Facebook constantly harassing me to join "Live steamers with Little Engines 4-3/4 inch gauge 0-4-0 Locomotives without injectors that Burn Coal and were built in Illinois on Wednesday".

OTH, there are plenty of instances when we want to find an old thread and cannot. What to do?

Thanks,
Steve

[Glenn Brooks]

I hesitate to post here, as we perhaps should discuss this in the admin section. But the OP has a good point - the search engine can’t find what he needs.

This is because the forum architecture is to rudimentary, and the posts so numerous, that the information he is looking for is basically- lost. I’ve had this same experience many times in the past. Usually with the same result. Lots of wasted research, no answer, until I looked elsewhere, or asked the question anew.

Can you imagine how useful this forum would be if we eliminated the categories and just recomplied all 300,000 posts back into one big list? At least one other machining forums still does just that. One other forum is cluttered with duplicate and overlapping topics. Both are equally frustrating and difficult to use. I no longer belong to either one.

However, Chaski is faced with a different set of issues - we have thousands of registered users, an abundance of data, no scaleable architecture, and a search function that often does not find what you are looking for. What we are short on, is ‘Architecture’. Euphemistically, we have no “CAD DRAWING” to repair or update our web site. We have no logical data model, no topical reference model, no information hierarchy standard, no index, no standard naming convention, no way to physically browse related topics, no linked search capability, yet still have a search engine that often can not find the post you are looking for. And we don’t have an architectural committee to review or recommend changes in these things, So, sure, delete the themes we are not using, but, definitely we could and should improve the functionality.

We already have a very collegial and effective collaboration process, and significant subject matter expertise. What not use it?

Glenn

[Harold_V]

I was going to run a poll to determine if making the recommended change would be a good idea. Looks like there's no need to do so. Please continue with your comments.

I will add one thing to the mix. It is quite useful to have categories that limit one's search time. If I want to discuss foundry work, that's where I like to look. For folks with limited time at their disposal, the idea of having sub fora of given topics is actually a good idea, although it then tends to eliminate folks who might read posts were they mixed in with all others. Two schools of thought, both valid. We need to come to an agreement so the majority have their needs met.

It's true that some of the fora now in existence are likely not needed. Compacting the board might not hurt.

Again, keep the comments coming, please.

H

[rmac]

Please continue with your comments

Okay!

Two thoughts:

1. The way I use the board, it doesn't matter to me how or if the forums are organized. I tend to use the "Unread Posts" feature to at least skim every message as it appears, and then I just ignore threads that don't interest me. This for two reasons: A) Sometimes posts are submitted to what I would consider the "wrong" forum, and I don't want to miss them, and B) even though I have no interest in trains, there's TONS of great information in the related forums about all kinds of general shop stuff, and I'd hate to miss that, either.

2. The OP's original problem was difficulty in finding a particular post that he remembered. I don't think he mentioned how he was trying to find it, but I've found that Google works better than the search feature built into this (or most any other) board. Pro tip: If you add "site:chaski.org" (without the quotes) to your Google query, it will kindly restrict its search to this board and you won't be bothered with 1000s of hits from the rest of the internet.

-- Russell Mac

[NP317]

I concur with Russell Mac's thinking.
I don't need the creation of another "track" forum, and I tend to use Google search instead of the Chaski search.
RussN