For those that make their own trackwork, you may wish to obtain a copy of the June Model Railroader. Aside from the interesting (but a bit short) feature of Bob Allen's former Ida Valley 9mm layout, - quite a surprise find in a US magazine - there is an article about making high speed points in HO.

These points, as can be seen from the poor quality scan of the leading image from the magazine article, are a compromise between performance and prototype appearance. The point blades and wing rails are constructed as a unit that has a single central pivot, allowing the whole thing to swing around, rather than just moving the tips of the blades. This lets the wing rails butt up against the frog on the non-selected track side, removing the clearance gap that frequently allows small wheels to drop in to and potentially de-rail.

So I have been wondering,

What track do people reccomend for NZ120?

I was looking at getting a box of the new Peco 009 "mainline" flex, but after reading the specs for the modules, it appears I need code 55 track, which the 009 is not (code 80).

So do I just find some N gauge code 55 track or is there something more suited to NZ120 out there??

Thanks

Drew

I have an order in with woodworks for some code 55 rail and some sleepers to try my hand at handlaying track. No points at this stage. Just a nice straight piece of track to see how it goes. I've been looking for an N gauge track gauge to assist with construction but I've had no joy tracking one down in NZ and I'm looking at around $40 to order one on the net which is a bit over the top for a small piece of alloy.

With a growing number of people looking at handlaying track would it be a good idea to produce an etched nz120 track gauge with the standard parts such as track width gauge and flange to flange for checking wheel gauge.

What would make an nz120 gauge different would be making it with nz120 clearances such as maximum width and maximum height for nz120 carriages and wagons. Not sure what the max height and width would be. I'm guessing something like a UK with a high cube container.

Any opinions or ideas?

Cheers