11-28-2018, 11:10 PM
(11-28-2018, 10:38 PM)Canard Wrote:(11-28-2018, 09:46 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Out of curiosity, can anyone who knows more about trains than I tell me why it was necessary to bend the LRT tracks away from the freight alignment, towards the buildings right in front of Coras before the merge back together? It seems like it achieves nothing, it uses more space, but also decreases the radii of the track curve.
I believe this is caused by wanting to use as much off-the-shelf rail hardware as possible. Points (switches) probably come in "standard sizes" - so if you can plunk in one that is already available, you'll save a lot of money and headache over designing one from scratch with custom curves and so on.
Anyone who has played with model trains will immediately understand this.
this. That curve would have required a non-standard cast frog in the middle of the road which would have to be replaced quite regularly as it would get beat up by the freight and weather.