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Couldn’t Have Done It Without………3
Here is something that I have not seen anyone else singing the praises of; the cast brass version of Exactoscale’s fishplates.
As can easily be seen, these are both cosmetic renditions of a real fishplate from the bullhead track era and can also be used to create a functional joint between rails. These are not that strong and can’t really be relied upon to firmly hold one piece of track to the other. However, what they are strong enough to do is hold one piece of track relative to the other.
Therefore, they come into their own when track is being laid. Once one piece of rail is glued in place, it is necessary to ensure that the next is exactly in line with it and this is actually not nearly so easy to do as it might seem; especially when we a P4 modeller such as myself is interested in fractions of a millimetre and then makes life difficult for myself by covering the additional piece of track is them covered with weights. These are just perfect for this, they provide enough locational direction to ensure one piece flows to the next.
There is of course nothing new about using fishplates to join model train track together; it has been de-rigueur for Hornby & Peco since the dawn of time. What has happened is that the finescale fraternity have forgotten their roots a little and ignored the simplicity of some of the toy train solutions such as this.
highland miscellany 