More About Rokuhan

Subsequent to yesterday's post about Rokuhan, I was asked if Rokuhan and Micro-Trains roadbed track would play nice together. The answer is, not really. The geometry of the two products is quite different, as you can see:



The roadbed height is different, the size of the joiners is different, even the rail height is different. You can force them together if you remove the plastic track joiners from both sections; the rail height difference is small enough that it shouldn't create any grief with rolling stock (and if it does, a bit of filing will fix that). Mostly you'd need to compensate for the roadbed height difference by shimming up the Micro-Track.

This isn't the end of the world. As it is, I don't really see much advantage to mixing the two, especially since virtually every piece of track offered by Micro-Trains is available in the Rokuhan line—and then some. The Micro-Trains bridge is about the only part that one might be tempted to include in a Rokuhan-based layout, and since bridges need abutments, the geometry differences are more or less moot.

One other thing I forgot to touch upon yesterday was how tracklaying is handled with Rokuhan track: instead of obvious holes in the middle of ties, the holes are optionally made by the modeler by poking a hole up through attachment points from under the track. The holes are located between ties, so nails or screws won't stick up above the tie surfaces (and thus they're less visible); also, there's positive support around the opening to prevent the track from being distorted or damaged by applying excessive pressure.



Instead of driving anything through the roadbed, you can use special multi-purpose clips: they're an alternate way of securing the track (the track just snaps into the clips); they space parallel tracks precisely; and they also serve as mounts for catenary poles. It's clear that a lot of thought has gone into this track system.

I think it's exciting to see Z scale enjoying so much new, high-quality product development.

This post was originally published on 2 February 2011. I've "bumped" it to keep it visible, as interest in Rokuhan track is picking up.