Peco and Farish track compatibility

[Old Black 5]

New to N gauge I bought a Farish train set and a Peco Setrack track pack only to find they are not compatible. Has anyone got ideas to make them match or should I bin the Farish track?

[elmo]

In what way is the track not compatible?
I have mixed Farish and Peco track since the 1980's.

I will stand corrected but Farish have had three track phases:
1- 1970's-early 80's made by Arnold.
2 - 1980's until move to China Farish supplied their sets with Peco track.
3 - China - own brand track using the same geometry.

More information about incompatibility required.

[Old Black 5]

To put it very simply as I'm not familiar at all with history of n gauge, the Peco does not slide together into the Farish. The fishplates are different. Both sets are brand new.

[Bealman]

Piccies?

[Bob G]

To put it very simply as I'm not familiar at all with history of n gauge, the Peco does not slide together into the Farish. The fishplates are different. Both sets are brand new.

Are the fishplates on the same side as the Peco? I would have thought that Farish would be making a real mistake becoming incompatible. I have mixed Farish, Peco, Roco, etc over many years. So long as you are using Code 80 track, there should be some compatibility there.

Bob

[Newportnobby]

Maybe mistakenly I've always thought Farish and Peco set track to be code 80, and that latterly Farish had even started putting Peco set track in their train sets.
However, I have read somewhere on this very forum the Farish fishplates are a much sloppier fit than the Peco ones

[Bealman]

Time for the long nose pliers 

[ntpntpntp]

As far as I can make out the Farish set track is pretty much a clone of Peco Setrack, it looks extremely similar.  Originally I thought Farish were including Peco track in their sets but it seems not.

With code 80 track you do sometimes find slight problems with fishplates of one brand not fitting the rail of a different brand, mostly due to the width of the foot.   Depending on the problem you can try squeezing or opening out the fishplate just a little, try changing one brand of fishplate for the other, or even try a third party fishplate? For example Gaugemaster sell their own brand.

[Bob G]

Time for the long nose pliers 

Presumably for long nose hairs    Ah well, 2020 has started in earnest now

[ODRAILS]

New to N gauge I bought a Farish train set and a Peco Setrack track pack only to find they are not compatible. Has anyone got ideas to make them match or should I bin the Farish track?

In 2016 I and others made the same point that the then current Peco Setrack and Farish track were different. Both rail sections are code 80 (i.e. 80 thou' high) but the Farish rail is wider. The Farish fishplates/joiners are much wider and won't fit to the Peco track.

See the 2016 thread on the subject : https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=31389.0

[ntpntpntp]

I will stand corrected but Farish have had three track phases:
1- 1970's-early 80's made by Arnold.
2 - 1980's until move to China Farish supplied their sets with Peco track.
3 - China - own brand track using the same geometry.

I don't think the early Grafar track was made by Arnold, the stuff I have in my old boxed set has a more standard rail profile (Arnold track has a rounded head). I remember laying Grafar "Super Liveway" points on a club layout in the 70s, some were notable for being live frog points with a cast frog, and the lever arrangement was quite neat.




Something is nagging my brain that for a while Farish included Roco track in their sets (but I may be confusing that with something else).

[elmo]

I will stand corrected but Farish have had three track phases:
1- 1970's-early 80's made by Arnold.
2 - 1980's until move to China Farish supplied their sets with Peco track.
3 - China - own brand track using the same geometry.

I don't think the early Grafar track was made by Arnold, the stuff I have in my old boxed set has a more standard rail profile (Arnold track has a rounded head). I remember laying Grafar "Super Liveway" points on a club layout in the 70s, some were notable for being live frog points with a cast frog, and the lever arrangement was quite neat.




Something is nagging my brain that for a while Farish included Roco track in their sets (but I may be confusing that with something else).

Just dug up some of my old Farish track. It was made by roco, not Arnold. I remember that type of point as well. Luckily confined to the goods sidings as locos would almost always stop on that frog.

[Invicta Alec]

I quickly gave up with Peco Setrack when I came back into the hobby three years ago.

It was a puzzle to me why some pieces joined so easily together and others were very tight. What I didn't know then was about the microscopic difference in the Farish/Peco fish plates. I don't remember which way round it was but either the Farish brand was slightly smaller than the Peco or vice versa.
Being a newbie it also didn't occur to me that one manufacturer's rail would be a gnat's wider than their rivals. All you needed to do was to buy the "wrong" packet of replacement fish plates and chaos was guaranteed!

Thank goodness for Kato Unitrack. 

Alec.

[jpendle]

New to N gauge I bought a Farish train set and a Peco Setrack track pack only to find they are not compatible. Has anyone got ideas to make them match or should I bin the Farish track?

I use neither, but I would bin the Farish track and then either keep to Peco or look at Kato Unitrack.

I use Peco Code 55 points and Flextrack.

Regards,

John P