If you find you need to have 3 dimensional capacity at the vee, I am thinking/hoping that's where the router option comes into play.
just an other idea to throw into the mix.
@Phil G
I'm going to start with individual X, A and B chairs, and add the spacer blocks to them. These should fit in the standard sockets, so won't need anything extra cut into the timbers. However, it's going to be difficult to bash fit them without damage, they may need a spot of superglue in a looser-fitting socket. The slicer might want to add extra supports to the spacer blocks. All very experimental.
So far the chairs have been stylised geometrical designs, but mostly I have managed to follow the REA dimensions quite closely.
For most of the crossing chairs I am going to have to play fast and loose with the REA designs to some extent. Not least of course because our flangeway gaps are significantly over-scale (even in P4). But also for other reasons. At present all the existing chairs are rectangular with radiused corners. The corner radius can be easily changed, but having more than 4 sides on a chair would involve a very significant re-write of much of the existing code. That's doable in the long term, but for now I am going to fudge my way round it. Some of the crossing chairs are 8" wide rectangles, so that's no problem. But others are octagonal, with a middle section 10.5" wide or more. In the short term I am going to represent those as 9" wide rectangular chairs.
Also some of the vee chairs are inside-keyed. That might work in P4, S7, but in 00/EM the wheel flanges are likely to clonk the top of the chair jaw. For those chairs therefore plug track will be missing the keys -- they could be added later cosmetically in the larger scales. It also means having a loose gauging jaw, rather than a loose outer jaw. That's sub-optimal, but there is no way to fit 2 loose jaws between the vee rails.
The majority of folks will likely not even notice these discrepancies. I mention all this now to pre-empt the messages from those who do notice them, telling me I have got it all wrong.
And because I may never remember to mention it again.
cheers,
Martin.