Description
Check your structures before your trains do. Clearance Mate is a wheeled structure gauge you push along your track. If it passes a platform, bridge, tunnel mouth, signal or lineside building without touching, your stock will pass it too.
The profile plate is a UK W6A-style vehicle outline scaled to OO (1:76.2). Any contact with the plate shows you exactly where a structure is too close. It comes in bright orange with black wheels and pantograph blades, so it is easy to spot on any layout.
Features
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Full body outline: the profile includes the platform step, so one pass checks platform edge height and offset as well as side and roof clearance
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Three pantograph blades included: check overhead line and bridge heights at 4,165 mm (reduced, under bridges), 4,700 mm (nominal) and 5,100 mm (high). The top of the blade marks the contact-wire height. Blades push into the roof of the plate and swap in seconds
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Free-rolling clip-on wheels: each wheel snaps onto its own stub axle on the chassis. No axles to cut and no glue
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Clips together: the plate's snap tabs lock it into the chassis, and built-in stoppers seat it at the right height every time
How to assemble
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Clip on the wheels. Push each wheel straight onto a stub axle, flange facing inwards, until it clicks. Give it a spin: it should turn freely.
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Snap in the profile plate. Push its two tabs down into the slots in the chassis until they click and the stoppers on both legs sit flat.
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Push in a pantograph blade. Choose the wire height you want to check and press the blade's two pegs into the holes under the roof of the plate.
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Push it along your track. Anything the profile or blade touches is too close.
It all comes apart again: squeeze each pair of tabs together from underneath to lift the plate out. If it feels light on your track, stick a little weight to the deck with double-sided tape.
Key dimensions (OO)
- Profile width: 37.8 mm (2,880 mm full size)
- Height above rail: 52.0 mm (3,965 mm full size)
- Pantograph blades: 54.7, 61.7 and 66.9 mm above rail (4,165, 4,700 and 5,100 mm full size)
- Platform face from track centre: 19.4 mm (1,480 mm full size)
- Platform height: 12.0 mm (915 mm full size)
In the box
- 1 x Profile plate (orange)
- 1 x Chassis with four stub axles (orange)
- 4 x Clip-on wheels (black)
- 3 x Pantograph blades, 4,165 / 4,700 / 5,100 mm (black)
Supplied as a kit of parts that clips together in minutes. Works with OO / HO 16.5 mm gauge track, Code 75, 83 and 100.
For long coaches on curved platforms, see the Clearance Mate Long Coach Bogie Frame.
