DDWheelwrightsProto87Standards

Some thought provocation from Wheelwrights:

Some people bulk at the use of the B.S. standards specification for wheel and rail profiles. There were basically two schools of railway engineering, the European and the American. Two different but valid approachs to two different sets of circumstances and each with it's own adherents. And that is before anybody invented railway modellers.
Modellers strive to reflect their chosen prototype more and more accurately in their work. Perhaps the biggest advantage gained from Proto:87 Standards lies in the fact that our models indeed begin to behave like the prototype. In the prototype there are small differences between companies and countries in their wheel and track standards, which from the moment of installation deform and wear anyway. Yet there is interchange of rolling stock and international traffic. Even between North America and the UK on occasion, even if they did reprofile the wheels on the way. Surely it should not surprise us then when in practice we discover that the standards demonsrtate some tolerence in the track and wheel profiles. There is probably more difference in the margin for wear than between the original designs. There have after all always been international engineering and standards authorities for railways, such as the TV,RIC and UIC. In making this statement,we do have information on the design profiles from across Europe and America, even if not from the wear tolerancies.
We would not recommend deviation from the above standards, but emphasize the phrase "equivilents of BS276 "and "B.S.95R".