Crap, I started out with GLT Code 250 and went to LGB 332 Brass… like the fact i can walk on the track. oh well.
I use code 250 Al track from Llagas Creek. I run track power, and have no intention to change to batteries.
I agree with Greg (this time) that it’s much better to answer the question asked rather than tell a newbie he’s a fool for following is own music, but because I’m supremely cool and smart beyond mere mortals’ understanding the newbie should do it my way.
The answers to Gery’s questions in no particular order (as far as my experience allows me to know) are that AL is the second best conductor of electricity (after pure copper, but before brass, certainly.) Airplanes are wired with it. As a practical matter, with a starter layout, it makes no difference, especially if you put jumpers at one or two locations around the layout.
In my experience, as long as the track is in gauge, curves won’t affect power. The power supplies are as over-designed as the locos.
Ah, brass joiners. That’s the rub. If you can find them, I suggest using something else. Not because I think I know, but because I understand enough of electrolysis and my climate to know that passing electricity through dissimilar metals, like brass and aluminum generates corrosion. That corrosion is what conducts no electricy! I have only brass joiners, having found the stainless steel slip joints Llagas Creek got loose and filled with dirt and mud. Then I discovered electrolysis. At the time, Hillman (my clamp of choice) didn’t make AL joiners. Stainless steel joiners seem to be impervious to electrolysis, but I couldn’t afford them (then or now).
So I line the brass joiner with heavy aluminum foil. The electrons stay in the AL, and there’s no electrolysis. Conducting grease washes away in the winter rain. If you don’t have a lot of rain (14 inches or more) you may be able to get away with grease. I couldn’t. That was my second “fix” for the problem. Worked fine until the first rain washed the grease out and replaced it with mud.
Don’t attack the messenger. Answer the question if you can
I like Terrie’s idea, thanks, Greg. The orange overspray is still on the floor where I spraypainted a rocket. Mom had a conniption! “Brush paint for you from now on!”
Conductive grease - I don’t like it. IMO it’s a solution looking for a problem. And for me it created problems. Dust and dirt collect in the grease so when you change yr track you have to clean crud out of the joiners. That takes solvent; it’s all a messy inconvenient waste of time. As far as I can tell the grease doesn’t do much good anyway, as I don’t seem to have the problems the grease is supposed to solve, Yucch!
End of rant. Thank you, thank you very much…
Sort of my experience too, John. I was told by others that it would help, and I think it might have for a while. But I think that stuff was designed for indoor use and in Sacramento’s heat it just melted away, or maybe got washed away by our rain and sprinklers.
Now I just use a “little dab” to hold the aluminum foil in place while I tighten up my brass joiners.
Gerry Gray said:
“…will aluminum curve kill the power too much to run track power ? Even if I ran jumpers from the brass straights to each joiner?..”
I have some track I’m still running on track power while I am converting to onboard power (I like the sound of “onboard power” better than “battery” because it sounds more grown-up! and less toylike!). Before I switched to all stainless steel and aluminum, I had some mixed stainless steel and brass. When the locomotive went from stainless steel to brass or from brass to stainless steel there was always a slow-down or speed-up of the train because the electrical conductivity was never the same between the two materials. That was my experience at least.
You might experience some slowing-down or speeding-up going in and out of those curves too, I don’t know.
Dick Friedman said:
I was told by others that it would help, and I think it might have for a while.
John Replies (I can’t seem to get the hang of this new quote system at all - isn’t there supposed to be a cursor down below here somewhere? What a PITA this is turning into…)
Anyway, Dick: that’s what happened to me - when I was starting backyard RRing, a well-intentioned older and experienced guy in the local GR Ass’n advised me to use it. Aside from that he’s a great fellow!
John Passaro said:
Gerry Gray said:
"…will aluminum curve kill the power too much to run track power ? … I had some mixed stainless steel and brass. When the locomotive went from stainless steel to brass or from brass to stainless steel there was always a slow-down or speed-up of the train because the electrical conductivity was never the same between the two materials. That was my experience at least.
…
These observations and questions don’t jive too well with the science behind it all.
Electricity doesn’t know or care whether your track is straight or curved. But that’s probably not what you are talking about… I’m not sure.
Anyway, there shouldn’t be a noticeable drop in speed as soon as you enter one metal from another, as any resistance effect from the rail’s composition will be very gradual, so that’s a weird observation too. As for jumpers, chances are 99% that you won’t need them, or not very many anyway, as long as your track connections are sound. I have always been a at all. I’ve ofter been amazed how long a stretch of track I can lay without any noticeable drop in power.
All the metals under discussion here conduct perfectly well enough for our needs.
Soldering aluminum is out of the question for a home workshopper. Unless you happen to have the specialized gear, that’s pretty much ditto for stainless steel as well.
I think most guys make their track decisions based on cost, realism, strength, and willingness or not to lay their own. Usually the question of adding onboard power to your railroad comes up later, after you’ve run a railroad for awhile, and then it won’t matter even if your rail is made of wood. In the UK, this isn’t so unusual, BTW. They run live steam a lot over there too. In any case you’ll probably only convert one loco at a time, and you may or not decide you want to take it further. In the meantime you’ll still want to have track power available.
All the moreso if you want to have visitors whose locos might run on track power.
You ought really to decide , “OK, what’s most important to me?” Fr’example, in my case when I started it that I wanted to have something up and running ASAP, so I started with a set - actually with four sets - all with 330 brass 330. I wasn’t concerned about realism so much, and I had no plans to do handlaying at my advanced age. I did plenty of that in the past, when life seemed to stretch on forever, thank you.
Then I went over to stainless because at the time it seemed like the new best thing.
Now I know better - I have removed all my SS and gone back to brass because the SS was too new-looking for my old-timey railroad. I use mostly track power, and have no problems with it, possibly because I operate a lot and the track doesn’t get much chance to get dirty. But have a couple of locos with onboard RC as well. I don’t prefer them, by the way, because the batteries run down, and I have RC for the track power as well, and that of course doesn’t run down. It’s all a matter of personal preferences.
I suggest you establish your top priority, whatever that may be for you, and get going in that direction.
Don’t agonize any more; don’t be afraid of making mistakes, and I’d even say don’t worry too much about mixing track materials. The electrolysis, if there’s going to be any at all, will only occur right where the metals actually touch each other - how big a deal is that anyway? You can always make changes to your rail composition and to your your trackplan - especially if like me you forget all about adding ballast - you can sell what track you don’t need anytime - there’s always been a market out there for all the different kinds of track!
By the way, I changed my trackplan fairly often in the early years as my needs changed. First it was roundy-roundies, and the grandchildren liked that. I let them operate the trains, BTW. and we had four trains and a streetcar, all running around their various loops. But as time has passed I’ve become more and more interested in Railroad operations. There is an operators’ group that meets here regularly, and my Garden RR today is point to point. Although things are more established now, I still don’t want ballast.
Nobody around here pays any attention to whether the rail is code 330 or 225 or anything else, and we’re not out to impress anyone with the realism of the whole thing either. We’re all experienced model railroaders, and we all “know better”, but we’re far too busy for all that these days. We’re running trains, delivering freight, and having a ball.
Climb aboard!
Hi Gary,
I have been in the process of gathering rolling stock, track and other material to start a grarden railroad. I have early on decided to go on board battery power and use alluminum track. I now have enough track to get started this spring. The track I have is Lagas code 250, you can bend this by hand to any diamitter you need or want as it comes in6 ft sections. I have not tried track power with this track so I cannot say how it does or dosent work.
I chose battery over track power because I did not want the hassel of wireing and track cleaning.
Good luck with your rr.
Chuck
Chuck Cole said:
…The track I have is Lagas code 250, you can bend this by hand to any diamitter you need or want as it comes in6 ft sections…
Chuck,
My garden RR was a mix of Llagas code 250 and code 215. I agree that you can bend it to any diameter you like, but it will look better if you use a railbender to make a smooth curve.
I had a table top and I drew curves about 6’ long (the rail is 6’ as you noted,) with a pencil and string. The curves were 8’ - 10’ radius as that was my target. [My original aim was to run an Aster Gresley Pacific, which needs 3 metre radius. I never did.] The railbender enabled me to make smooth curves in the rail.
Then I had to thread the rail into the track base sections - which is a royal pain. The two-rail railbenders were not available in those days. I made up little jigs of 1/4" plywood to hold the ties in position - when you push the rail into them, they twist away and grab the rail.
Mark V is not alone in the looks department.
My question is this: does anyone know of a paint you can use on the plastic ties that will not flake off in the weather. It doesn’t matter to me on track that’s under my big porch section of my layout (I use spray paint and pan pastels and matte oil paint etc.) but this summer I plan on extending out into the yard and weather. I left some of my nicely-weathered track out all winter in the weather (track which I intended for protected use areas) and the spray paint in places had flaked off the tires creating a real mess.
So…what paint will stick to plastic ties and hold up outdoors?
p.s. I like Marty’s tape and solvent method of painting the rails and I’m going to use that from now on with the rails. I am presuming that spray paint sticks just fine to rail whereas it doesn’t hold up on plastic.
John Passaro said:
Mark V is not alone in the looks department.
Not so sure about that, after they made me they broke the mold. They determined it was clearly defective!
Around here most of us lost our looks decades ago. Doesn’t matter tho’, because our spouses are mostly half-blind.
John (Le Forestier) I have all Aristo stainless, but I started with some sectional brass mixed in and got the loops up as I swapped out the brass.
I had one place where the locomotive did change speed, and I was going nuts until I found that I had one 12" piece of brass still there.
The speed change/sound was noticeable by me and others… I don’t think it’s the conductivity of the rails from section to section, but the conductivity between the wheels and the rail.
But it was definitely noticeable… just like John P. stated…
Greg
John Passaro said:
p.s. I like Marty’s tape and solvent method of painting the rails and I’m going to use that from now on with the rails. I am presuming that spray paint sticks just fine to rail whereas it doesn’t hold up on plastic.
It’s been 3 or 4 years at least since I used that method to paint my track. The only part of the ties that received paint are the rail clips/spikes. I haven’t noticed any paint flake off. What I have noticed is when the rails move in the tie strips some shiny rail that had been masked by the tie clips sticks out.
The type of paint may matter. Krylon primer is a lacquer and may melt into the plastic some.
Greg Elmassian said:
John (Le Forestier) I have all Aristo stainless, but I started with some sectional brass mixed in and got the loops up as I swapped out the brass.
I had one place where the locomotive did change speed, and I was going nuts until I found that I had one 12" piece of brass still there.
The speed change/sound was noticeable by me and others… I don’t think it’s the conductivity of the rails from section to section, but the conductivity between the wheels and the rail.
But it was definitely noticeable… just like John P. stated…
Greg
I’ve experienced the same. Greg is probably right that its the wheel contact that changes.
Yes. Stainless is the LEAST conductive of the three materials. However, Stainless oxide is MUCH more conductive than brass oxide. Not sure about Aluminum. They always say not to use aluminum if you’re doing track power, but I’m not even sure about that any more.
Mark V said:
John Passaro said:
Mark V is not alone in the looks department.
Not so sure about that, after they made me they broke the mold. They determined it was clearly defective!
My grandmother used to make the sign of the cross and tell me, in Italian, thank God there’s not another one like you, but I think she was talking about my personality. Now the looks are gone too…yikes!
Jon Radder said:
John Passaro said:
p.s. I like Marty’s tape and solvent method of painting the rails and I’m going to use that from now on with the rails. I am presuming that spray paint sticks just fine to rail whereas it doesn’t hold up on plastic.
The type of paint may matter. Krylon primer is a lacquer and may melt into the plastic some.
I believe you hit on the answer. I think if I clean the plastic better and use a solvent-based paint the problem may disappear.
Aluminum is the LEAST conductive rail material (not counting plastice) when oxidized. This can be easily verified on the net. You can take an ohmmeter to anodized aluminum and get no conductivity. Aluminum oxide also seems (by testing) to have the highest coefficient of friction.
Greg