For those of you that do not lay your own track…
How are you attaching guard rails to your tie strips? I keep looking at a couple of my bridges both metal and wood thinking that is the missing element.
I keep hoping someone will market a tie strip with provisions for four rails…however I know it would be a vary limited market.
(I have no intent to hand lay the track on my bridges)
John.
John Miller said:
(I have no intent to hand lay the track on my bridges) John.
That’s what I said, but these guys talked me into it. It wasn’t that hard. But I still haven’t added the guard rails. I’m waiting for a Cease and Desist order from Fred.
(http://lsc.cvsry.com/Post2/E-Escap-e_34.JPG)
I’m mostly Narrow Gauge so no tie plates.
I always thought it would be neat to make the guard rails out of plastic track. Why waste the brass? I wonder if you could make the guard rails on your bench and maybe solder the pointed ends together then bring the completed piece to your bridge where you could either glue it? or tack it down or use thin wire to attach it to the plastic ties?
just a thought
Todd Haskins said:
I always thought it would be neat to make the guard rails out of plastic track. Why waste the brass? I wonder if you could make the guard rails on your bench and maybe solder the pointed ends together then bring the completed piece to your bridge where you could either glue it? or tack it down or use thin wire to attach it to the plastic ties?
just a thought
You want to solder the plastic together… or did I misread something? 
My track is made up of code 332 rail, on plastic ties, so using code 215 for guard rails looks good for my purposes. With code 250 rail, you could use code 215, but to get smaller rail for guard rails might be a big problem, unless you tried some O scale rail.
I used Mico Engineering spikes to fasten the guard rails to the ties. My bridges all have Garden Metal bridge ties (Plastic). I simply drill holes in the plastic ties, using a drill of a size that the spikes are tight in, in a pin vice. There is no problem bending the ends of the rails…don’t forget that the guard rails usually run at least part of a car length past the ends of the bridge. I don’t attempt to spike every tie…I think I spiked every sixth tie, if I remember correctly. All the guard rails have been in place for more than 5 years, without any problems.
I hope that this will help…
Fred
BTW…The rail I used was aluminium…if you don’t like the colour of the rail, just paint it rust colour before you lay it…
Thanks Paul, for posting the pictures…
Fred would LOVE that picture.
Trains Li has plastic rail but I am not sure how well that would hold up in the heat. Since I run 332, I suppose I could use 250. I still think the tie strip idea is a good one, however cost prohibitive.
Paul Norton said:
that looks great. Takes the bridge to the next level.
The plastic rail from train-Li holds up quite well in extreme heat. Just as info most major RR have removed all guard rails as it has been proven they are not that reliable to prevent destruction of a bridge should a car derail. just something else to maintain. Later RJD
John;
That is on our railroad…the IPP&W…
Fred
R.J. DeBerg said:
The plastic rail from train-Li holds up quite well in extreme heat. Just as info most major RR have removed all guard rails as it has been proven they are not that reliable to prevent destruction of a bridge should a car derail. just something else to maintain. Later RJD
Agreed RJ, I’ve been testing some Train Li Plastic track out side and it seems to hold up well
after a year and a half.
I came up with this idea years ago when I had a problem (I think it was a Bachmann 4-4-0 that kept derailing on this spot).
The track is LGB Brass which is fairly soft and easy to drill. I frequently use Aristo Tap and Drill sets to attach power leads to the sides (web) of Aristo & LGB Brass track (it won’t work with stainless steel track).
First I curved the inside rail to match the outer rail and then I notched the outer side of the base of the new rail to get it close to the outer rail and then I used the Aristo Tap & Drill set to drill up through the plastic tie into the base of the new rail and then tapped the new hole making it possible to screw Aristo tie screws into the LGB brass track.
In effect I used the same method of attaching the new rail to the LGB tie as Aristo has always used to attach their rails to their ties.
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/jerry_mccolgan/crawl_space/Track%20Guide1a.jpg)
It worked for me.
Jerry
