Large Scale Central

Build log for Red Baron Railroad

General Discussion
#101

I try and set my curves at 1/2 bubble, or less, super-elevation, but dead flat will work too. My curved trestle is dead flat. Over the course of the summer my curves will shift a bit, some going level and some getting more super-elevation. But like Greg said, smoothness is the key. When I loose the smoothness, from track settling/shifting, then I get derailments, and then I have to tweak the curve back to smooth.

The thing you should not have is under-elevation, where the outside rail of the curve is lower then the inside rail.

#102

Greg Elmassian said:

better to keep dead level Nicolas.

One reason is to be able to check you track for “cross level” easily by putting a short level crossways on the rails", if you had to test at an angle it could be much tougher to maintain smooth trackwork. You will have transition issues too from level to superelevated.

Another reason is very few G scale locos really do well with crosslevel, their chassis are not sprung in a way that works as well as the prototype even though they may have springs on axles.

New track may take a while to “settle” so give it a while, even a few months. One thing you can do is after laying the track, use a dual rail bender set “lightly”, i.e. to follow the curves without making them larger or smaller.

Rolling the bender over the track will help smooth out curves and take out tension and stress.

Greg

Level it is then. What exactly do you mean by settle? What sort of issues might I see and what sort of changes would the track make during the settling process?

#103

Another question that I am going to likely have, and I know others have asked it on the forums, is how often should I screw in the track? Should I screw in each sectional piece? What type of screws should I use? I do plan to leave a credit card worth of space between each piece to allow for expansion.

#104

So track is somewhat springy, varies from metal to metal, but as you put track up, it might not want to lie flat, one rail might come up a bit, you may have to bend the track a bit to make it fit.

From the time and energy and quality of your design, I suspect these issues will be minimal, but a few heating and cooling cycles will allow the track to “relax” to fit where you put it. I have stainless and it does not “relax” as easily, but again, rolling a dual rail bender around did the trick.

Now for securing the track, the best thing is something that loosely holds the track in place, and I would say about every 3 feet. Try starting with a few ty-raps and just see how stuff moves. Do not cinch them down super tight, leave a little slack. Trying to bolt down every section will be a mistake, you have several coefficients of expansion here and they are not all the same.

On leaving gaps, I forgot are you using rail clamps or joiners?

You need to do like the railroads do, try to lay the track with zero gap on a hot day. If it’s cold, you can try one CC thickness. This expansion and contraction thing is a whole different animal from what you first think. It is definitely not as simple as leaving equal size gaps everywhere and the expansion takes up those gaps evenly, not even close.

I would not worry too much about the gaps right now, and unless it’s cold I’d butt them together with no gap. The track will move a bit from expansion and contraction and you CANNOT stop that gap or no gap. Smaller gaps are better running, but again with the well designed and implemented situation you have, it’s not going to be a big factor.

Greg

#105

Like Greg, I use stainless steel track which is a bit better than brass as to expansion and contraction.
But even when using SS track, one thing I discovered is to avoid a perfectly long straight run of track of about 5 feet or more. It’s beneficial to have a slight curvature over a long run of track. I found that doing this tends to avoid developing notable gaps from opening up between a joined section of track with temperature changes.

-Ted

#106

I float my track on a shallow trench filled with ballast. So things tend to move and settle a bit for me. I am using stainless track, and I do have one section that is probably 10 feet of straight track, or more. it has developed a slight offset at the mid point, where 2 sections are joined together. That could be shifting of the fill it runs on, it could be a reaction to thermal expansion and contraction, or it could just be. Either way it causes me no problems.

I butted my rails up tight when I laid the track originally, and I used the Aristo rail joiners. Since none of my track is secured to any sub track anything, my track is free to move about as the temperature changes. Once the joiners started failing, I started replacing them with rail clamps. Again, I only leave gaps at the joints when I have to. Sometimes I have to, so that I don’t put so much tension on a rail that it lifts up or otherwise becomes rough enough to derail trains. So most of my joints are tight. One switch is installed with plastic rail joiners on the 4 end rails on that end. That gap opens up significantly on a regular basis, showing me that my track is regularly moving around a little bit.

#107

I have almost all USA Trains track except for 3 pieces of 9 foot diameter curves, and the parallel track adapters. I plan to just use the joiners that came with them that screw in. I am not using track power so the track just needs to stay together. It’s all brass.

I would like to secure it in such a way that it might be hard for someone to remove. My house is a corner lot and the side lot is exposed. I would like to deter someone from just up and taking the track. Mind you i figure whatever I would be securing it with, would likely not be that hard to rip of (or cut the ties).

One idea the guys from Split Jaw gave me when I was picking it up was to screw in a piece of wood between the sleepers, that would kind of keep the track in place. I might try that if need be. The entire layout is at least 2 feet off the ground, and some places more. With no ground built up around it i would hate for the track to slip off.

I also worry about derailments. If a train falls significantly off the track, it will take a huge plunge. I may at some point build up something underneath the roadbed temporarily to protect it.

I intend to leave the entire thing without landscaping for a good year so as to see it go through the seasons, and determine what may or may not shift. I figure a year from now, what’s gonna shift (if it does) will have done so by then. I can fix up the areas and then proceed to landscape.

Between now and then, I will be building the shed, and figuring out what subsequent bridges to put in place.

#108

Nick what you could try is stainless steel wire every few feet around a tie but leave a little lose for movement and pretty strong, will not just break. You can get it at harbor freight in a roll.

cheers richard

#109

Don’t put the wood between the ties, unless you use them pretty darn far apart, the issues that you might have would be as the rail expands lengthways, and the wood is trying to restrict that.

What Richard suggested is a great idea. Another guy who lives in the Arizona desert learned he could not repeal the laws of physics, he used a loose loop of wire that allowed a little motion (although since he is in the desert iron wire was ok, no significant rust) and all is well. He started trying to keep stuff bolted down and learned pretty quickly that did not work.

Greg

#110

I used to worry about the expensive track too. Once I had secured it together with those tiny screws it became one big thing that couldn’t easily be picked up. I no longer worry about theft and I have no fences.

More of a worry are trains and cars left outside, but all have stayed at home… I can lock the car barn’s door, but never have.

My track floats, but does not slide around, the only motion it has is expansion and contraction and I have seen a corner move outward by 3/4 inch, but the tangents brought it back when cooler. That was floating on a trestle that I built a tad wider for that effect.

I’d wait until you’ve run some trains and see if there are any slippery sections that need help, I doubt if you’ll need any.

John

#111

John,

You also have those rattle snakes on guard duty! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

#112

I am building a shed specifically for holding all my trains. It will only be big enough to hold the trains (no person). It will have a roof that lifts on a hinge. I will then be putting an extremely heavy duty lock on it and probably a very simple alarm put in a clever place. My next phase after getting the train in is to get that shed built. The sooner I get that shed built, the sooner I can have my goal of instant running of trains in a moments notice.

#113

Good idea, also do something to abate moisture buildup, a small slow circulating fan, and perhaps a light bulb for heat in the winter.

Greg

#114

Don’t forget that a heavy duty lock is virtually worthless if the hinges have easily removable pins or screws. This is one of those “don’t ask me how I know”! (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)

#115

Well, looks like I am 18 days behind on the time lapses.

Today I finished raising up the roadbed for the rain garden section. I am hopefully a few days away from having track on the whole thing for the first time. Enjoy my progress from April 10th. I will process and post the remaining days.

#116

I love your time lapses…and whoever that was in the blue hat doing the weeding has a job at my house any time!!!

#117

That was my mom doing the weeding. She loves to help out when she visits.

#118

Here’s day 7. I continue with PVC post installation. I had to widen my jig to support the 3 tracks.

Looking back now, I wonder if I should have not bothered with the jig. I eventually abandoned it for a faster process. It was supposed to help get the poles in straight but if they hit a rock, as they did near the end of this video, they still end up going in at an angle and its not obvious until you pull the jig off. It was also quite heavy.

I did have more issues though leveling the roadbed (perpendicular to the track) later on, with the poles I had not used the jig on.

#119

Day 8. Digging out holes for PVC posts that won’t go down into the ground. Punctured the PVC drainage pipe’s for my roof while digging. Discovered I had punctured the pipes in earlier installation of PVC posts.

#120

Day 9 - More dirt removal for the PVC drain pipes I damaged. Resuming installing PVC posts and more digging for that too.