getting power to the rails

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

What’s the common method for getting power to the rails? Solder the wires to joiners?

Thanks.

2

Some do, some solder the feeders to the bottoms of the rails or even to the tops of the feet…or even to the inside web vertical surface. Whatever you can live with in terms of ease of application and how it will look once done.

Joiners are notorious for letting us down. It may be over here, or over there, but one goes, and then another. It is often dirt or simple corrosion that inhibits the good contact electrically, but it can also be glues that spill and get sprayed over the joiner. It can also be poorly surfaced and supported roadbed; the joiners can only hold so much, and if the tracks they are aligning are allowed to flex too much as engines pass over the joins, the joiners gradually splay and weaken.

So, if you are going to solder fine 22 gauge wires to the joiners (Atlas sells them done up that way…), do, absolutely, also take the time to solder those joiners to their mated rails. Otherwise, your joiners will positively get power, but you’ll end up with the iffy contact over time to the rails.

It is a good idea to run heavier wire for a few feet in each direction, parallel to your track plan’s major axis. This gets power without voltage loss out to the ends of your layout. We are talking 14-16 gauge wire, but keep the 16 gauge run to 10 feet or less if you can help it. Then, break the insulation here and there and feed the rails above this ‘bus’ with thinner feeder wires.

-Crandell

3

Hi!

May I add to Selector’s words…

Soldering directly to the rails is a much desired skill to develop. I personally prefer to solder to the outside web of each rail, while some more skillful (patient too) folks solder carefully to the inside web. This pretty much hides the wiring from the viewer, but is more difficult and demanding to get it right. I find that a little weathering of the outside rail web (and ballast) pretty well covers up the wire and connection.

Then there are those that solder to the underside of the rail - but I just never understood how they could do that - assuring that the hole in the roadbed/benchwork is directly under the soldered area.

I’ve never been a fan of soldering to the rail joiners. I guess my main concern is twofold. First, if you solder wire to the joiner, and subsequently solder the joiner to the rail, you may well mess up the wire connection (from the heat transfer). Secondly, over time, joiners may work loose and contribute towards bad connections.

In any case, developing your soldering skills will help you greatly in your model railroading and other endeavors, so have at it!

Mobilman44

4

Its really quite easy. You drill the hole, mark where the rail will go over the hole and then solder the wire to the bottom of the rail. Every switch here has more or less 5 feeders soldered to the bottoms of the rails. One to the frog, one to each stock rail and one to each point rail.

5

Yes, I can understand how that would work, especially for track sections that are in a very set place - like turnouts and tangent tracks, but I suspect is more difficult for curved trackages using flex track. Better put, you better get that hole/mark right because there just isn’t a lot of wiggle room. Hey, if you are good at it, that’s great!!!

ENJOY!

Mobilman44

6

I solder to the outside of the rail where ever its convenient to bring up the feeders. To get a good joint clean the rail with a little sandpaper or file and make sure the feeder is freshly stripped. Bend a 90deg. in the feeder and then another little bend sideways so the feeder lays tightly along the web without holding it there.I like to put a dab of nocorrode paste flux on the joint then making sure your hot soldering iron touches both the feeder and the rail simultaneously and touch the solder to the feeder wire. Solder should flow into the joint. Quickly remove the soldering iron before the ties are melted. Some guys like to solder a feeder between every pair of rail joints, I seem to get away with feeders every 4 feet or so. Definitly you need to have feeders on each block. All this takes just a couple seconds once the feeder is lying along the web of the rail. BILL

7

Using exactly the method Bill described, I solder one feeder somewhere near the center of the electrical section. Then I solder a jumper around each uninsulated rail joiner until I reach the insulating gap. I don’t solder the joiners and I don’t try to have an over-abundance of drops.

On the trackage under my (virtual) catenary I leave the jumpers fully visible, to simulate the bonding connection around each rail joiner. Where the catenary isn’t, I route the jumper down below the subgrade, then back up an inch farther along.

My longest electrical section is about eighteen feet - six lengths of flex track. Having only a single feeder makes troubleshooting short/open circuits a lot simpler.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

8

I solder only to the outside web with a 22g solid wire, make a tight 90 and hit the web with an ample amount of flu on a micro brush. Drill a very small hole just large enough for the wire in between the ties. I have found that if you give the feeder wire an inward bend it helps hold the wire tight to the web. With a hot iron and very thin solder I just touch the top of the rail while holding the solder to the feeder and as soon as it starts to flow I remove the iron. 99 times out of 100 I get a perfect solder joint but have melted a tie or two, but the fix for that is just hit the rail with the iron again the with a small flat blade screw driver push the curled tie back down. I have had to resort to cutting the melted outer piece of the tie with an exacto knife and gluing in a replacement piece. Once you paint and weather the rails and add the ballast the little bit f the feeder wire is not even noticeable. Yes some guys hide the wire on the inside web but for me it’s not worth the trouble because thats where the wheel flange rides and if your off a little bit with the solder you are going to have derailment problems.

I think the guys who solder to the bottom of the rail have a great idea but I glue down all my track work first before doing any soldering so for me their system won’t work.

If you have or can get your hands on a copy of Realistic Reliable Track, Andy Sperandeo shows you how he actually bends a piece of 22g wire to resemble a track spike and drills a hole though the tie and feeds in down through the hole solders it to the track and then the feeder wire to it. I tried it once with out much success but I definitely want to practice it a few more times. It has to be the coolest way I’ve ever seen it done.

9

Thanks for all the replies!

Do you guys use standard soldering guns for this? It seems to me it would be almost impossible to do this w/ a standard soldering gun without melting ties, unless it just takes practice…

10

I know that a lot of people use a soldering gun, and I’m sure I’ll get lots of reasons why they prefer them, but the thought of using a 150 watt gun on rail makes me shudder. Use a 40 watt (or thereabouts) iron with a 1/8" chisel tip. Here’s the secrets to soldering to rail. 1) Clean the rail. Use a small wire brush and/or alcohol. Dirt doesn’t solder well and there may be mold release on the rail. 2) Apply a little soldering paste to the rail. 3) Make sure the iron is hot. A warm iron applied for a long time in an effort to melt the solder will do more damage than a hot iron applied for a brief time. 4) Clean the iron tip. If the iron holder doesn’t have a wet sponge to clean it on, wipe it in a folded cotton cloth. 5) Wet the iron tip. Apply a little bit of solder to the cleaned tip. A wet tip transfers heat better than a dry one. 6) Apply the iron to the paste on the rail. It will immediately bubble. Apply a little bit of solder to the rail beside the iron tip. The trick is to have the rail melt the solder, not the iron. 7) Tin the end of the feeder wire. Heat it with the iron and coat it with solder. Bend the end of the wire at right angles for about 1/8" before tinning it. 8) Place the bent tinned end of the wire against the solder you previously applied to the rail. Hold it there with a toothpick if necessary. 9) Briefly touch the iron to the wire where it is touching the rail. The solder on the wire and the solder on the rail should instantly melt. Remove the iron immediately and let the solder solidify without moving the wire.

Practice with a scrap piece of track and some wire. It’s not hard to get a good bond to the rail without melting ties. I have an N scale layout and I rarely melt a tie. I’ve used

11

On my DC-powered layout, I ran a pair of wires from the power source to the nearby track, then soldered all of the rail joiners together. Layout room temperature is fairly constant, so I’ve had no issues with expansion or contraction. I operate the entire layout as a single block, although there are passing sidings and yard tracks that can be isolated: for these, I cut a gap in the rails, as required, then drop a feeder wire from the “live” track, run it through an ON/OFF switch, then to the isolated rail.

I like to keep the wiring as simple as possible, but it’s obvious that DCC is a little fussier in its power requirements, and, if you’re using it, it’s probably best to follow the suggestions mentioned and install feeders as necessary.

Wayne

12

What gauge of wire should be soldered to the rails (for N scale)?

Thanks again!

13

Yet another followup question:

Soldering wire to the side of the rail seems to be a pain in the arse. If I were to instead solder the feeders to joiners and then solder the joiner to each rail, would that make a dependable electrical connection? Or are joiners unreliable even if soldered?

Thanks.

14

Soldered joiners are extremely reliable (that’s why I used them), but if you’re having trouble soldering wires to the rail, you’ll not likely have any better luck soldering the rail joiners.

To solder the wires to the rail, use #22 solid wire (not stranded) and follow the steps as set out by reklein earlier. To make it even easier, first tin the stripped end of the wire, and use a hot iron when soldering to the rail.

Wayne

15

D. Wayne & DEHusman have the right idea. I hand lay my track and use more or less the techniques described by these two guys. It makes for reliable running trains and looks good, too!

Anthracite hauling in N.E. Pennsylvania.

16

Note that nickel-silver track is not an especially great conductor, certainly not in the same league as copper wires. With the smaller rails comprising N scale trackage, for example, you would want feeders at several locations because if you operate in DCC, you will need the best signal to noise ratio you can buy and engineer. Operating a substantial amount of trackage with a single feeder is practically begging for problems if you have any expectations of operating now or in the future using DCC.

-Crandell

17

With no experience with DCC (and no interest in it for my own operations) [;)] must defer to those who are more familiar with it. For my DC-powered layout, though, a single pair of feeder wires from the power pack to the track, a distance of two feet or so, seems to be more than adequate for the job. I have about 185’ of mainline in service, with another 65’ to construct and have had absolutely no issues with power shortages as the distance from the source increases. I’ve operated more than a dozen locos at a time with no apparent ill-effects, using a MRC Controlmaster-20 and a walk-round throttle (MRC or PWM) on a 25’ telephone-type cable.

If you’re unable to solder your rail joiners together due to expansion/contraction issues, then by all means use jumper wires around all unsoldered rail joints or add feeders from an underlayout bus wire to all distinct rail sections. While this appears to be mandatory practice for DCC, it is also necessary for reliable operation with DC, too.

Wayne

18

Going back to the earlier question on soldering guns, the important things are:

  • The hot tip, iron or gun, needs enough mass to transfer solder-melting heat without cooling unduly. My 325 watt hand cannon has a chisel point about 6mm wide and equally thick. My 20 watt electronic assembler’s special has a needle point on a copper cylinder about the size of one leg of the gun’s tip connection.

  • It really doesn’t make much difference whether that massive copper is on the working end of a gun or a standard iron - or even on one of those ancient, “Heat 'em in a charcoal fire,” irons from about a century ago.

  • The tip has to be heated to solder-melting temperature before touching it to the rail. With a clean, fluxed rail and pre-tinned wire it only takes 1>2 seconds to liquify the solder and make a good joint.

  • The only place where a gun is NOT recommended is electronic soldering. The magnetic field that transfers power from the 120VAC primary coil to the tip can do a number on integrated circuits.

No matter what tool you use, the keys are a clean, fluxed metal to metal joint that doesn’t move until the solder solidifies. The nice, shiny solder joint that results is electrically and mechanically sound and will last for decades.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

19

I’'ve done it just about every which way. The wrong way and the right way. I’ve finally settled on a method which gives me both good electrical contact with the rails and a neat joint. First of all, I only wire and solder every other joint. That is all that is necessary to insure every piece of rail has a direct contact with a feeder wire and leaving every other rail unsoldered will allow for expansion. I’m speaking of flex track because turnouts are a different animal. I first solder the feeder to the bottoms of the rails as demonstrated in the book How to Build Realistic Reliable Track. After fitting the rails together with the soldered joiners, I apply just enough solder to the outside of the rails to insure that both sections have a solid electrical contact to the joiner. This also gives a good strong joint. I find it is usually easier to make all these connections before the rail is laid. It is especially helpful when laying curves this way because the curved joint will be a strong, kink free one. Once the rail is test fitted in place, the inside rail of the curve will be cut to length. I always want my curved joints to be soldered so if necessary, I will solder two consecutive joints to make that happen.

20

Hi from Belgium,

I am modeling in Nscale and as You know electrical continuity is very important.

Here is the way I do for my Maclau River before and when using DCC.

First put feeders on all piece of track- flex or turnouts.

I solder the feeder under the rail because of it’s small size (code 55) and drill the hole after the rail is set in place.

I do the same with turnouts and the frog.

It’s take a bit of time to first solder the wire and drill the hole but I obtain a invisible electrical join the track.

In some place I use PC ties drilled and wired by soldering the wire like a PC board.

Bus wire are a 12 AWG for DCC by Lenz.

Happy new Year

Marc