I recently got back from a train show, and I got about 15 Atlas and Life-Like switches, along with a bunch of brass track for $10. Everything is about 15-20 years old, and a bit dirty with a whitish-brown-gray kind of dust. I am a newbie to this kind of railroading, and I would like to get into HO.
My first question is this: Would it be alright if I soldered the ends of a bachmann HO transformer’s wires to the track? One wire on each track? I am planning on cutting off the black interfacing thing and soldering the wires right to the track.
The switches I bought are missing the 5 wire cables, and I need new ones. Any tips on where to get them?
I assume you mean the atlas 5 wire cables? If so you can get them from Atlas. As for the wiring, The best thing to do is run two 14-16 guage wires (referred to as a bus) parrallel to the tracks and solder smaller wires from the tracks to the bus every 3-6 feet. Then solder the 2 wires from the power pack onto the bus. This will ensure that you dont lose power all the way around. If you dont use a bus, the train will end up slowing down on the side opposite the power supply.
And most important, [#welcome] to the forums and have fun!
you should not mix the brass track with nickelsilver track. when you put two dissimilar metals together it will cause oxidation and corrosion at the joints. definatly solder the wires to the rail at several places around the layout. what switches use 5 wire cables? 3 wires should do it, one for normal, one for reverse and one for common.
You can also use 4 wire telephone cable from Radio Shack to comtrol your turnouts. You need a pair of wires from the power pack’s AC terminals to the switches, then just three wires from the switch to the turnout.
I have some old brass track, and it’s a pain to solder. I’m pretty sure the old oxidation akes the solder not want to stick. A Bright Boy track cleaning eraser helps but doesn’t really get into the nooks and crannies of the joiner well enough to get it clean. Just being patient and keeping at it till it welds is the only thing that has worked for me so far.
One more thing, you may have to tune those old turnouts to avoid derailments. Sometimes the point rails work loose and the rivets need tapped with a hammer and small nailset to tighten them up. Many people say not to fix turnouts to the roadbed, but that’s the only way I’ve been able to get the oplder ones to keep the trains on the track. Set it up, run your trains through from all directions and keep track of which directions cause the most trouble.
Then get up real close, with maybe two coupled cars, lots of light, even a headlamp is helpful, and one loose truck (two axle set) and start trying to figure out what the problem is. One of the point rails may have a bit of sag to it. One of the long rails may have an arch or curve to it, rocking the cars sideways right when a wheel passes over the deep frogs.
By pulling the lead car using your hand through the turnout, the following couplked car will be subject to the same conditions it is when your loco is pulling a string of cars and you can get a very close look at exactly what is happening.
Once you’re sure what is wrong, some well placed judicious nails and maybe a small wooden shim, from paper thin to maybe a sixteenth inch thick, should clear it up.
One combination that’s basically impossible to fix is old wheels and old Atlas turnouts. The flanges on the very old wheelsets project further from the wheel, and often get crooked when passing over the frog. Short of micro-surgery with some Bondo putty or replacing the wheels, I don’t know of a fix for this.
Is the tie strip plastic or fiber. If fiber (thin almost like pressed carboard) be advised that you can not use any water based paint or ballast cement on the fiber as it wil warp and pull the rails out of gauge. Brass is no longer a good pick for rail. The oxide is a insulator and will give problems. Look into using nickle silver track and consider the $10 you spent a lesson learned.
Eh, thought is was a deal…
I guess I’ll have to shell out the money for flex track.
Sorry about the brass track.
Seriously, the reason you got a “good deal” on brass track is that it’s a collectors’ item. In our neighborhood, they collect whatever is out by the curb on Thursdays. Brass tarnishes easily, and is very hard to keep clean. It’s old. I can guarantee that. You want nickel-silver. You can play with brass track track plans, or use it for a test track, or chop off the ties and use the rail for gondola loads.
The switches, or turnouts, have 3 terminals. Atlas supplies a short piece of 5-conductor ribbon cable, but they mean for you to split the yellow/blue pair off from the red-black-green trio. I use 4-conductor (2-pair) phone wire from Home Depot (much cheaper than Radio Shack) to wire my turnouts. I don’t know what’s become of all those short pieces of Atlas cable. They wouldn’t reach much from my control panel, anyway.
But - here’s the silver lining. (Not quite a nickel-silver lining, but almost as good.) You can use the old switch motors from old Atlas Snap-switches on new nickel-silver Atlas Snap-switches. So, you can by cheaper, manual, non-electrified switches and use the old switch motors on them. If you got 3 or more working switch motors in that batch of brass, then you’re already money ahead. I did this with switch motors that are - and I kid you not, over 50 years old. I am powering some of my turnouts with switch machines that first saw action in the Eisenhower administration. They made them well back then.
lol…(muffled profanities). By switch motors, do you mean the boxes on the side of the switches? I am new to HO railroading, I am used to big clunking lionels. How do you remove and attack them to manuals? Oh, and the switches are also brass. Are there any washes I can put the track through? I did a price check on flex track and switches for my 4 x 8 layout inspired by the Gold Hill Central. It totals around $100, which I can’t afford due to the fact that I’m 15.
Yeah, the switch motors are the boxes on the side. You can remove the really old ones by taking out the two screws next to the track. Underneath, there are a pair of matching nuts that you’ll want to salvage, too. They still fit into the nickel-silver ones, although the newer Atlas models use a snap-fit rather than screws to hold them together. The old machines do NOT fit in the Atlas custom-line turnouts, only the snap-track models.
Price your track at someplace like http://www.discounttrainsonline.com or other online retailer. Full price is pretty steep, and you can do a lot better on track than what they charge in the Atlas book.
Or, buy yourself a Bright-Boy track cleaner for a few bucks. At 15, you can learn a lot from building with anything you’ve got. When I was 15, everyone used brass track, and I loved my layout. I’ve still got everything from it but the benchwork and homosote, and I’m slowly building a “real” layout. Realistically, you’re going to be in college before you get dissatisfied with your brass track, and after that, you’ll marry a super-model and get a 7-figure job in high-tech, so you can afford nickel-silver for your next layout.
Enjoy what you’ve got. It’s OK for now. The important thing is to get some trains running, even on brass if you have to.
There are two problems with brass track.
The first is appearance, you can eventually weather the track to improve that.
The other problem is that brass oxidizes and the oxide formed does not conduct electricity. The solution is to remove the oxide - you can use a bright boy, various liquids like Rail Zip or No Ox, or a wire brush in a Dremel moto tool (or other motor tool).
My suggestion for using brass track is to clean the tops with bright boy and at the ends of each piece using the wire brush in the moto tool - clean the webbing, the under side and the ends - they should be shiney. Lay the track using rail joiners (get some new ones) then solder them together on your layout… If you don’t have the moto tool use an old toothbrush with a liquid such as Rail Zip. Solder your wires to the sides of the track - again clean the place where you are soldering.
You’ll still need to clean the top of the rails with a bright boy on a regular basis, but on a 4x8 layout this should not take too long.
Good luck, my first layout (many years ago) used brass track and I was able to get it to work. When you can afford it, move up to nickel silver.
Paul
Thank you guys for your help, I have started dremeling the track ends. This is going to take a while. Fortunately, the guy also threw in a roundtable, a bridge (the low kind, not a girder, it’s kind of like a box), insulators, a track run stone, and a whole mess of track nails. I am also getting an airnursh for christmas, so I should be set (with full coffers, I might add!) to start building around the begining of january.