So, as I am building my latest layout, I am wondering how good can HO track be. By that I mean, is a little shimmy through a turn-out OK? Is a little bump on track joint acceptable. I have about 120 fee of mainline run on an around the walls, double-tracked layout. I use Atlas code 83 flex track with soldered rail-joiners on cork roadbed with Atlas #6 turnouts on the mains. Nothing is less than a 30 degree radius. In the course of their journey around the room a train crosses through 10 or 12 turnouts depending on which track it is on. I can run trains for hours and nothing derails or uncouples. But should I be concerned enough to get out those little shakes and shimmies? What does “bullet-proof track” really mean?
“Bullet proof track” means what you suggested - - - No shakes or shimmies, no bumps or humps, no vertical or horizontal mismatches between rail sections. The best test, of course, is the presence or absence of derailments and unintended uncouplings.
Before you conclude that your track is bullet proof, run your biggest steamers and 6-axle diesels around the layout at top speed. Then, add the freight cars and passenger cars and run those at top speed too. If you come away with no derailments, you have bullet proof track.
If you can run a train of above average length backwards at a high rate of speed with no derailments then you have done a great job. If after a couple of heating and cooling cycles in a few years try it again. And if you get no derailments then you have done a FANTASTIC job.
How good can track be? Good enough that no train will ever derail unless there is some mechanical failure of the rolling stock.
To test my newly-laid trackwork, I have a designated derailment checker - a train of stiff, long wheeelbase 4-wheel cars, cars with pizza cutter and rhomboidal (!!) flanges and other touchy features, pulled (or pushed) by 2-8-2 D50380, which also has problems. If that string of mechanical misfits can run in both forward and reverse in both directions over a freshly-laid section without derailing, nothing else ever will.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on trackwork as bulletproof as I can make it)
I use the fingernail test on my track. (I also solder all of my rail joiners.)
That is, run a fingernail on the track at the top inside edge. If it doesn’t snag on any joints, you are ready to go. You don’t want any joints that are not level or in line. The train running backwards at full speed is a good test after that.
Also make sure all of your wheels are in gauge according to an NMRA gauge. Check all of your turnouts to make sure they are in gauge too. I have had to correct a few problems on a few turnouts to make them conform to the gauge. And I have had to file some of the frog points so that wheels would not catch on them.
Attention to detail is key when laying track, particularly on turnouts and all joints.
Why make model railroad track so unrealistic that there are no bumps or dips? Never in all my years on the railroads have I seen track without bumps and humps- and that includes my time with high speed surfacing on the NE corridor 135mph track. Having a bit of a wobble in model track is perfectly realistic and quite desirable for realism, as is the occasional derailment and noise of wheels banging on the rails and track groaning under loads. What you really want to strive for is to minimise your model tracking problems, it is impossible to eliminate them completely.
T-Jack makes an excellent point. So I guess I must have prototypical track after all. With so many hills, bumps, valleys and wavy track on my layout.
Everything runs ok except for when I recently got a Challenger, oh boy that sucker didn’t like a few parts of my trackwork. But not to worry, I was able to rework it enough to keep her on the rails now! [8D]
Real trains have working suspensions on the trucks to account for any track irregularities. They can get away with running on rougher track.
If you really want to see how good it can get, take a look at the Proto 87 people (or P:48 in O scale). They take anal retentive to a whole other level but the results can be spectacular.
…And that is the way the real railroads approach the idea of trackwork. It’s done just enough to enable safe transportation of goods without derailments and yes, even portions of the real thing are redone from time to time when it becomes a detriment to operations or if certain equipment can’t negotiate the curves or switches. I never understood the obsession with model railroaders in insisting that only geometricaly perfect track is somehow a realistic measure of success when the clear evidence of the prototype shows that to not be the case at all- even on passanger metro systems the track is far from perfection (otherwise AMTRAK would not have millions of dollars invested in high speed surfacing equipment). It is possible to build reliable and realistic model trackwork with a few bumps and sways, the benchmark of good track should not be absolute perfection but instead it is the reliabilty of operation.
If only I could get “real track sounds”, now that would be a happy day! Imagine what realism would be had by hearing the sounds of squealing wheel bearings, earth shaking diesels, banging flat spoted wheels and screeching flanges on curves! Throw in the hammering of the rails against loose tie plates and the clanging of couplers slamming in the pockets as the train shimmys it’s way through a switch and then you just might get near to something like the real thing. Quiet track, phooey, what a myth…
I am very happy with my track work. Derailments are a rare event for me. To those suggesting running trains forward and in reverse at full speed, my questions are, when testing, how fast is full speed in reverse? How fast is considered full speed in forward? I rarely run faster than 40MPH going forward and even when I go faster things go smoothly.
I doubt the real RRs push trains in reverse at speeds that come close to what they do going forward. Surely the physics are different when doing so. Pushing a train backwards into a grade, going around a curve or through a series of turnouts, must have different tolerances than when going forward.
So before some newbe piles up, or sends his new stuff to the floor trying to achieve warp speed in reverse, maybe we should suggest a speed for forward and reverse as an acceptable target to aim for.
Can someone please inform us as to what the speed limits are for pushing a fifty car freight in reverse in the real world are?
This is a short mini-cam video of my layout, heading to my version of Guilford’s infamous Newlywed Bakery spur, with the mud-pit under the bridge. Early days on the new layout.
UP updated about 30 miles of track in the Houston area earlier this year to all concrete and it is so perfect you’d have thought that Gulliver was a model railroader and laid it all with a straight edge and a level. It almost doesn’t look real it is so perfect. This is obviously the exception to the rule though.
I agree that perfect trackwork is unprototypical, although most photography – especially video – by compressing depth of field, makes things look worse than they really are.
It’s also important that none of your trackwork results in unacceptable operating issues – derailments or uncouplings. At the speeds you want to run things, not at full throttle (unless you’re modeling modern high-speed ops, that is).
I routinely warn operators on my layout – Speed limit through the yard is 10 mph. Forward, the trackwork will handle much faster, but backwards, going faster than that often results in derailments. Am I likely to fix this issue? No, because that’s how I want my RR operated! Newcomers who shut down operations while the wreck train comes out and rerails them don’t make that mistake twice.
So, my answer is, if things run on your tracks the way you want them to, your track work is good enough. The risk comes with expansion: if all you operate right now are 40’ freight cars, short steam, and 4 axle diesels, be aware that the beautiful 6 axle diesel, 80’ passenger car, or Big Boy you just purchased might not like your track so well.
Of course, then you can always do what the real railroads do and upgrade your track.
Give it a minute and it will change. I imagine by spring it will need surfacing due to the winter temp changes followed by a rainy spring. In a little while the concrete ties will crack, some will do it down the middle and need to be replaced and subsidence will begin to show here and there. Track is only “perfect” once, so UP should enjoy it while it lasts…
