the july 2012 MR article, Jim Reising says “…i don’t use rail joiners or solder rails together”. is this technique puzzling to only me? and where can i find a description of how track is laid this way? thanks for any feedback…
Not sure how he’s doing it, but if you use flex track some people will push one of the rails so it sticks out several inches, leaving several inches of empty ties on the other end. Push the other rail in the opposite direction. Do the same thing to another section of flextrack. Join them together by sliding the extended rail of one section into the empty ties of the other section. By staggering the joints it should reduce the kink you get when joining them butt-ended.
Steve S
Unless you’re benchwork is rock solid; sealed wood for subroadbed and benchwork, I think you’re setting yourself up. Wood expands and contracts at different rates than metal track. You don’t have to solder EVERY section of track, just run feeders to each section. Leave a small gap in the rail ends to allow for expansion (depending on when you lay your track. I’ll explain later), but I would DEFINITELY use rail joiners, not to conduct electricity, but, to maintain rail alignment.
Explanation on the “depending on when you lay your track” comment: If your layout is housed in a temperature/humidity controlled environment, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If it’s in an environment that has swings in temperature and/or environment, expansion/contraction will be an issue.
thanks to both you and steve s for the replies…i’m always look for short cuts and thought Jim’s method could be a work-around for track laying…i will stick with the tried and true methods in this case.
I have not reviewed the referenced article. But I am one of those who regularly lays track without rail joiners. So here’s my take:
Rail joiners are generally guaranteed long term failures as both an electrical connection and for holding mechanical alignment unless supplemented in some way. Soldering the rail joiners to the rail and/or glued ballasts are supplements to rail joiners that solve the rail joiner failure problem. We’ll skip the electrical issues in this discussion. Any track that floats in the very slightest starts “working” as trains pass over it. This working gradually loosens the grip of the rail joiner, and the rail joiner eventually allows the track to develop a horizontal and/or vertical kink (slight misalignment). The typical rail joiner is just a poor design to stand up to the angular loads over time. As evidence to support my conclusions (besides my own experience) I cite the common advice to replace old rail joiners with new, and to periodically tighten and crimp rail joiners.
Of course, none of these issues may be experienced if a layout has a short life span, say less than 3 years.
Keep in mind bonded ballast - ballast that is glued in place - locks the track alignment far better than rail joiners, and the track to the roadbed far better than track nails. Ballasted track doesn’t need rail joiners to function well. In this situation, rail joiners can assist with aligning rails and maintaining alignment until the track is ballasted - assumes not too many years before ballasting.
As far as laying track without rail joiners, I have found certain practic
A few additions to the above, from someone whose only squared rail ends are at the points of turnouts or the stub ends of spurs:
- If the track is going to be laid on a curve, pre-bend (at least) the rail ends, so the flex will hold the desired radius without side thrust. (I pre-bend the entire curved section.)
- Knock the sharp corner off the top inside edge of each rail end. That will help flanges past a tiny misalignment that might otherwise cause a derailment.
- DO leave a little play, to allow for seasonal expansion/contraction of the various track/roadbed/subgrade components.
- With no rail joiners, either every length of rail (no matter how short) will have to have a drop, or you will have to solder flexible jumpers around all joints that aren’t meant to be electrical gaps.
- It’s a good idea to put something non-conductive between the rail ends at every designed electrical gap.
Given all of the above, you can avoid using metal and plastic rail joiners - unless, like me, you prefer to have guaranteed mechanical alignment. I have (scale) miles of hidden track, some of it well-nigh inaccessible - so bulletproof tracklaying isn’t just nice, it’s absolutely essential.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Rail joiners are great for holding things together for a short time (till things set up), also as an extra electrical connection (not to be relied on long term). People always are saying cork crumbles, never had that happen, some of mine has to be 15 years old, could it be the brand, I use Midwest.
Thre’s something to be said for positive mechanical means to maintain alignment (I use joiners and solder most joints). I’ve seen a few layouts that don’t employ rail joiners, and they always seem to have more than the usual amount of problems with rail that won’t stay where it’s supposed to, especially on curves. I occasionally will have an electrical or expansion gap (i.e. no joiner) on a curve where necessary in the midst of turnouts, and always spike into wood ties around it so nothing moves sideways.
I agree…I seen to many supped-up up to date layouts that operated worst then a sectional train set layout.
I’ve used rail joiners for 50 years with zero problems…I can show you clubs that uses rail joiners and have flawless operation…
I also use O Scale spikes to hold the track in place.
Solidly anchored track and rail, whether flex track or hand laid, can work well without rail joiners. But joiners will give an extra level of protection against mis-alignments at the joints, especially in curved track, in the longer term. Kind of like the old “belt AND suspenders” mentality to keep your pants up, where only one is necessary… My own inclination has always been to use joiners. They can also provide a second path for power supply, helping spread the load between several feeders.
John
John,I agree a good tight rail joiner will help the flow of electricity just like I find a good tight belt is the safest way from keeping my Levis or Levi shorts from taking a unauthorized Southbound trip…
My layout is modular and I don’t use rail joiners were they butt up against each other. There is roughly a 1 to 2 millimeter gap between the rails. You don’t need to use joiners if you take the time to lay your track properly and your layout is not exposed to drastic humidity and temperature changes. I do solder my track on curves and use joiners on track on each module. For the members here that have seen my old clubs layout it is built the same way.
If you think about it you don’t need to really use joiners if you put a little effort into laying track correctly the first time. As long as each section of track has feeder wires you wouldn’t have any issues with power.
I also have used joiners forever, leaving a very tiny gap between rail ends, and while I wouldn’t want to do it myself, if no joiners do work for the gentleman who started this, then fine for him. I suspect that differences in climate, humidity, and all sorts of things come into play, which is why I use the method that has worked for me since I started in HO in 1960, and that is joiners.
Bob
I have been using joiners and soldering every joint for forty years and never had any issues. I also have painted all the track and can’t find the joiners and/or drops most of the time even if I’m looking for them!
Like Jay, I use joiners and solder all of them, although I use only a single set of wires to power the entire layout. There are no issues with misaligned track or loss of power to the trains.
Wayne
Think about how the prototype does it. Can you imagine (in the days before welded rail) if they didn’t use rail plates?
I am sort of in agreement in principle with the idea that you don’t necessarily have to use joiners. It depends on your methods for laying track. If you use sectional, snap, and other pre-curved and bedded track, you could theoretically just lay them carefully, non-snapped by removing those mechanics and placing the rail ends close together, and operating that way. Lots of soldering of feeders, though, and the trick would be to keep all those ends aligned for a long time. You’d want very stable sub-roadbed.
Flex is more tricky. Tangent tracks are a breeze, ballast it, add feeders first, and you have a good system. However, those last two inches on each end of a length of flex that are curved will haunt you. You will have to do what Chuck Beckman and I do, at his suggestion, and that is to physically force each length of flex to curve permanently, including figuring out how to make the very ends curve permanently. It is tricky because you must initially make the rails and ties conform to an exaggeratedly tight bend and hold it there for a bit to let the metal adopt the strain. Those spike head details are not going to take much abuse, so it must be done carefully, and it gets worse as you impose a tighter radius on the whole. The ends must be very carefully handled or the spike heads will give and you have a ruined end.
That is the way I gap out on the main and in yards and such. Where I want one, I pre-bend to get the length of flex to lay more or less already conforming to the radius I want, space the gaps to about 1/16th, set the rails with a thin layer of acrylic latex caulk, usuall DAP ‘clear’ with silicone, and then ballast them to keep them permanently fixed and aligned. Works like a hot darn.
However, to keep my cutting, stripping, and soldering of feeders to a minimum, I use joiners mostly as a hand linking point to the electricity for the two lengths they join. I use one feeder