replacing ties at ends of flex track

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

So what are some methods used to trim ties to fill the gap at the ends when joining flex track? Nothing I have ever done is too convincing,

2

I place there some wooden ties, or PC board ties.

Wolfgang

3

For soldered joints I cut the joiner in half, that pretty much makes the problem go away - for HO and N cutting them to a third or a quarter should work. Otherwise I stick a wooden tie underneath, sanded to the correct thickness.

Enjoy

Paul

4

I just trim the ties that I removed, sand the BACK to fit under the joiner and glue in place. Properly ballasted it is not noticeable.

5

I don’t have to fill the gap because I lay flextrack so that there aren’t gaps in the ties. I don’t solder the joints unless they are on a curve either.

curve joint - soldered (one tiny spot of solder is visible).

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straight joint - not soldered
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There are many threads out there on this forum about how to lay flex track carefully and neatly.

6

TZ:

Have you ever said “That’s so simple. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”?

In order to stop kinking in the middle of a curve between two pieces of flex, I have been placing one section of snap track. It never occurred to me to stagger the joint so that both rails didn’t join at the same place. [D)]

7

I use N scale joiners on HO rail. Takes a bit to get them on but I hate the look of the big HO joiners. Remove a couple ties from the area where I will be soldering. Then sand those ties down so they slide under the soldered joint.

8

TZ -

This has probably been answered somewhere, but how do you get the joints staggered, even on the straight track? I guess I have never seen that, it would definitely help the integrity of the trackwork.

FT

9

I don’t remove and replace ties. I figure out where the joiners will end up, slide the rail out of the way and trim the tie or two affected with a #11 hobby knife blade.

For those types of flex where only one rail slides, I carefully cut away the top of the end tie only - and only enough to clear the joiner.

Three things I ALWAYS do:

  1. Stagger the joints. Unlike my prototype, I avoid having joints directly opposite each other. Since I hand-lay specialwork, I don’t have two rail joiners an inch ahead of the points.
  2. Batter the rail ends. One swipe of a file, to eliminate the sharp corner on the top inside of each railhead, does wonders for keeping flanges (even pizza-cutter flanges) from climbing over the rail at a rail joint. Don’t remove a lot of metal - about .01 inch at the rail end, tapering five times that along the rail length, is plenty.
  3. Pre-curve flex prior to laying. Eliminating side thrust on whatever anchors the flex to the roadbed, whether track nails or latex caulk, will eliminate any temptation for the flex to creep sideways out of proper alignment.

Happy tracklaying, and future trouble-free operation.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

10

I re-use the ties that I’ve removed. I sand the tops of the ties to get rid of the little projections that hold the rail. I fasten a piece of sandpaper face up on my workbench and rub the ties back and forth across it, face down. Then I put a dab of white glue between the rails where I want the ties to go and slide them in under the rails. I model in N but no reason why this method won’t work in HO. I try to get the same spacing as the rest of the ties, but if I don’t, well, the real railroads don’t always have perfectly spaced ties either. Looks just fine to me.

11

It usually just sort of happens by itself. In this case I started with them even on a turnout. As soon as the first curve goes in, the rails stagger themselves. So In this case, the track came out of the curve and I just maintained the offset up until the next turnout. One could force them to be staggered simply by sliding out the one rail and cutting off about 2"-3" on the first section. Each subsequent section the sliding rail is threaded into the ties of the previous section. On big long curves the joints get further and further apart.

12

I cut the ties into sections and glue them into place beside and between the rails

this is neater for me

trevor

13

On my Atlas Code 83 HO layout, I use scale 4x6 lumber painted the same color as the plastic ties. They are a little thin, so they slip easily under rails and joiners. I haven’t tried ballasting them yet, so I hope it ends up ok. I also just did a Code 100 layout. On that one, I used a dremel to trim the removed ties in the are of the spike detail to make them fit. It was quick and easy.

JIm