has anyone made rerailers on curved tracks or even straights that you engineered in place? What worked and what did not? Styrene? Balsa? Techniques?
I omitted a rerailers or two, and I feel like it is responsible to put some in a few spots on my railroad.
They tell me that rerailers are unnecessary if your trackwoerk is bulletproof. I think I will have a few, just in case.
Some sets come with the power connection and rerailer built into curve track. Don’t remember the brand at the moment, but it really doesn’t matter. Look at the way an Atlas rerailer is made and either use styrene or stripwood to fashion one of similar shape to fit between the rails.
I have a couple of dirt road crossings made from lightweight spackling compound (I think) and though they were not intended to be rerailers, they work reasonably well.
Recently I have seen some rerailers advertised that you place between the rails after the track is in place. Some of the comments about them here on the forums were reasonably positive. Don’t recall there being ones for curved track though.
Good luck,
Richard
The subject rung a bell…found this Feb thread where one person tells how he builds them of styrene sheeting. Plus other talk about kits. Some of this may be relevant to your interest. I plan on saving both threads as I may add one or two.
Just build a grade crossing - anything from a footpath to a boulevard.
Arrange the guardrails to come down to normal flangeway clearance from a between-the-rails point. Outside the rails, shape your ground goop or ballast to have a gentle slope and otherwise follow the shape of the commercial product. The ‘roadway’ can be anything - ground goop, ballast, styrene pretending to be asphalt, even sheet plastic Belgian block. It’s the shape, not the material, that puts the wheels on the rails.
I first noticed this phenomenon while railfanning in the 1960s. There was a perfectly ordinary grade crossing, gravel surface (dirt road!) with solidly-tamped slopes up to the roadway. Grooves in ties and ground inticated that a stray wheelset had been put back on the track. The operating crew may not even have known that anything had derailed.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
There’s a company that advertises in MR and RMC sometimes that makes a drop-in rerailer. It’s fairly cheap, and can convert any straight section of track to a rerailer. I can’t recall the name right now…“Jiffy”-something or other??
What Stix is referring to is the Jiffy Rerailer
In my case I use them not so much as a rerailer but to place my cars on the tracks to begin with. I hand push the car back and forth over them to get the wheels on the track. They are not as obtrusive as the standard rerailer.
IMO a scratch built rerailer should work. I have a Kadee beteen the track uncoupler near a rerailer and sometimes it is enought to put the wheels were they belong.
Bob
This is not a difficult project, and can make operations easier and less aggravating. I have built them out out laminated sheet styrene and out of milk carton paperboard. I did both curved and single direction rerailers because not all of my rolling stock and locos behave the same. Worst headache was when an older vinyl insulated rail joiner on a rail failed right next to a spot where some ham handed fellow built a steep cliff.A small piece of plastic stopped the shorts but one car out of ten would derail in that spot- naturally never the same one.
To cure this, I took a piece of paper and used a pencil to outline the rails. This works for either curved or staight track. determine the length that is appropriare for the location, and make a set of angles(<=>) on the paper trim and check for flange clearance. Use this pattern on either sheet styrene or milk carton paperboard to make your rerailer. I painted mine flat black on all sides and find that they “disappear” into the scenery. Scrap rail partially buried in ballast can be used to guide a truely errant truck back into the rerailer, if desired.
Don H.
Is the intent to re-rail cars on running trains, or to use as a place to introduce new cars and engines that have been in boxes? For the latter, a RIX Rail-it works very nicely. It’s a ramp that you place on the track, rail a car and then remove. I put a Velcro strip on the side of mine, the “other” Velcro on a layout leg and I always know where to find it.