Hi,
I am currently working on my HO 14’x26’ linear layout. I need some suggestions for holding track in place temporarily. I want to put track together to finalize my track plan and be able to run a locomotive and some rolling stock to make sure it works. Once it is what I want then I can secure it for good. Sectional track and turnouts do okay but I am using flextrack and I need to be able to hold it in place instead of springing back to a straight piece of track. I was wondering if hot glue would work or if there is something else I can try. I am afraid that if I nail it down I will damage the track or ties if/when I need to pull it up to realign it. If any of you have any good ideas, please let me know.
Thanks.
blueriver
We used Post it color tacks to hold the track down. It works well for flex track. If you use clear latex caulk to secure the track (NOT THE TUNOUTS) you can just pop it up and move it. We put down a whole town with that stuff and just changed all of it (about 60ft) and lost not 1 piece.
Another thing we did was to make drawings on brown paper and use that to get routing set.
Are you using a track plan program? If so you can have it plotted 1:1 at Kinko’s or ?
I built a 4 X 8 practice layout 7 months ago - 1” foam over plywood. I adhered the cork roadbed to the foam using latex caulk. I then used track spikes through the tie centers to hold the flex track in place. You can put a layer of caulk between the track and cork, but I haven’t and everything holds pretty well. The caulk makes it easy to pull things up if you have to. This wouldn’t make a good permanent solution because the spikes don’t go all the way to the plywood, but so far, so good.
I use track nails…always. I have been able to reuse my flex track over and over. It’s a little time consuming, but it works great.
Trevor
Latex caulk,…it’s the way to go!
Trevor, what is the noise factor using only nails? We used latex and some homebrew for the ballast and all is very quit, you can hear the hum of an engine. Nothing wrong with it just curious.
I used to use track nails but have recently changed to latex caulk. Works great!
JIM
For me it kind of depended on how temporary I thought the track would be. The latex cualk works wonderfully. But for simple testing purposes I was using regular pins from my sewing kit. They hold the track steady enough to test curve radius and turnout operations. Then I caulk it down.