I’m in the process of planning my first layout and was thinking about rail joints. I have been trying to figure out if I should just use conventional rail joiners and just put those on, or if I should not use rail joiners and just solder the joints, or if I should use both. I first heard of soldering joints from a friend who is building a layout. Why would someone do that? Does it offer better electrical conductivity through the joints? Should I do it if I want to reuse the track in the future? I know nothing about this topic and would really appreciate any type of input that has anything to do with this.
I generally stick to the rule of providing a power drop to every piece of track, relying on rail joiners only for mechanical connection. However, I do solder rail joiners to create a longer piece of track when it doesn’t make sense to have extra drops.
If your track is weathered, use an old knife blade to scrape that off the bottom of the rails. With a clean soldering gun tip, heat the rail ends with the bottom of the rail up. Once the solder flows, give it a quick swipe, trying to keep the solder from lumping.
Using a file, take off much of the film of solder. You want just a thin layer left on the bottom of the rail. The objective is also to thin the solder enough so the rail joiner will still slip on without too much force.
Do this on all rail ends to be joined (I do a lot of dual-gauge[:)]), then slide on the rail joiner. Use the soldering iron to “sweat” the joint, causing the solder previously deposited to flow again, this time sticking to the INSIDE of the rail joiner. Turn the track right side up. Adding a quick dab of solder from the outside of the rail where the rail ends come together will also help in some cases.
Solder alone won’t give you the strength that you’ll need in these joints. I use joiners and then solder the joints, too. The solder fills in the joiner and makes for a good strong connection.
The problem with joiners alone is that they loosen over time and then the track allignment suffers, as well as the electrical conductivity. The combination of solder and joiner is an excellent way to build reliable track.
As far as reusing track after soldering. I heat the joiner and use a small screwdriver to slide the joiner onto one rail when the solder melts. Then I can remove the track. After soldering and unsoldering, that section of track is a little worse for wear, but if you’re careful, you can heat the joiner and slide it off completely and then use de-soldering wick to clean up the rail. Myself, I only do this on turnouts, crossings, and other pricey track pieces. Just plain flex or sectional track isn’t worth the effort.
Preserving electrical continuity is one reason to solder a joint. Even with plenty of feeders connected to the rails, solder still provides yet another way to keep power flowing in case something fails.
The other reason to solder is maintaining rail alignment. A soldered joint stays put and allows for more thorough fine-tuning of the track. The rail joiner and solder work together to ensure a strong connection. I’ve known guys who insist they don’t need joiners, and every time such a layout expands and contracts due to seasonal temperature and humidity changes they get broken solder joints. I never experience this problem using rail joiners. The only places where I don’t solder joints are occasional locations in straight track where I leave room for exapnsion and contraction.
I re-use track all the time. Joiners can be heated and removed. At worst you may need to cut the very end of a rail off to get rid of the joiner, which usually isn’t a big deal with flex track.
As has been pointed out, neither butt soldering of the rails (no joiners) nor rail joiners alone are strong enough to hold rail ends in alignment over time if there is any stress on the joint. The combination of rail joiners soldered in place does work.
The other alternative is to remove the stress on the rail joint. With handlaid track and most makes of flex track except Atlas, this is done by pre-bending the rail or track to the desired curve. I learned this trick in hand laying 18" radius curves, and using no rail joiners. If the rail was pre-bent to the curve (doesn’t have to be exact), there was no stress on the spikes, and the rail joint was easily held in correct alignment with spikes on either side - and no rail joiners. My hand-laid track survived 4 moves to 4 different climates (Coos Bay, Oregon; Pensacola, FL; Miami, FL; West Lafayette, Indiana) without any issues.
Note that is very difficult to remove the stress on the joint using Atlas flex track - the natural spring of the rail never seems to go away unless you pre-bend it to a very small radius.
2nd note: If you don’t use rail joiners, every piece of rail needs a feeder attached. I soldered a piece of magnet wire to the bottom of the rail, and threaded the magnet wire through the roadbed before spiking the rail in place.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
I soldered the joints on my last layout (leaving a few straight joints unsoldered for expansion). When I tore it down due to a move I just clipped the ends of the flex track with rail nippers. The loss of length is minimal. For turnouts you may want to desolder as described in other posts or not solder turnouts at all.
Enjoy
Paul
To salvage turnouts, I’ll typically cut the rail just beyond the joiner into the adjacent flextrack. I clamp the turnout onto a work surface (usually a corner of the layout) using a scrap of Homasote or whatever to avoid damaging the rails, then carefully de-solder the joiner by heating one side of the joint and yanking the joiner with pliers. Clamping the turnout frees both hands for this job, and it goes pretty fast.
If I have two turnouts soldered together and need to separate them, I’ll try clamping one down and pulling the other away as I heat the joint. This doesn’t always work, but if not the joiner can be snapped in two by bending vertically at the joint a couple times. I remove the half joiners that remain as per above.
I understand wanting to preserve turnouts since they’re expensive, but I balance that with wanting to keep everything aligned just right to avoid derailments. I don’t leave any unsoldered joints at turnouts and take my chances with salvage if/when needed.
Hi!
I just finished the track/wiring of an 11x15 two level HO layout, and have done a handful of them since the 1960s. The trackage is entirely flextrax and Atlas turnouts.
Quality trackwork (and wiring) are the two most important things on a layout. If you accept a low level of “good enough” in these areas, it will come back to haunt you - even to the point of discouraging you right out of the hobby.
Whether you solder or not, you must use rail joiners. I solder all connections on curves and most all on tangent tracks. I do cut in gaps for expansion, however. My yard and loco facilities are partly soldered, but not completely. I tended to solder where I thought it was most needed.
Running DCC, I have feeder wires every 4 feet or so. To some this is not necessary, but I sure don’t think its overkill. Anyway, it is a good practice and easy to do during construction as opposed to afterwards.
ENJOY!
You - meaning the global other than myself - are not required to use rail joiners, soldered or not. They are not even a universal requirement for quality trackwork, despite the pronouncement to the contrary.
As I and others said in earlier posts, unaided rail joiners do a poor job over the years of both holding track in alignment when the joint is under stress, and maintaining electrical contact. Soldering the joint at the rail joiner is one solution.
Running feeders or jumpers to all rails, and relieving the stress at the joint is another. Jack Work mentioned doing without rail joiners in his April 1963 article on turnout building. I tried doing without rail joiners on my hand laid track. Doing without rail joiners worked very well - provided I pre-curved the rail where the joints were on curves. Pre-curving the rail relieved the stress on the spikes at the joint, and allowed them to maintain alignment over 4 moves and 8 years. I know there are more than 2 of us in the last 50 years who have done without rail joiners.
Recently, I proved to my satisfaction that the technique works equally well with flex track that holds its curve - I used ME. However, the natural spring of Atlas flex track requires soldered rail joiners because of the permanent stress on a joint on a curve.
And to further prove my point - you don’t use plastic or metal rail joiners at all your electrical or expansion gaps, do you? As long as there is little horizontal or vertical stress on the rail ends on either side of the gap, the ties are suffi
Gosh Fred,
I hate to think I’ve been using those things for 55 years and didn’t have to do so. I guess we are never too old to learn something new.
My advice was meant for the OP - who apparently is a newbie (if I am wrong, I apologize). I actually do have a few “connections” where I didn’t use joiners, but I wouldn’t advise a newcomer to do that.
Ha, I screwed up using the term “MUST”, for we all know that words like “must” and “always” and “never” bring out all the contrarians to protest. Again, my advice - based on experience - is that using rail joiners is normally the way to go - especially for those not yet broken in on the hobby.
ENJOY !!!
To each his own. I can see where this would work with handlaid track. Flex-track, not so sure.
I use rail joiners nearly everywhere I don’t need a gap. If you leave them off, then every point where they’re missing is subject to being relatively easily knocked out of alignment during normal maintenance and operation.
Rail joiners hold the butt ends of rail together mechanically. I solder only a few select ones as needed, but generally found it’s better to have one less thing that can go wrong with track. There’s plenty of other maintenance to do on a layout. YMMV
This is sound advice for any newcomer to our hobby that will be using commercial track on his first layout. The OP is building his first layout and trying to lay track without the use of rail joiners would not be advised. Yes,it can be done but I’ve been in this hobby since the early 1950’s and have always used rail joiners.
There was a previous comment about an individual using ME track without rail joiners. Yes, that stuff is so stiff that it would be feasible; however, yesterday I just finished a 3’ long trestle using ME Flex Bridge Track Code 83, and used soldered rail joiners on all the rail ends. The idea of not using rail joiners to attach the ME track to the existing Shinohara Flex never crossed my mind. Yes, I probably could have done it, but why bother when using a soldered rail joiner, followed by weathering, is easier and reasonably problem free.
So, while it is possible to avo
[quote user=“fwright”]
mobilman44:
…Whether you solder or not, you must use rail joiners. I solder all connections on curves and most all on tangent tracks. I do cut in gaps for expansion, however. My yard and loco facilities are partly soldered, but not completely. I tended to solder where I thought it was most needed…
You - meaning the global other than myself - are not required to use rail joiners, soldered or not. They are not even a universal requirement for quality trackwork, despite the pronouncement to the contrary.
As I and others said in earlier posts, unaided rail joiners do a poor job over the years of both holding track in alignment when the joint is under stress, and maintaining electrical contact. Soldering the joint at the rail joiner is one solution.
Running feeders or jumpers to all rails, and relieving the stress at the joint is another. Jack Work mentioned doing without rail joiners in his April 1963 article on turnout building. I tried doing without rail joiners on my hand laid track. Doing without rail joiners worked very well - provided I pre-curved the rail where the joints were on curves. Pre-curving the rail relieved the stress on the spikes at the joint, and allowed them to maintain alignment over 4 moves and 8 years. I know there are more than 2 of us in the last 50 years who have done without rail joiners.
Recently, I proved to my satisfaction that the technique works equally well with flex track that holds its curve - I used ME. However, the natural spring of Atlas flex track requires soldered rail joiners because of the permanent stress on a joint on a curve.
And to further prove my point - you don’t use plastic or metal rail joiners at all your electrical or expans
Rich et al
Laying track without rail joiners is not the difficult task you make it seem, nor does it take great craftsmanship ('cause I don’t have any). I realize going without is not the accepted standard, but it works just fine. No rail joiners means not having to notch the ties for the extra thickness of the rail base plus joiner in both hand laid and flex track. This was the primary appeal of going joinerless to me - and the fact that the only LHS for 100 miles didn’t carry any code 70 joiners when I was first hand laying.
The only thing a rail joiner does well is help with the initial alignment of the rail ends in the horizontal. Vertical alignment should already be there from sanding the roadbed or tie tops level for flex and handlaid track respectively. Final horizontal alignment comes from getting my eyeball down at rail level and sighting along the rail, and adjusting until the alignment is correct. Using or not using rail joiners has little impact on this aspect of track laying, since angular misalignment is just as easy with or without rail joiners.
Once the rails are properly aligned, how is the alignment maintained? With track nails, spikes, white glue, or latex caulk for most of us. And sometimes we solder the rail joints using the rail joiner as a brace. Later, when flex track is ballasted and glued, the ballast further locks the track in p
When I got back into the hobby I read somewhere that “everything should be soldered to something else”. Meaning if a piece of track doesn’t have a feeder wire soldered to it, the track should be soldered to the next piece of track that does. I thought this was good advice and follow it without fail. This is the first layout I have ever had that has never had electrical issues.
Just my [2c].
Brent
After reading Fred’s post I remembered that I built an entire layout without joiners, too. It was about 36 years ago. I was using code 55 rail and hand laying N scale track (at that time, code 55 commercial track was not available). My hobby store did not offer code 55 joiners; they said that they were not available. My solution was to bevel the rail ends to increase the exposed surface area and then I soldered the ends together using 2% silver solder. Then I cleaned up the joint with needle files. It worked fine, but took a lot of time.
I’m with ironrooser, solder the curves with joiners., leave the straights with joiners only for expansion and don’t solder the turnouts. power drops are a personal choice, I go every 6 feet. Some like every section to have a drop, and i’m sure some go longer than 6 feet.