For years I have always mounted my track to homosote, it’s easy to tack into and when ballasted properly, looks pretty realistic. The last layout I did I used Cork and mounted it to plywood. I have much shrinkage in the cork, like up to a quarter inch on a 3 foot piece. I run code 100 Nickel Silver track and I am also doing DCC. I am ready to re-do the entire layout again and go back to homosote, less the cork. My questions are:
Is it good to solder all the rail joints?
Do I need to allow for expanssion and contraction? I need to add that my layout in is a very dry basement, I Humidify in the winter and AC in the suimmer. We live in South Central PA.
Wow your cork roadbed sure reacts more to moisture changes than does mine and based on your experience with the cork I would definitely plan for expansion and contraction in the lumber, the roadbed (including homasote), etc.
Having said that, I bought my cork “used” ---- gently used: the guy had just completed his huge layout when a week or two later his wife insisted they move out of town so he disassembled the whole thing and sold the track and cork roadbed to me (and by the way she did the same thing with his next two layouts; he is now out of the hobby). I was not ready to lay track when I brought it into the house so the cork roadbed went through several seasonal changes in my basement before I started to use it. Ditto much of the lumber. Maybe it helped to have the stuff in the basement for a few seasons before using it. Not everyone has that luxury.
Anyway, I have soldered some rail joints on curves where I wanted primarily to retain the integrity of the easement curves and precise radius curves I had created. Soldering the joints made it easier to run the Ribbonrail track radius gauges through the flex track.
My general belief is that this can be done for a few sections but at some point gaps are very wise so I have not soldered every rail joint. I suspect I may want to solder on wires that bridge some of the rail joint gaps because there are some sections of flex track where it will be awkward to try to run a feeder to each section so I will need to power the track both through the rail joiners (unreliable) and the wire bridges.
Soldering the track joints gives you an electrical connection advantage and a mechanical advantage. The track can’t pull apart from contraction and with gaps placed at strategic locations you won’t have problems with expansion. On my current layout I soldered all the rail joiners and left gaps only where they were needed for block operation. The layout was originally built for DC operation. When hurricane Rita came through in 2005 and took part of my roof off part of the layout got soaked. The top of the bench is plywood covered with 3 layers of white foam but that didn’t stop the track from bowing in the moisture and heat. A long straight stretch of sectional track became a stretch with the sections forced into an impromptu S curve (as curved as a line of straight sections can get). Surprisingly it took the removal of only a very small section of track in the middle of that stretch to let it go back to straight. The track sections in the stretch had to be replaced as the ends of the rails were damaged from being twisted. The sections are now set as two straight areas with a short gap in between and are joined by jumpers which run underneath the layout.
I have to say I have never soldered track and homosote. The homosote usually burns first. [}:)]
You will get two answers on this. Yes and No. I am in the no camp. I only solder rail joiners if there is a reason to like keeping track from kinking on a curve. Of course, I also run lots of feeder wires and do not depend on rail joiners to carry power. Then of course I also use a rail joiner exactly once. If I disconnect the track for any reason, it gets a new joiner when going back together. In 40 years I think I’ve had 2-4 rail joiner related problems.
Running humidifiers and AC is great but is it truly climate controlled. That is is the humidity always within a small given range? Is the temperature always within +/-10 degrees? If not - yes. If so probably not.
The homosote, cork, and benchwork will be much more of an issue with changes in humidity than will be the track with temperature.
Also depends on the exact track arrangement. Lots of curves usually have less an issue than long straights do. It is amazing how much a kink that 1/32" of expansion can make in straight track.
Homasote or Homabed is far better then cork hands down no question about it. When it comes to soldering there are a few schools of thought out there. Some guys like to solder ever section of track to each other, some only solder every other one alternating sides. Some don’t solder the sections together but rather put drops on each section connected to the buss wire guaranteeing good electrical connection therefore and allowing for expansion and contraction. I choose the method Tony Keoster described in Realistic Reliable Track and only soldered the rail joiners on one side to the track and just slipping the opposing rail into the joiner. I run drops to my dcc buss approx. every 6’ or so assuring me good conductivity and allowing the rails to slide when expanding and contracting. Keep in mind only the rails move during expansion and contraction not the ties. Some guys actually cut releif cuts for that exact purpose but if you have a nice dry basement I don’t see the need for going that extreme. You can always cut them in later with a rail saw if you feel the need.
I use cork roadbed for mainline and homasote for yards. I did not like all of the dust created from cutting homasote. There also seemed to be a lot of wasted material. Homabed works better but is expensive. I saw a tape by Allen Keller that had to do with Howard Zane’s Piermont Division. It was the first tape (#12 of the Great Model Railroad series). Howard used spline for subroadbed and homasote for the roadbed. He used a saw to make partial cuts in the homasote every few inches. This allowed the homasote to flex. Therefore, he could make whatever radius curves he desired without wasting material. The only thing that I don’t like about this method is that the homasote does not have bevelled edges for “drainage”. Homabed comes with beveled edges or nonbeveled edges. I also comes in different thicknesses (for mainline, slidings and spurs). I still like the old cork which is easy to install. I glue it with Elmers Glue and then temporarily tack it down with push pins. I use N scale cork roadbed for slidings. Never, in 30 years have I had a shrinking problem. Then again, I spray paint my track and roadbed before ballasting.
I don’t solder rail joints except occasionally. I believe the track needs a little slack to adjust to bench work shrinkage or expansion as humidity changes. In PA the house gets dry during heating season and moister in the summer when the windows may be opened.
To provide electricity, I run a power bus around the layout and solder every other three foot piece of flex track to the power bus with 22 gauge jumper wires. This way the rail joiners at BOTH ends of the flex track have to fail before power is lost.