Trackwork improvements - 2 ways to look at it

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Rewrding or Frustrating?

My layout was built when I was brand new to HO Scale modeling. I read about John Allen’s layout and went to work. Big mistake!. Over the years (about 40 of them) I’ve replaced about 80% of the track and switches.

It looked like I needed a track to go over there, so I laid it down with cork underneath. Looking back now I had no idea about level, gauge, how to solder correctly or maximum grade. Never heard of a kink at a joint or a hump/dip in the track. Curves? Just put it down around from here to there!

Some on this forum know all to well the problems I have had that turned out to be bad track work. When I switched to DCC about 4 year ago I purchased better locomotives. My first 6 wheel diesel derailed all over the place!! $300 for this crap?? HA, nothing wrong with the loco, but the track was really bad.

Over the years I ripped up track, replaced switches and revised the bench work to correct errors. Last November everything was running smothely until I got an RDC-1. It grinded through one 26” curve and rammed into the tunnel portal at the loco’s midpoint. You see it is longer than anything I have run and there was not enough clearance.

Yesterday I finished relaying the curve (I have no idea how no other locos or cars rolled right through) and widened the tunnel. Once again all is right with the world.

FRUSTRATING as **** when I discover there is still more that needs to be corrected. REWARDING when you find the problem and fix it.

I REALLY HOPE I’m done fixing track now. There CAN’T be more!

Is it just me or has anyone else built a layout long ago when they didn’t know what they were doing? Have you had a similar experience?

2

Yea, probably 2 or 3 layouts ago. They get torn down, and replaced for something better, that works. I never kept trying to make something that didn’t work, to be workable. It was easier to start over, and alot more fun. Although, calling some of my previous attemtps “layouts” would be a stretch, as the scenery on most was barely started.

My current layout is the only one that was planned out, and scenery completed to 99%. It’s never done, things just get detailed more.

I did replace a switch and do a realignment of a section of yard track.

Good luck with your improvements!

Mike.

3

Well, first, I feel there aways room for inprovements,no matter the topic.

As for the RR. I’m a noplan/trackplan modeler. If something isn’t working,I’ll tear it out in a heart beat. If I build a building, that won’t fit, or needs track service, move or add or remove the track.

I consider,tearing out and rebuilding/inproveing part of my hobby, I enjoy it.

I just tore down the old layout and now get to start all over again.

There very few of us born knowing every thing about everything,I aint one of em.

But I’m getting there by fixing my mistakes

4

Welcome to the real world. Realroads are doing this all of the time.

I tore out an incline to install a 1.5 turn helix. I then tore that out to make it a four track 1.5 turn helix.

I had a siding with north facing points, and I rebuilt that so that it had south facing points.

LIRR just finished putting double tracks between Hicksville and Ronkonkamo, now they will start putinng in tripple tracks between Jamaica and Hicksville. The old Center-Island route was torn out 60 years ago, but now there is talk (wishfull thinking) of putting it back in again.

They need more tunnels under the ‘North River’ (aka the Hudson River) but President Trump wants to cut off the money that Obama had promised. Still needs to be done, stille needs to be paid for. If one of the present tubes is hurt, nobody will be able to commute from New Jersey.

Oh Well, as you layout goes, so does the real world.

ROAR

5

Well, I my be in the minority but, for the most part as an adult, my trackwork is pretty good, always used gauges and tested but I did run into a problen on a couple curves, one just wouldn’t let my main steam engine go pass every time without derailing, 9 out of 10 was not good enough, fixed that by adjusting the curve slightly (glad I used cauld instead of spikes) and the other was on the end of a curve off a bridge at the joint. Had to fill it in a little with soulder and file till perfect. On that one my buddy always commented that it looked kinked but that was the outside apperance which nobody noticed once painted etc.

6

Back when I started you (or at least, I) never saw the now standard advice to use a foam abrasive sanding block to smooth out cork subroadbed. You were just instructed to nail down the cork and start laying the track. Maybe cork roadbed back then was just naturally smoother than today’s but I doubt it.

Dave Nelson

7

Now into my fourth layout construction, I have simply accepted that one must take the pains to prove one’s trackwork before starting the ballasting and scenery.

And, I do work from a plan. I have to know beforehand that I will be able to close my loop, twinned mains, and not have to compromise later with a 25" radius instead of my sworn minimum of 33" in order to do it.

But, even if I succeed with all my curves and still close that lovely track system, I know better than to shrug and start ballasting. I run every locomotive I have, forwards and backing, through every turnout and around the track system. Without a word of a lie, each newly placed locomotive points out a fault…or at least what IT considers to be a fault. Each of those locomotives is its own arbiter of what constitutes acceptable rails and what doesn’t.

I am testing the tracks right now. I had run an Allegheny from Rivarossi (easily my gauge loading tester on portals along curves, approaches to bridges, side-swiping on curves), a BLI Niagara, my Lionel Challenger, a Trix GG1, a BLI Hudson, a BLI Class A, and a BLI J1 2-10-4 and had gotten the tracks to the point where they could all fly around my track system at kids’ speed.

Then…I tried my lovely BLI Duplex 4-4-4-4. It was running along a tangent and flat area and wobbled off the rails. Whaaaaaaaaaaaatttt??! Cleaned off some grit still stuck to the inside webbing because I had newly ballasted that length, and tried it again…slower. Derailed. And again…derailed. Okay, three strikes means its out. Took a really close eye-level look and realised I had a slight vertical kink at the joint between a Peco #6 and the following segment of tracks. I softened the ballast, shimmed it up 1/16" or so, and ran the T1 again. No problem. Backed it up, ran it through at a faster clip. Again, very happy.

You’ll not be long for the ho

8

Hey Gary,

I suppose there are more than two ways to look at this.

There are mistakes, and I’ve made plenty and fully expect to make plenty more. Some mistakes have to be fixed. Bumps, humps, gaps, breaks, etc that cause derailments and shorts and whatnot need to be addressed. Pronto. Certainly annoying and could get expensive.

Then there are mistakes of a lesser variety. Siding too short, track too close to the edge (could be serious, see preceding paragraph), turnouts out of reach, turnouts too sharp, curves too tight (appearance-wise), no staging, too much staging, spaghetti bowl . . . or just not enough excitement. These can be addressed and fixed one-at-a-time, but do not hinder operations or shut down the whole shebang.

Then there are ethereal mistakes that don’t really cause any problems and don’t really have a clear solution, but you seem to spend a lot of time wondering ‘what if?’. Wrong era, wrong prototype, wrong locos, wrong rolling stock, wrong buildings, wrong structures, wrong vehicles, too many freight cars and not enough passenger trains (dang! no passenger station), wrong landscape, wrong vegetation, and whose idea was it anyway to have a multi-level layout? A form of long-term buyer’s remorse.

Anyway, gotta go rewire those two Tortoises that are wired exactly backwards . . . I’ve had this problem about three months, but I’ve managed to remember that even though my throttle indicates they’re closed, they are actually thrown. Dang. Good luck on your end.

Robert

9

Thankfully I had a good teacher that taught me how to lay smooth track work and that was my Dad. Sixty years later I still remember those lessons.

However…

I don’t think Dad realize back then I would become possess with smooth track work and derailment free operation.[:O]

10

Real railroads make changes to improve their tracks so why shouldn’t modelers do it also? When I was a kid I build my first real layout as a point to point layout but soon realized it had some issues so I blasted a hole through a mountain and turned it into a continual loop so the trains could go around the room without having to stop at the end and turn the engine on the turntable.
Later I fixed another design flaw which was staging tracks that you had to back the train into to stage it. I redesigned a whole peninsula to fix the problem and made the staging tracks self staging. I also abandoned the hole in the mountain because it was no longer needed. Then I made the mountain smaller and used the extra space to make a bigger yard.
Another time I changed the minimum radius from 18 inches to 22 inches which was a lot of work but worth it. I have also added whole new sections to make the layout larger. Every change I made was for the better.

11

I started with a sheet of plywood for my layout. I added more an more extensions until it became a mess.

Then I read about John Allen.

I knew I couldn’t reach the level of excellence of John Allen, but I was determined to build my basement empire. I drew up a plan.

I bit off more than I could chew. I had no idea what I was doing, plan or no plan. I charged ahead making one mistake after another. When I got to the point that I could run trains, reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a bowl of lumpy spaghetti made of nickel steel rail and a bunch of rolling stock on the cement floor. Like a bonehead, I started to change the layout to make it better, instead of starting over. That was in 1993.

During all this time I laid and re-laid some areas of track 3 or 4 times. Luckily, I didn’t glue anything down. But I did learn how to put down rail that I could run trains on as soon as I finished. I learned to lay 10 feet of quality track in an evening, instead of rushing to lay 20 feet of junk. I built a test car from a piece of 1/8" plexiglass and Kadee trucks. It weighs almost nothing and if it rolls on the new track, almost anything else will too.

I am now 69, and the plan is to get scenery on the layout and stop re-laying track. Well, maybe.

12

Amen Dave! No internet, no videos, no forums. There was MR magazine and books but I learn much better seeing it done.

13

Guess it is part of the hobby but I wish I knew how very important goo track work is before I laid all that track. Oh well there‘s probably only about 20 ft of track left from the original layout.

Unfortunately I’m not in good enough physical condition to start a new layout so there are some things I’ll need to live with. Turnouts out of reach and limited access to parts of the layout are two.

There is a feeling of achievement when you figure out what is wrong and fix it. Thanks in no small part due to people on this forum.

Great replies, thanks everyone.

14

That would have been me too. L-girder and cookie cutter plywood and homasote.

I’m not sure there were specific instructions to make things level but my OCD required it. The design could have been better and I don’t think I have a single picture of that layout.

Never had a derailment problem, ever. The only track problem I did have was because I soldered all the rail joiners. Kinked track in the change of seasons. A few cuts with a razor saw, and some rail to rail jumpers (didn’t know about busses then) solved tha.

15

“Slight”.

Yeah, right.

Ed

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Dude! This (and life) is what it’s all about.

We are supposed to learn, make adjustments, make it better and move on. The people that don’t do this are the ones that remain in the same ole’ doldrums and don’t improve. We should be constantly challenging ourselves to be a better person and modelers.

My helix (first and only) still works, but could be better. Not only have my modeling skills improved, but also my woodworking. So, I know it can be better, but it runs. Someday, it will be rebuilt…BETTER.

I have learned to take frustrating situations and make them a learning experience, and build upon it. Those that don’t, fall into being complacent and keep repeating the same ole’ stuff.

Terry
Inspired by Addiction

17

I hear you, Ed. It turned out to be only the one joiner, not just the location where the turnout and the next track segment meet. When I raised the closest joiner by the slight amount, it made all the difference in the world. Kinked joint, but uneven rail heights was the real problem.

-Crandell

18

I was teasin’ ya, there. A sixteenth of an inch, if that’s what it was, is pretty huge in trackwork alignment. Glad ya fixed it.

I’ve got a C-636 that tends to derail at one point on a guy’s module. Nothing else seems to. Of course, HIS story is that my engine is defective. MY version is “How come it’s only defective RIGHT THERE?”

Anyway, I found a REALLY hard to see little twist. HE can’t see it. No one else can. But it’s really there.

I do suppose I may have to admit my engine might be more, uh, unforgiving than others.

Naaahhhhh…

Ed

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Forums like this one and the information on the net might be the best thing that has happened to model railroading in 50+ years. Thanks to everyone here for all your help.

20

OH YEA, forgot about that BUSS thing! When I changed the layout to DCC I must have ripped out 2-3 thousand feet of wire (or that’s what it seemed like). Telephone wire for EVERYTHING!

AND - the locomotives LifeLike and Bachmann were either stopped or going 90. I couldn’t comprehend the difference between a good loco and the ones I had because I never saw one operate. After all, John Allen’s were brass and scratch built, this was far beyond my ability at that time and even now.

This guy was good for a jerky run of 5 maybe 6 feet before it stalled!

Kadee nuckle couplers? What are those?