I am looking for someone to make me feel better!. I have just put down 10 feet of code 55 flex tack on my straight section of my layout. I have done everything to try to keep it straight and its just not happening. I have used straight edges, track gauges.... Is this really achievable at this length?? When I run a train with some cars there there is no niticable sway but when I look down the track from one end you can see it is not straight the entire way.
NKP68
Arrow straight track tends to make a layout look small, plus it can be a problem to get perfectly straight, as you are finding out. I think it would have been better to make a few large sweeping curves in that stretch of track. Maybe even one sweeping S curve five inches from center to each side. If you can re-lay it, I think you would be pleased by the S curve effect.
The only way that I know of to get arrow straight track is to use a yard stick. I have an aluminum one that I use. Butt the rail up against it and fasten it down. Then move the yard stick up 18 inches only. That way half of it is on the part of the track that is down, and the next section should line up with the last. Keep moving down the line this way keeping the yard stick half way on the track that is fastened down. This helps keep the "new" section lined up with the "old" section.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
gandydancer19 wrote: The only way that I know of to get arrow straight track is to use a yard stick. I have an aluminum one that I use. Butt the rail up against it and fasten it down. Then move the yard stick up 18 inches only. That way half of it is on the part of the track that is down, and the next section should line up with the last. Keep moving down the line this way keeping the yard stick half way on the track that is fastened down. This helps keep the "new" section lined up with the "old" section.
That's basically what I did, but I used a 30" long level. First I used "T" pins placed on the outside of the rails to hold the track in place, then I gradually slid the level along one side of the track (along the ties) and adjusted the "T" pins in or out in order to achieve straightness.
Does it look like this?
Like Gandydancer19, I use a yardstick. Works quite well. I recently started using a laser level and that works really good. I just line up one rail along the beam.
If you want wavy prototype track, try track laid over permafrost and muskeg. When I lived in the north, I rode the train between the town where I lived and the nearest city, about 150 miles away. The trip took about 8 house because of a permanent 30 mph speed limit. And the fact that the train stopped at numerous settlements along the way and for any hunter or trapper that wanted to get on or off in the middle of the bush. The engineer on the return trip was a friend of mine and I got to ride in the cab going home. Looking out at the track in front of the locomotive it looked like two pieces of wet spaghetti thrown on the ground. It twisted and turned and went up and down every which way. It's impossible to keep a railroad or a vehicle road anywhere near level on frozen muskeg over permafrost. My engineer friend told me that everyone felt the 30 mph speed limit was even too high for that track. It was a rough ride, but I wouldn't have given up that cab ride for anything in the world!
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
You mentioned that you used a track gauge. Ribbonrail makes a 24" tangent track alignment gauage for N. Most people seem to use the shorter lengths of tangents but it sounds like your problem is one to be addressed with the longer/longest length. They make their product line in many gauges:
http://www.enginetender.com/170m.htm
I use their long tangent alignment gauges for HO and it really helps, particularly with the more "Whippy" makes of flex track such as Atlas.
Dave Nelson
I wouldnt worry about it so much if its not noticeable without squinting down the track line. Doubly so if the layout will eventually produce scenery that obscures that sight line. That being said, I only have used peco code 55 in N which tends to be a bit springy and minimizes wiggles in turns and tangents.
Consider avoiding long tangents and instead use a gentle cosmetic curve. It looks better and will hide any wiggles..
Chris
Like murrietajazz1 and some others I align my track along the centerline of my cork roadbed; using ME Code 55 flex I don't have any tack-down points so I lay down glue on my cork and on the underside of my track and then hold things in alignment with large push pins held firmly against the rails. These pins are big enough to not only hold the rail in position but to do a certain amount of clamping. I have several 2.5" X 2.5" X 1.0" steel bars that I use for weight while my glue is drying; I space my push pins far enough apart that I can fix these weights in between. I eyball linearity with a "close enough for government work!" ideology. I sometimes deliberately offset one track off the parallel - my pike is exclusively double track - in order to break monotony.
This isn't exactly on topic for your posting but the only place that I run track meticulously parallel to my platform edge is where that tangent is going to be obstructed by some scenery element - a building; a bridge over an alignment trench; foilage; etc.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet