Crandell, Thanks for your help and suggestions as well.
Crandell,
great feedback for me, I will try some of your suggestions. many thanks
A good part of the question(s) has been addressed.
If you want a best-practice method of getting good curves with flextrack, slide the sliding rail end of both pieces into one of them....doesn't really matter, for the distance of about 4-6 ties. Butt them, or leave a slighte gap if you need it insulated, but otherwise solder the two ends together...carefully, efficiently, using heat sinks, so as not to damage the adjacent ties, but mostly their retaining spike heads. You want to keep the gauge, remember, and the spike heads do that for you.
Now, when you go to fashion your desired curve of a given radius, both rails, left and right, will each be as one long rail, and each will be retained in gauge by helping spike heads.
Even, so, you should always do a series of checks around curves, particularly with some brands of flex, to ensure that the gauge is at least at the minimum or even wider. Wider, say by about 6-10 thou, is ideal because it gives some breathing or fudge room for larger steamers. So, use a gauge and apply it to the rails at six or seven points, and especially around the solder(s)/joins to verify that you haven't set up yourself, and your rolling stock, for failure.
I do use track spikes/nails extensively to solve niggling gauge problems here and there along my layout. I sometimes find that, even though it specs out with a wheel gauge, and the couplers are properly nounted, and the trucks are finely tuned and swivel nicely, some cars or engines just won't play nice around some parts of my trackwork. If I know the gauge might stand to be tightened or loosened, usually the latter, I force the rails outward by 1/32" or so with a few spikes driven into the roadbed so that there isn't a distinct horizontal wave at that spot, and try the intractable item once more. Most often, that is all it wanted. Note that this should be a slight, essentially non-visible change to the distance between the rails, except that what a track gauge might show when applied to the rails. To be clear, there are a few places where the track gauge actually falls between my rails, but nothing gives me problems and I have perfect reliability there. It must be as it should be for that behaviour to be repeated consistently!
As for grades, it is a crapshoot due to changing variables, but you are always far better to err on the side of your engines. IOW, less is more. Yes, easier grades take up a lot more room, and that causes the crunch. But easier grades are better for your engines and for consistent and reliable performance. Reaching into lower level staging to redo tracks, to realign tracks, to alter a grade, to help along a spinning engine, and so on, gets old really quickly. That will have the unfortunate effect of aging your layout, the dream one, in your eyes as well.
That said, my layout is a folded loop with 3% grades. I can't pull long strings of heavyweight passenger cars because I refuse to double (so far...it's about to change). I mean that you will only get so much out of what you offer your engines. If you know they can handle your 2.7% grade with a train that will keep you happy in the long term, then you have your layout planned.
-Crandell
NScaleJason,
there does not seem to be a secret to laying these tracks on a curve. The great hobby shop I go to told me basically what everyone here has said: solder them when they are straight and them lay them. I have had problems with them kinking upon installation, the first 2 large curves (28") I put in I had to pull up an redo as they were the first I laid. From what I can tell it's just practice. I soldered 2 pieces of flex together before laying anything. When you have about 8" or so not glued down solder on the next piece and continue. My first curves were on a lower lever so it made it even tougher for me. They are still not 100%-yet.
captwilb
HHPATH56-
Your response was much appreciated and useul. Your pics are great-I love the barges. But I am not familiar wih "using a double knob touch probe for each switch". I am not afraid of mucho wiring but I did not completely understand your solution. I can see DCC probably does not make sense for me (plus it seems to be much more expensive) compared with a conventional setup. In your case, your power comes from a separate transformer, correct? Instead of asking you to type a long explanation (though welcomed) is there somewhere I can learn this solution in more detail? thanks again
Captwilb, your question #1 about laying flex track on curves, I understand your problems and I don't belive the answer has yet been addressed. Either my curves (22" min HO) are too tight or I'm completing the tast incorrectly. I remove a tie from each section, solder together the rails then prebend to shape. This is where things go wrong and my rails twist in an angular fashion out of alignment. Should I lay the track down starting at the middle of the curve trying ot keep the joint in the open area of the removed ties, or what trick am I missing? Thanks, Jason
I also have a DCC layout and was considering using the use of DCC to control my switches, but with 110 switches it was obviously too difficult to click on a four digit code to operate 110 switches, from one location. My solution was to divide the layout into four "switch-power districts", For maintenance and short location and control, the four distrricts are isolated from each other by toggle switches on the bus. Each district has 24 electrically controlled numbered switches, using a double knob touch probe for each switch. Note that I made a large scale drawing of the given district (rather than a schematic diagram ), since the visualization of the position of each switch is much easier. This requires "mucho" wiring, but "touch probing" of the proper switch is much quicker. The ground wire is a bare wire common to all the switches, so each switch has two long leads to the "numbered probe terminal". The remaining 14 switches are manual switches that are close to the fascia and easily within reach of the four district operators. Eventually, I plan to use LEDs and tiny "momentary toggle switches",on the diagram to operate the switches and to indicate the position of turnout for each switch.
Click on the diagram to enlarge it. Then double click sequentially on images in the upper right, to get a view of my layout. Sorry for the poor camera focus and duplication of some of the photos.
captwilb Let me ask you a different question-I am using DCC but I am not sure whether to set the turnouts up on DCC or use phsysical switches. I have a hard time trying to figure out how hard or easy it is to change a bunhc of switches using DCC. Any thoughts? If I have 30 or 40 switches around the layout I can't get an idea which is easier to use.
Let me ask you a different question-I am using DCC but I am not sure whether to set the turnouts up on DCC or use phsysical switches. I have a hard time trying to figure out how hard or easy it is to change a bunhc of switches using DCC. Any thoughts? If I have 30 or 40 switches around the layout I can't get an idea which is easier to use.
Many experienced builders of larger layouts choose separate switches on the fascia rather than using DCC and stationary decoders.
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I have never seen that tool and I will look for it. I imagine part of it is just getting the hang of it. Let me ask you a different question-I am using DCC but I am not sure whether to set the turnouts up on DCC or use phsysical switches. I have a hard time trying to figure out how hard or easy it is to change a bunhc of switches using DCC. Any thoughts? If I have 30 or 40 switches around the layout I can't get an idea which is easier to use. thanks again.
To answer your first question. There is a tool you can buy from your hobby shop or from Walthers. This tool fits on the two sections of track that you are soldering together. This keeps the tracks aligned while you are soldering them. I have one and it works fine on my "N" scale track.
To answer your second question, The grade % sounds OK. You may have to use two or three engines to travel up the grade depending on how many cars are in a given train.
Hope these ideas will help you.
Have Fun!
Madmodeler
Are you sure you are not melting the next set of ties? If not , you can use track spikes to push the rails where you need. Just make sure the heads don't interfere with the wheel flanges. As for the grade you have arrived at, there are a couple schools of thought on that and you will have to decide which suits you. Some would say that anything over a 2% is too much. Some say to use whatever grade is necessary to achieve the mission. If you are planning on long trains, the grade may give you some hassles as the engine wears a bit and cars don't roll as well as they used too. If you are looking at shorter trains, then by all means I would do it. I would try to allow for a decent vertical easement as well.
After 20+ years, I am finally building my dream layout. It is my first. I am modeling HO with 28" radius curves trying to recreate the industrial scenes of metro NY in the 80s and 90s-commuter passenger service mixed with industrial freight operations. I bought and read most of the Kalmbach books (bench work, DCC (2), track planning, scenery/track laying, etc) to prepare myself. The layout is about 17' x 13' with a full lower level for staging and a return to simulate a "destination" like going under the Hudson or something like that. I laid the lower level track and wired it already, and the confusion has started. Perhaps someone can help me with the following:
1) laying flex track on curves: I followed the various tips I have read in MR to solder 2 sections together before laying it down. but by removing a tie from the end of each sections I have found it hard to perfectly align and keep the tracks perfectly in gauge. is there a trick I am missing?
2) grade: in reading the book of track designs I saw a lot of layouts with 2.5-3% grade-I am designing about a 2.7% grade for the rise from below as well as for an elevated section of the main layout. tests on the ramp up from the lower level-already laid and wired-seem to be OK with a brand new True Line loco (everything will be brand new). should I worry with that grade?
these forums have been invaluable to me thus far in learning how to build my first layout. thanks in advance to those who (may) respond as I have many more questions behind this one.