PERHAPS Walthers' designers figured a majority of customers would just use flextrack. Many TT 'aprons' were cemented-over later - to make foot and vehicle access easier. Steam engines could care less.
MODELING tracks in asphalt or cement is trickier. UPSON board and good scissors come to mind. TRACE the track plan, transfer it to the cardboard, and trim away. MAKE SURE you leave inside flangeways for the wheels.
Rob:
I have built two turn tables and a roundhouse for my current layout. As far as the roundhouse, you can see the guides inside for the track. The track that would run up to the pit of the turn table still had ties attached.
I removed the ties from the track that would go on the inside of the roundhouse, then glued them in place. This was done before I constructed the walls of the roundhouse.
As far as my turn tables, my kits are by Kibri, these have guides, whereby you could slide a piece of rail through the guides; another just had a the area marked, with this I placed a thin line of CA and placed the track at the edge of the area marked . The CA dried quickly and the track was succure. When placing the rail, by the way, I made each track piece much longer than the table so I could hold them in place while the glue set.
This my latest turn table, and it has an electric motor which works well and the tracks are also electrified.
Once the track was set and the glue dry I then cut the rail with a Dremel cutting wheel right at the outside edge of the pit. If you see where the track on the turn table catches on the edge of the pit, then cut the track just to the inside of the pit and extend the track from the roundhouse to the pit. Make sure there is a space or small gap between the turntable track and the roundhouse track. You may want to do this before gluing in place just to make sure things will fit right. You can always place the roundhouse closer to the pit and turn table to close the gap.
I hope this will help.
Robert Sylvester, WTRR
CA should hold the rails to the floor securely. Glue the first one down. Glue the second one down a few inches at a time with a track gauge in hand.
The best way to determine the position of the roundhouse in relation to the turntable is before you cut out the hole for the pit. Determine the center of the pit and mark it. Draw the circumference of the turntable pit. With a protractor draw radials at whatever the stall spacing is. Probably 10 or 15 degrees. A large protractor or speed square is a good idea. Position the roundhouse so that the radials enter the centerline of the stall track. Mark it.
If you've already cut the pit for the turntable, do you still have the circle you cut out? If so, reinstall it. Otherwise, you're in for a lot of trial and error.
It's all good. Like so many things we do, we have to test fit them in place first, visualize something complete, and then figure out how to get there.
I mixed the Atlas roundhouse with the Walters turntable. They don't quite match up, but close enough that a little thinking solved my problem.
Step one for me, while others may beg to differ, was getting the all-important turntable in place. It had to be level, firmly held (no wobbling when the edge was pressed gently), and I wanted it as close to flush with the general surface of the yard as I could get. Even so, the lead was going to have to rise a bit with my Code 100 track. (Lesson 1 - try Code 83 next time, maybe lean toward Code 70). But Code 100 is what I had on hand, so I removed the first couple of ties over the lip of the pit and also found it wise to grind out grooves radially from the pit centre so that the higher rails would sit in those grooves, gooped into place, and left darned close to flush at rail top with the smaller bridge rails provided by Walthers.
Next, I situated the roundhouse here and there, back and forth toward and away from the pit edge looking for the "best" fit. I found that the best fit would still require the Code 100 bay tracks to be grooved, like the lead, into the pit lip, also with two ties removed. But at the same time, I found it necessary to bow the outer two bay tracks, as they exited the doors, away from each other...outward. With this approximately 36" radius curvature, they permitted nice and smooth access to the bridge rail orientation.
Note that I did not fix, or glue, the bay track Code 100 sections in place. They just lie flat, and the styrene wedge I used at the apron lip to keep the bend in place as they meet the pit bridge seems to do a good job of anchoring the whole length. Most of the time. Sometimes I hear the length scootching a bit as an engine leans onto the length of bay track. No biggie...but you might want to use Goop or some caulking (acrylic or silicone) to keep the tracks in place and from squirming around.
Build the roundhouse as a single unit...if you wish...or just build the walls, doors, and roof, and place that whole onto the base leaving the two separated. I opted to build mine as a whole and merely plunked it flat on the yard surface where the best fit was. It doesn't budge because I used an equivalent of scenic cement to glue garden soil mixed with a bit of plaster as a yard surface around the periphery of the roundhouse foundation.
To repeat the general gist, just place them where you think they'd best do what you need of them, play around a bit, and then figure out how to get them situated permanently.
I invite you to contact me off line if you would be more comfortable discussing this privately for more details. Use the pm function below this post.
-Crandell
The instructions that come with the Walther's HO roundhouse leave a lot to be desired (as do several of their other engine terminal kits) regarding track. Specifically, the instructions provide no clue how to anchor rail to the plastic and to ensure it remains in gage until a bond cures. I am sure I will resolve this, but it sure would be nice if they provided some insights and hints or recommendations.
Similarly, neither the roundhouse nor their turntable kit instructions provide any clues or recommendations for getting the vertical track alignments and sizing correct between the two kits.
Their coaling tower kit provides no recommendations for track separation or vertical alignment.
How have others addressed this? These kits are great kits, but the instructions for integrsating them into the layout are so dismal it makes me wonder whether the author(s) ever built one into a layout.