So, after man years of putting off building a layout I am finally going to dive In a get my N scale trains up and running. I am a raw newbie and looking forward to a new learning experience. But, I have a question that I did not see addressed in the existing topics. I live in Riverside CA where the temperature can run up to 117 Degrees. I have a finished garage but no air in it. The inside of the garage can get up to low 100’s. I’m concerned about the heat affecting the trains, the track and scenery. Anyone have experience with this? Thanks in advance.
Jim
Jim -
First off, to the forums!
Now, on the question - Yes, high heat will affect trains, track, and your roadbed/sub roadbed. Just like the real thing, heat can cause issues with track buckling due to expansion. (Both rails, roadbed and sub roadbed.)
Also, heat will cause some issues with motors running warmer, and power supplies overheating and shutting down if they get hot enough.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
Heat and humidy will adversly affect your layout. Since you mention that your garage is "finished" is it correct to assume that you have insulation? If you do, I'd consider either adding airconditioning or if your current system can handle the extra load, you should add some ducting and create a seperate zone with thermostat.
If you could somehow partition your garage so that you have a 'train room' in it, as I have, you'd be so much further ahead in terms of controlling both humidity and temperature swings. One or the other isn't so bad, provided you don't get extended swings one way or the other.
Too cold, and you can't enjoy the space without some kind of heat.
Too hot, you make lubes get soft and sag out of gear towers, or electronics get so hot they quit. And you...you can't stand being in there dripping over your trains and scenery.
Too humid and you'll have swollen timbers, mold on surfaces that you have touched, and it will possibly lead to corrosion of unprotected steels. Eeeww.
Too dry and you may get cracking in timbers, rails pulled apart at joints, buckling of the tracks.
Even if you were to just spend $200 on a quick pony wall and a few sheets of drywall, it would help. If you were to add some batting and cover it with some poly, you'd have the same space I have...now. I heat it with a slant fin electric portable heater, and I open the lone window and slide the end of a portable air conditioner's exhaust duct into the slot when I need it.
One other consideration is lighting, and yet another is at least one wall socket along that wall. More money, yup. What's it worth to you to be able to walk into that space any time and be confdent you have a usable layout?
But it's dry heat right? Hah hah. Thats what I remember in Sacramento, but its still blazing hot.
Time to bit the bullet and install an air conditioner in the garage - a wall unit may be enough.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Jdorris So, after man years of putting off building a layout I am finally going to dive In a get my N scale trains up and running. I am a raw newbie and looking forward to a new learning experience. But, I have a question that I did not see addressed in the existing topics. I live in Riverside CA where the temperature can run up to 117 Degrees. I have a finished garage but no air in it. The inside of the garage can get up to low 100’s. I’m concerned about the heat affecting the trains, the track and scenery. Anyone have experience with this? Thanks in advance. Jim
Funny thing you should mention.
Last September I attended a Free-mo setup (HO) in Aptos (CA) inside a barn converted into a community building. Temperature got to 116 F. On one of my modules, one of the rails bulged out sideways of the plastic spikes--about 2" long. I put some "temporary" metal spikes in, and it was good to go. That was the only heat related event.
As I said, no problems with trains or layout other than that. The humans were another story, though all survived. After proper refreshment.
So, my recommendation is to allow for rail expansion. Don't solder rail joiners--attach feeders to the rails, instead. And maybe allow a snidge of extra gap in the joiners for expansion. Except if you lay your track at 116 F. Then you don't have to. But you'll be wanting that refreshment.
Ed
I live near you and the worst problem isn’t the high temperature but the swing between the heat of the day and the cold of night. For people who don’t know the area there can be 50 degree changes between daytime highs and nighttime lows. Just this week it was 90 in the day and 40’s at night. I don’t soldier my track together so that the track can expand and shrink without causing problems. Frequent feeder wires help maintain electrical flow. I don’t run the trains during the heat of the day during the summer. I wait until night and open up the doors to let the cool air inside. If you install a small window type air conditioner, which you can easily cut into a wall, be sure to mount it up high for best efficiency because heat raises and cold air falls. Fans will be useful also. Mostly remember that model railroading is a winter activity not a summer one so do most of your operations and scenery construction in the cooler months. In the heat of the summer build model inside your house instead. Use cool burning lights like LEDs so they don’t heat up the room. Block off any windows because a garage can turn into a very hot green house when the sun shines into it. I use aluminum foil to cover them. Looking back over the years I think the only damage done by the heat is that model car tires can melt a little bit and stick to the road surface.
Also know that parking a hot car in your garage will raise the tempature 10 to 20 degrees.
living where outside temps can and do exced 120 in the summer and the layout in a metal building that only has west wall and roof insulated . i never have track related problems , what track i have laid was done when outside temp was around 90 , but did leave gaps of .015 every so often . the only damage related to heat i've had is the plastic axle gears on athearn and proto drive trains.
Hi Jim,
Before starting layout construction in my garage I insulated the walls & celing & had wall board installed. Summertime temps that used to reach into the high 90s to 100 during the hottest days have been knocked down to at most the mid-80s. Also makes for warmer winter time temps.
My layout has to share the garage with the family buggy. As Lone Wolf and Santa Fe mentioned, it's best during warm weather to leave the buggy outside until after it cools off, but in the winter it's engine heat can be welcome.
The addition of an insulated & rubber sealed sectional garage door helps too, not only to mitigate heat and cold, but also reduces dust. Sealing the concrete floor with an epoxy coating is another dust fighter.
Increasing comfort and cleanliness in the layout area makes working on and running trains much more enjoyable.
Good luck and happy model railroading, Peter
My trains all run better in the winter than in summer... In the summer they constantly derail and run bad but in winter they run like new.
So far, this seems to be a "left" coast thing. I'm thinking those on the far "bottom"coast must experience the same, maybe with more humidity to go with it.
Way up here on the "top" coast, we have extremes of both hot and cold. The good news that most of us up here have basements (notice I said most), which is a great place to be when it's red hot outside, but since basements aren't always heated as well as the living area above, I for one need to make winter time temp. adjustments for comfortable railroading.
So far, I haven't had any problems with operating my basement layout, it's just the comfort thing. Not everyday do I feel like plugging in the space heaters when outside temps are at the extreme lows, but than again, winter is my only time to do my model railroading, so I make the best of it.
Mike.
My You Tube
I live in Fullerton with a large layout in my finished but uninsulated garage. While not quite Riverside, Fullerton does see summer/early fall temps as high as 110 degrees. My layout has been up for about 10 years now and I only had weather related problems with it for the first couple of years. These problems were limited to gaps in the rails closing up due to rail expansion and shrinking of the wood benchwork. I found that simply recutting these gaps on a hot day solved all such track problems. Now that my benchwork has "seasoned," I no longer see many track related issues.
The only other weather related problems I've had mainly affected "fresh" scenery. Scenery materials will tend to shrink in high heat and I have had to go back and fill in a few cracks. I also had a problem where one of my craft foam-over-styrene roadways buckled, likely due to the shrinking of the plwood it was attached to. This was cured by cutting a narrow gap across the roadway, gluing the styrene and craft foam back down, filling any remaining gap with WS Foam Putty, then painting the repair to resemble a typical roadwork repair/repave.
Overall, the "problems" you'll likely encounter really won't be that big a deal, certainly not enough to make you continue to put off building a layout. If you leave small gaps between the ends of your rails and solder only those rail joints that really need extra strength, your trackwork will be fine. Instead of soldered rail joints, use feeder wires to ensure that each rail section gets power.
Hornblower
.
All of my layouts have been in the Air Conditioned part of the house.
I have helped three friends build garage layouts in South Florida. All did not end well. In winter time the garage can drop into the 50s some nights, then during the summer it hovers well above 100.
This is too much fluctuation, and all had problems.
I strongly advise a smaller location under central climate control.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
marksrailroad My trains all run better in the winter than in summer... In the summer they constantly derail and run bad but in winter they run like new.
The heat makes your track expand and if you don't have small gaps between the pieces of track you get heat warp which goes away when it cools off. I don't solider my track together so I don't have that problem. There is usually enough slop with railjoiners to not have the problem.
This problem happens on real train tracks also causing serious derailments.
Similar situation here in Tampa where summer sun is directly overhead heating the garage up.
As I was building my layout table I convinced my wife that we should add an air duct into the garage ceiling off the air handler (conveniently located in the garage ) so her "Laundry" would be fresher and I could work on honey-do projects comfortably. (Hey, I had to come up with a reasonable excuse besides model railroading!!!)
When the air is on in the house, the garage has the same room temperature so my trackwork stays intact without issue- at least that which I have laid down so far.
If you can run air into your garage, that would help a lot.
Cedarwoodron
First, apologies all for waiting so long to reply. Work has been hectic.
I would love to run air inito the garage. However, my electric bill during the summer runs over $400. Don't want to add on to that at all. It usually cools down into the 50's or 60's in the eveing so opening the door to cool things down is an option.
Partitioning off that area is most likely in the future. I'm getting ready to add a second garage in the backyard hopefully this year budget permitting. That will clear out most of the garage and I will be able to wall that area off. That will make a huge difference.
Yep, "dry" heat. See above reply. Electircal is already through the roof. If I can get the area walled off though that is in the cards.
I had considered that. My plan is to leave about a .015 gap between all tracks sections. It may make things a bit noisier but that shouldn't be enough to cause any problems. Going to test beforehand though, of course.
Yes, the swing is really that bad. I've even seen worse. This summer, I saw it go from 112 during the day to 53 at night.
I agree. I was not planning on soldering the rails but I do plan to have many feeders to the track. In the past, poor contact and problems with track were just some of the reasons I gave up and walked away. At the time I had no paience and never even thought to add multiple feeders. Live and learn.
That's encouraging news. I'm glad to hear everything has settled down and is working well. That gives me hopes of surviving the experience.
Folks,Track really doesn't expand much from heat, at least not worth mentioning. If you do the math, a 12-foot long piece of brass will expand less than 1/64" in a 100 degree F temp. change.
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/linear-thermal-expansion-d_1379.html
A less than 1/64" length over 12 feet won't kink much of anything.
Normally what happens when you get track kinks on your layout is that the wood is moving. Wood will move a heckuva lot more than metal due to humidity or lack thereof.
When we lived in Arizona, I built a 3 X 6 N-Gauge layout that resided outside on our patio. I soldered all the gaps and even though it was shaded most of the day, it was still exposed to the summer heat and in the 2 years it was out there, I always enjoyed smooth operations.
Good luck with your build.....
Bob Berger, C.O.O. N-ovation & Northwestern R.R. My patio layout....SEE IT HERE
There's no place like ~/ ;)
My Free-mo modules have experienced a wide range of humidities in their lives of 4 years. No buckling.
When they were exposed to 120 F, one rail buckled.
Paul3 Folks,Track really doesn't expand much from heat, at least not worth mentioning. If you do the math, a 12-foot long piece of brass will expand less than 1/64" in a 100 degree F temp. change. https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/linear-thermal-expansion-d_1379.html A less than 1/64" length over 12 feet won't kink much of anything. Normally what happens when you get track kinks on your layout is that the wood is moving. Wood will move a heckuva lot more than metal due to humidity or lack thereof.
RR_Mel Paul3 Folks,Track really doesn't expand much from heat, at least not worth mentioning. If you do the math, a 12-foot long piece of brass will expand less than 1/64" in a 100 degree F temp. change. https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/linear-thermal-expansion-d_1379.html A less than 1/64" length over 12 feet won't kink much of anything. Normally what happens when you get track kinks on your layout is that the wood is moving. Wood will move a heckuva lot more than metal due to humidity or lack thereof. I wish I had taken pictures of my layout when the “non expanding rails” went bananas with the 70° temperature swing from the summer to winter because I soldered the joiners. The “non expanding rails” broke out the ties in every section of track in my 64” diameter radius helix as well as several other 32” diameter curves. I didn’t solder the joiners when I replaced the 10 sections of flex track and that took care of the "non expanding rails" for over ten years. I went with a 1/64” gap between rails during the hot summer when the “non expanding rails” were at max. That took care of the problem. Some ten years later I reduced the temperature swing to about 30° after I added insulation to my garage, an additional R40. How ever you do it take care of large temperature swings, it’s not good for layouts. The Bakersfield humidity varies from about 8% to 20% during the summer. Mel Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951 My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
As I belive was previously mentioned in this thread, while from our perspective the rails on our layouts expand and contract, what is actually happening is the layout is contracting and expanding underneath the rails. The trick is to minimize the expansion and contraction of the layout. There are two approaches that are typically used.
If you are not able to do either of these, then your track must be able to accomodate the layout's expansion and contraction through the use of expansion gaps.
For those who love numbers:
Yellow pine coefficient of moisture expansion: 1.76x10^-3 to 2.63x10^-3 ft/(ft*%) (https://www.popularwoodworking.com/tricks/how-to-calculate-wood-shrinkage-and-expansion)Unspecified pine coefficient of thermal expansion: 2.78x1-^-6 ft/(ft*degF) (https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/linear-expansion-coefficients-d_95.html)
Nickel silver coefficient of moisture expansion: Negligable.Nickel silver coefficient of thermal expansion: 9x10^-6 ft/(ft*degF) (https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-expansion-metals-d_859.html)
Multiply temperature change (F) by coefficient of thermal expansion.Multiply humidity change (%) by coefficient of moisture expansion.
So if we want a 1% change in length of a given piece of material, that would require:
Humidity changes are by far the largest source of expansion and contraction in our layouts.
Modeling the Pennsy and loving it!
My building for my RR suffers a wide swing in temp and humidity. Northern Minnesota. To try and head off any contraction and expansion issues I used steel studs for benchwork and laid 2" of foam over the top to build my scenery upon.
Track has soldered joiners with the joiner soldered only on one end every so often. to insure electrical conduction I make a jumper over the spaced joiner from one track to the next. Just like the prototype. I use a fine wire and it has proven to insure a strong connection for all those rampant electrons. After all, loose electrons add to operating expenses! No slack time for them.
God's Best & Happy Rails to You!
Bing (RIPRR The Route of the Buzzards)
The future: Dead Rail Society
on a layout, the expansion and contraction of the LUMBER is critical. The expansion of the railsa is miniscule compared to the movements of the tables.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS