I have a recurring dream where I am out and about and I find a hobby shop; had that dream last night. One of the things I clearly remember was finding a pegboard merchandiser full of rail joiners, and there in the middle , was a pegboard hook with several packages of Walthers brass rail joiners. The blue lettering of the Walthers packaging and the brass color of the joiners vividly stood out. Weird, I know. I also had the thought (in the dream) of "I found brass rail joiners, I can post this on the MR Forum."
Peco rail joiners work well and they are actually made from mild steel and coated. The problem is that over time, the steel joiners and NS rail will have an electrolytic reaction so you will be obliged to solder up joints before too long anyway! The reaction does not necessarily sound like much but it does make a surprising difference.
Hope this helps
Cheers from Australia
Trevor
You could try using Peco rail joiners in nickel-silver. I found them to be very tight fitting. In fact, I often had to wedge them open a bit with a screwdriver just to get them on. I don’t know if the difference was from the shape of the joiner or the profile of the rail itself.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Bernie,
Are you getting the pack of 300?
Simon has a good point. Years back I used brass rail joiners on my layout and in time had glitchy electrical pickup issues, even after cleaning the track. It's a better move to gently "snug" the joints with pliers and solder them.
Additional "insurance" is to solder wire feeders. Doesn't take long to do.
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
Thanks, all! I found some on Ebay!
Honestly, none of them perform particularly well without a soldered joint. Brass may be pretty solid, but it also oxydizes pretty quickly. Is this layout permanent or semi-permanent? I have an O scale semi-permanent loop, and I soldered large segments together (pieces of three) to improve connectivity. I also added a set of feeders on the other side of the loop.
Pliers can be used to ensure a tight fit, as mentioned by another member - just go with a light touch, or you'll squish it (don't ask why I know that). A (dark) elastic band can also be used to ensure that the tracks hold together.
Simon
Never had an issue with nickel silver joiners becoming loose. You can prevent it. How? Two aideas are using Micro Engineering joiners or gently squeezing the Atlas joiners.
The rail joiners you are refering to are not like the Atlas ones, kinda flat but more like the Shinohara ones that are more wedge shaped, AHM used to sell them as well as others, some even came with dimples in them to represent the bolts.
On Ebay, if you type "HO Brass Rail Joiners", you'll see several packs pop up including one "Buy it Now" seller that states he has over 360 brass rail joiners (photo included).
Nickel silver rail has replaced brass rail since I was a kid playing with trains on my bedroom floor. Nickel silver has better electrical characteristics and looks more realistic, but is a softer metal than brass. As a result, nickel silver rail joiners get loose from vibration fairly quickly. Yes, you can solder your rails, but I didn't have this problem when I was a kid.
So, does anyone still make brass rail joiners for either code 83 or code 100 rail, and can anyone here post a link to them?
Thank you, much!