Flextrack on a curve

[Anonymous]

I know that I read about this not that long ago but being the bone head that I
am I didn't write it down[:(][:(][:(] When laying flextrack on a curve should the
moveable rail be on the inside or outside of the curve[?][?][?]

[CP5415]

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16308

Harvey, this might help

Honestly, I've never paid attention to where the moveable rail is.
I solder both pieces of track together using joiners, solder & flux,then I start laying track.
It's worked good for me so far & I have 15 curves on my layout that I've done this way.

I could be wrong, I don't know, but as I said, I haven't had a problem with any of my curves.

Gordon

[jwar]

Harvey
Possably it doesnt matter, however I read somewhere that the solid track should be to the outside of the curve. Only sodering the curved track I had a problem with alignment and made a sodering jig out of 1/4 plywood. Using the factory straight edge to nail 2 @, 1 x 6 inch long) against the out side of the ties onto another 4x6 piece of plywood, this six inch long jig is easy to slip under the last foot or so of track to soder to the outside of the rail with. It holds the track in perfect horz and vert alignment and is easy and cheap to make. Main reason I did this is that My helix is five turns and I did not want to have problems. Also use a magnifying glass to look at each sodered joint and file accordinly However not all rail joiners have a tight fit, if the joiner is exceptionly loose, the joined track can be sodered a tad offset.

Just another two cents,...John

[rrinker]

Of course, some times the track doesn't cooperate. I just picked up a few extra pieces of Atlas Code 83 flextrack fromt he LHS to supplant the large quantity I bought at a locla train show, and this new stuff (if it is indeed the 'new' stuff) only has 1 rail that moves. ALl the older sections I have (again, going by when I bought them, I have no idea on which was actually manufactured first) has BOTH rails that slide.
With the single slideable rail, i would keep the FIXED rail on the outsideof curves. I usually solder two sections together so the curve is all one big piece, this avoids problems with a joint in the middle of a curve. Those are the ONLY track joints I solder.

--Randy

[2021]

Keep the fixed rail to the outside. The outside rail has the longer radius so you want the rail you have to cut to be on the inside which would be the sliding rail. If you go the other way you would cut the fixed rail which is much more difficult.
Ron K.

[johncolley]

Hold the phone! The reason for keeping the sliding rail to the outside of the curve is so the ties will fan out and the guage will widen up a wee bit. If you put the solid rail to the outside the ties will try to close up and the guage will narrow a bit, causing more drag and increasing the possibility of derails. Check it out on test tracks with a track guage. Signed, been there, done that!

[mcouvillion]

I don't understand the fixed-rail / sliding rail discussion. I installed essentially all of the track on our 12' x 24' modular layout. This included three tracks with 45" radius on most curves. The only flex track that I have seen that had a "sliding rail" was older Atlas track. The other flextrack I have seen is pretty stiff and takes some effort to slide the spikes on the rail to flex it. Some brands are tougher to slide than others. If one of the rails is so loose that it slides easily, I don't want to use it as it may go out of gauge in use. Older Atlas flex track did.

As far as soldering two sections of flex track prior to bending the curve, I'd like to see that done with the spikes to the ties intact. Do you start from the center of the curve at the rail joiners and work your way out to the ends. The nature of having one rail longer than the other in the curve means that as you bend the curve, one rail's joiner is going to move out of alignment with the other, and necessarily have to move through the spikes holding it to the ties. But the joiner can't move through the ties! OK, now what?

When I laid out all of the curves, I did it a diffferent way. I used templates to map out the entire centerline of the curve into the tangents. I installed the roadbed to the centerline, off-setting the joints of the two sides to make the curve uniform. Since my curves were actually longer than the individual corner modules, drop-in sections were required at the joints between the modules. We decided to use Atlas 3" sectional track as the universal drop-in section. These were modified underneath between the ties on one side to enable them to flex. They were then temporarily tacked in place in the curve, centered over the joint (the 3" sections have an odd number of ties, so the middle tie was placed over the gap between the modules). I then attached the flex track to the drop-in section, leaving a little gap to make later installation / removal easier. I tacked the flex track down the track centerline and "eyed" it to make sure it flowed smoothly. I did this from both ends of the curve until I got to the middle of the curve. One end of the flex track was anchored down and cut evenly at the end, parallel to the last tie. The other flex track section was laid out and over the first. I used a small permanent marker to mark where the top rails needed to be cut to mate with the lower rails. I always cut them just a tiny bit long using Xuron Rail cutters. If the rails did not align properly, I nipped them again just a tiny bit until they aligned properly. I then added the rail joiners (after under-cutting the tie plates and spikes from the last tie on each section of track), checked the curvature, and finished tacking it down. I did not solder the joiner in the middle of the curves. This is how all of the curves were done. I know that Teffy has seen the trackwork and I'll bet you he could not tell you where the rail joiners are in the curves without really looking for them. There are no kinks in the arc of the curve.

I'm constantly amazed that folks on this forum think that cheap track is the least expensive alternative that they have. It is actually the most expensive thing they could use, since it will constantly be a performance problem and cause them constant aggravation. Using cheap junk is a false economy. The track is the foundation of the railroad. Do it right and you will never notice it as a problem. It will be a joy to run on. Do it wrong, and it will be noticed every time you use it.

Mark C.

[Anonymous]

Mark!! What brand of track do you use and how much do you pay for a ( 3' ? ) section????

[mcouvillion]

Harvey,

We actually used the newer Atlas code 100 flextrack and Peco code 100 medium and large radius turnouts. I looked at the extra flextrack last night and the sliding rail is tighter than I had remembered for Atlas track, but I did not really care during installation whether it was on the inside or outside of the curve. I've looked at flextrack such as Micro Engineering that has realistic spikes holding the rails and it is pretty stiff to flex. I think that I would use Micro Engineering track and Shinohara turnouts on my own layout when I finally get to build my own. I have a bunch of Shinohara turnouts already and a few sections of flextrack that is not Atlas, but I don't remember what brand it is. It does not have a "sliding" rail either.

The older Atlas flex track that I have seen and used had the loose rail so loose that it actually rocked under the spikes. Not good. The club voted on what we were going to use and although I argued for using the best track available, the collective pocketbooks won out. Fortunately, we are on the upper end of the spectrum, not the bottom. There was not that much difference between what we bought and what we could have had. The railroad runs very well and the trains look good going around the superelevated curves.

Mark C.

[Anonymous]

Well folks as I said in my original question, I can be a bone head at times, after all
you good people gave me varying thoughts on the subject I went to Atlases web site
( LIKE DUH! ) and if you look under their support section for flex track they say you must
place the sliding rail on the inside of all curves so that's what I'm going for. Thanks again everybody.
The "Harven"

[simon1966]

I always join (solder) two 3' sections on the bench, removing the last 3 ties from each piece at the join. Sliding rail on the inside of the curve for me. With the corkroad bed having been glued down with appropriate easement curves into the main radius, I then attatch one end of the 6' section to the rail before the curve with joiners. I glue my track with a fine bead of liquid nails spread very thin and flat. I simply follow the centerline of the cork and use push pins to secure while it dries. I have one of the simple Micro mark cutting jig tools to square off the ends accurately and trim the track and again remove a couple of ties. When all is dry, I go back and slide some of the removed ties back under the joins to make it all look good. You have to shave off some of the top detail on the ties to make them slide under. I use Atlas code 100 and make a point of finding the stuff with the finer spike detail.