Hi Guys,
I need to vent! Tonight, I decided to have some fun and watch a passenger train run, adding a new car I bought recently at a train show to my existing passenger train. Just as the train got to one of the most INACCESSIBLE sections of my layout, it derailed. When I finished moving all the buildings etc. that were in the way and climbed up on the layout, I noticed that a turnout, which directs trains off the mainline to my wharf, was "sprung". What I mean is that it looks like the track has expanded, probably from heat in the train room and having put pressure on the turnout, one side of the turnout's rail by the points popped out of the molded-on spikes. Thus, one side of the points of the turnout is actually hitting the outside rail, rather than there being a gap there. Obviously, that means there's no room for wheels between the 2 rails. That's what was causing the derailment.
To try and correct the problem, before replacing the whole turnout, I used a cut-off disk in my Dremel to cut a gap in the rail that was sprung where it joins the next section of flextrack. By doing so, I relieved the pressure and was able to spike the turnout's outside rail back where it belongs. Of course, now I have to wonder if this fix is satisfactory and whether it will last for the long term. The other option is to totally replace this turnout; desoldering all the joints and power-routing feeds and installing a new turnout. I wonder if it might be better to leave my fix in place for a while to see what happens. I could certainly glue ballast in the area just beyond the points to give the fix additional strength. The only other thing I have to do is solder a piece of solid wire across that gap I cut to relieve the pressure. I'm thinking that a solid wire across the gap will also help strengthen my fix.
What do you guys think? Should I "bite the bullet" and replace the whole turnout? Or, should I try living with my fix?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Mondo
Imagine yourself as a MOW supervisor standing at a turnout 20 miles from nowhere in 1906 and wondering the same thing. It happens...I haven't had a turnout go bad on me, but I have had no end of problems getting them tuned to where they operate reliably with the homemade actuators I have fashioned. Boy, have I learned a lot.
If the turnout points work well and smooothly, and if you see no kinks, and if you try every one of your engines back and forth through the turnout, and all seems normal, I would tell the jury to go back and deliberate a bit longer while I had fun.
My
loathar wrote:If it's working, leave it alone and see if it messes up again. Watch it closely if you have any drastic temp changes. It's not like anyones going to die if it starts derailing again.(unless you've geneticly engineered tiny people to ride in your passenger cars.)
I agree with loathar 100%. If it ain't broke don't fix it!. Leave better yet alone... I've got a bad spot on my layout that I've "jerry rigged" that hasn't given me any problems in over two years.
Tracklayer
Your problem was probably caused by your benchwork drying out and shrinking due to winter dryness.
Don't be discouraged. You just learned 2 valuble lessons.
1) Build your benchwork in the winter so it will expand in the summer
2) Make sure all turnouts are accessable
Something happened to your benchwork, though. It sounds like that's why the turnout sprung, from your description. Was it high/low humidity, or maybe a big temperature change? People have done engineerings studies and concluded that HO-scale NS track doesn't expand enough on its own to cause problems, but all those wood products, including paper products like homosote, will expand and contract with the conditions around them.
For now, leave it alone, but watch it carefully. By the way, you have clearly demonstrated Murphy's Law here. This didn't happen at a convenient spot in the front of your layout, did it? While you're waiting for it to fail again, think about how you can modifiy that space so that you can get to it more easily.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I think about the same thing, to fix or not to fix, and my thinking is geared toward my wiring, which although it works, looks like a fire waiting to happen. I am just repairing bit by bit, so in you case I would say leave it be until the problem occurs again, and then focus in on a long term fix. Before you replace the whole turnout, you have to make sure what happened won't happen again by finding the cause. So monitor the temp and the area of problem closing and see if you can determine a cause. Just my
-beegle55
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
mondotrains wrote: a turnout, ... was "sprung". What I mean is that it looks like the track has expanded, probably from heat in the train room and having put pressure on the turnout, one side of the turnout's rail by the points popped out of the molded-on spikes. ... to totally replace this turnout; desoldering all the joints and power-routing feeds and installing a new turnout.
I wonder if it might be better to leave my fix in place for a while to see what happens.
The only other thing I have to do is solder a piece of solid wire across that gap I cut to relieve the pressure. I'm thinking that a solid wire across the gap will also help strengthen my fix.
Texas Zepher wrote: mondotrains wrote: a turnout, ... was "sprung". What I mean is that it looks like the track has expanded, probably from heat in the train room and having put pressure on the turnout, one side of the turnout's rail by the points popped out of the molded-on spikes. ... to totally replace this turnout; desoldering all the joints and power-routing feeds and installing a new turnout. This is another reason I don't solder joints. It makes everything "give" a little bit more when the temp or humidity change, and it makes it much easier to remove for doing repairs or replacement. I wonder if it might be better to leave my fix in place for a while to see what happens. Sometimes things will work better after a fix like this. What would it hurt to leave it?The only other thing I have to do is solder a piece of solid wire across that gap I cut to relieve the pressure. I'm thinking that a solid wire across the gap will also help strengthen my fix. Wouldn't that just be re-creating the original problem. If the solid wire is strengthening the fix, it is also transfering stress right back into the trouble spot.
I don't think soldering a solid wire on the outside of the rail will recreate the problem because by cutting the gap, I released the pressure and I will leave that gap. The wire soldered on the outside of the rail is simply to insure that the rail won't snap back inwards towards the points....right now, only a few spikes are holding the rail in place.
Thanks for your input.
mondotrains wrote: Texas Zepher wrote: mondotrains wrote: a turnout, ... was "sprung". What I mean is that it looks like the track has expanded, probably from heat in the train room and having put pressure on the turnout, one side of the turnout's rail by the points popped out of the molded-on spikes. ... to totally replace this turnout; desoldering all the joints and power-routing feeds and installing a new turnout. This is another reason I don't solder joints. It makes everything "give" a little bit more when the temp or humidity change, and it makes it much easier to remove for doing repairs or replacement. I wonder if it might be better to leave my fix in place for a while to see what happens. Sometimes things will work better after a fix like this. What would it hurt to leave it?The only other thing I have to do is solder a piece of solid wire across that gap I cut to relieve the pressure. I'm thinking that a solid wire across the gap will also help strengthen my fix. Wouldn't that just be re-creating the original problem. If the solid wire is strengthening the fix, it is also transfering stress right back into the trouble spot. I don't think soldering a solid wire on the outside of the rail will recreate the problem because by cutting the gap, I released the pressure and I will leave that gap. The wire soldered on the outside of the rail is simply to insure that the rail won't snap back inwards towards the points....right now, only a few spikes are holding the rail in place. Thanks for your input.Mondo
In that case, I am guessing that neither of us understands what you intend to do. For my take on this, a solid wire of less than 22 gauge may allow sufficient flexibility when the circumstances repeat, and let you get away with any further distortions, but I don't see how a "solid" wire soldered across the newly created gap will do anything except nullify the gap once more. The solidity of the two rail interface was a problem all along, which the skewed turnout demonstrated. Fine to cut a gap, but to then re-anchor the ends to each other, whether by pieces of rail, wire, or angle iron, is undoing the very thing you intended to accommodate. You are far better off cutting the slight gap, and then using rail joiners for alignment and to allow slippage. If necessary, solder a light filament jumper where the joiners don't seem to power the turnout.
selector wrote: mondotrains wrote: Texas Zepher wrote: mondotrains wrote: a turnout, ... was "sprung". What I mean is that it looks like the track has expanded, probably from heat in the train room and having put pressure on the turnout, one side of the turnout's rail by the points popped out of the molded-on spikes. ... to totally replace this turnout; desoldering all the joints and power-routing feeds and installing a new turnout. This is another reason I don't solder joints. It makes everything "give" a little bit more when the temp or humidity change, and it makes it much easier to remove for doing repairs or replacement. I wonder if it might be better to leave my fix in place for a while to see what happens. Sometimes things will work better after a fix like this. What would it hurt to leave it?The only other thing I have to do is solder a piece of solid wire across that gap I cut to relieve the pressure. I'm thinking that a solid wire across the gap will also help strengthen my fix. Wouldn't that just be re-creating the original problem. If the solid wire is strengthening the fix, it is also transfering stress right back into the trouble spot. I don't think soldering a solid wire on the outside of the rail will recreate the problem because by cutting the gap, I released the pressure and I will leave that gap. The wire soldered on the outside of the rail is simply to insure that the rail won't snap back inwards towards the points....right now, only a few spikes are holding the rail in place. Thanks for your input.Mondo In that case, I am guessing that neither of us understands what you intend to do. For my take on this, a solid wire of less than 22 gauge may allow sufficient flexibility when the circumstances repeat, and let you get away with any further distortions, but I don't see how a "solid" wire soldered across the newly created gap will do anything except nullify the gap once more. The solidity of the two rail interface was a problem all along, which the skewed turnout demonstrated. Fine to cut a gap, but to then re-anchor the ends to each other, whether by pieces of rail, wire, or angle iron, is undoing the very thing you intended to accommodate. You are far better off cutting the slight gap, and then using rail joiners for alignment and to allow slippage. If necessary, solder a light filament jumper where the joiners don't seem to power the turnout.
Let me try to explain what I've done. When I cut the gap, it relieved the stress on the outer rail of the turnout because the cut-off disk removed a bit of metal between the end of the turnout and the flex track just beyond it. I then spiked the outer rail back in place where it belonged. When I soldered a solid piece of 18 gauge wire today to the outside of the rail across the gap, I didn't "fill in" the gap....I simply reinforced the joint because I don't want the two rails at that gap to misalign (I don't trust the rail spikes to maintain that alignment). It's as simple as that. I couldn't install loose rail joiners as you suggested without unsoldering the whole turnout and lifting it up to get a rail joiner in place. Now, I guess if there is additional shrinkage on my layout, then the turnout could get streesed even more and buckle again. If that happens, I'll know you were right and I should not have soldered that wire across the gap.
My benchwork was built 7 years ago and is in a room with very little temperature or humidity change (a 2nd floor finished room with heating/air conditioning). I'm hoping that whatever happened to stress that turnout happened over 7 years and will not continue, but who knows?
Ditto! The mental anguish this has caused you and will continue to cause you cannot be healthy. Everytime you want to run a train over this stretch of track you will wonder if the repair is going to hold.
Tell you a story. Long ago and far away I was a member of the Flagstaff Model Railroad Club in Arizona. We had a good sized double ended switching yard in the middle of our layout. One night I was working as the South Flag Yardmaster and threw a switch on the yard panel. Now South Flag had a series of seven puzzle switches at the time. When I threw #4 the points on the North end of the switch popped up vertical instead of switching horizonally. Jeez, did I just see that? Investigation proved that yes that imported puzzle switch on #4 track had broken points. Now in all our wisdom a lot of our track was soldered together. And of course on a puzzle switch this would mean eight different solder joints to loosen before the switch could be replaced! The repair was made at a later work night and I don't remember how much of the ladder we had to take apart to replace one switch. Yes this hobby can get discouraging. Drive on!
TA462 wrote:I would plan on replacing it soon.