Making track

[highpeak]

While work on refinishing my future railroad room drags on, I have been experimenting with track making techniques. There won't be a lot of track on my layout because I don't have that much space, so I decided to make it myself rather than use any of the available brands (truth to tell, neither of my LHS go any further than pretty basic when it comes to track, as far as I can see they carry Atlas and that's about it). I wanted code 70 to represent secondary track in the 50s.

I evaluated Central Valley's tie strip and while I liked the tie plate/spike detail, the track looked a bit uniform, and every few ties there were some whopper spikes to retain the rail. That's not really fair of me, since the spike heads I ended up with are just as obtrusive but I was probably looking for a reason to go with wood.

I like wood because it is very easy to distress a bit (actually, most of the ties come with a bit of splintering at the ends anyway, so no additional work is needed), takes an india ink/acrylic wash very well, and is easy enough to lay using a very simple jig to get the ties spaced out.

Spiking the track meant some sort of fairly rigid roadbed and I opted for cork. I've read dire warnings against cork, but it worked OK on my last layout some 20 years ago, so I decided to stick with it. Foam type roadbeds don't work for me with spikes, though Iain Rice seemed to get along OK with it when he built the P87 layout a few years back.

I used some fairly small spikes, but the heads seemed too big so I spent some time snipping them down a bit so they are merely enormous rather than gigantic. I will be spiking every 4th tie or so, which makes my criticism of the CV tie strip especially hypocritical.

I pondered the lack of tie plates and decided to use paper, super-glued to the ties in the jig prior to spiking the rail down. I gave up on cosmetic spikes, and am not sold on the idea of cosmetic tie plates either since once I take my glasses off I can't see that kind of detail. I looked at Andy Reichert's tie plates on the Proto 87 site, and while they look very good, they add $9 to the cost of a yard of track. I am not saying they are over-priced, just that my budget doesn't run to that type of cost.

I experimented with various attempts at reproducing cosmetic joint bars. Five thou plastic could easily be bent in my Hold'n'Fold tool to give the approximate shape, but embossing the nuts/bolts didn't make them prominent enough. The detail looks surprisingly large in some photos I examined:

In the end I used 10 thou with a representation of the bolts cut from a small strip of plastic, and the "foot" of the bar added, since 10 thou didn't take kindly to being bent. For some reason the paint didn't want to adhere to the joint bar in the picture. I will probably buy some of Andy Reichert's joint bars because that is a detail that stands out and the method I have evolved is quite time consuming even for a small amount of track.

I don't know whether it's worth all this effort to add a bit of detail to this rather old-fashioned way of laying track, especially since I can't see the damned stuff without my glasses anyway. And I do realise that there should be two rails, I left the other one off to show how I stuck the tie plates onto the ties.

 

[trisonic]

Thanks!

Can I ask a couple of questions? Which Code rail are you using and do you buy bulk locally or over the Internet?

I'm planing on using ME Code 70 NS - but wished I could find quality steel rail over here............

 

Whose gauges do you use?

I've got some Code 70 Holy Rollers from Railway Engineering so far.

 

Do you cut your own ties or buy in bulk?

 

Best, Pete.

[F-UnitMad]

Right there with you on the ties - nothing can look like wooden ties as well as.... wooden ties!! If it's of any interest to you, I used balsa wood strip to hand-lay some track on my small O Scale layout Schiller Point. If you haven't seen the thread here's a pic from when the track was laid (direct to plywood base) but before ballasting:-

 

I didn't bother with tie plates, although I think I would if I did it again. I like the idea of using paper for them.

The rail is Code 100, the 'spikes' are Peco track pins!

Here's what it looks like ballasted:-

 

 

My track gauges are of the "No Expense Met" variety...

[highpeak]

Thanks!

Can I ask a couple of questions? Which Code rail are you using and do you buy bulk locally or over the Internet?

I'm planing on using ME Code 70 NS - but wished I could find quality steel rail over here............

 

Whose gauges do you use?

I've got some Code 70 Holy Rollers from Railway Engineering so far.

 

Do you cut your own ties or buy in bulk?

 

Best, Pete.

I'm with you on the steel rail, it looks far better than NS. I've had some steel bullhead lying around for a long time and it hasn't rusted.

Ties and spikes were from Fast Tracks, both Micro-Engineering. I have a three point gauge from them, and two Kadee gauges that I bought a long time ago. My spiking tool is a mystery, I bought it 20 odd years ago and have no idea where I found it.

I really like F-Unit's track, and at that scale the spike heads look quite realistic. The finish on the ties looks very good. You could get that with plastic, but I think wood just makes it easier to achieve.

[goodmayes]

Tie plates on US track partly serve the same purpose as chairs on UK track.

 

They tilt the rail inwards to match the wheel coning and so save big on rail and wheel wear. That was figured out before the turn of the 20th century, so most US Railroads jumped right in and standardized on them from then on.

 

BTW, Those "big spikes" on some Central Valley track bases are actually model "rail clamps". Those are very common at low spacing everywhere on US track but are added generously where there is heavy acceleration or braking, to prevent the rail sliding through the spikes instead.

 

Ted

[highpeak]

Tie plates on US track partly serve the same purpose as chairs on UK track.

 

They tilt the rail inwards to match the wheel coning and so save big on rail and wheel wear. That was figured out before the turn of the 20th century, so most US Railroads jumped right in and standardized on them from then on.

 

BTW, Those "big spikes" on some Central Valley track bases are actually model "rail clamps". Those are very common at low spacing everywhere on US track but are added generously where there is heavy acceleration or braking, to prevent the rail sliding through the spikes instead.

 

Ted

From a modelling perspective there needs to be something there to represent the tie plate, but since the real things are pretty thin, it's easy to end up with something oversized. I tried just painting a patch of rust, but concluded that it needed to be 3D. The CV track base does an excellent job of representing the tie plates, which is why I wanted to see if I could do something similar with wood ties. The Proto 87 tieplates look excellent, but as I pointed out earlier, the cost is pretty high.

The rail clamps on the CV track bases are pretty chunky since they have a mechanical function to perform. They didn't really look like the clamps to me, since the real clamps are not that thick.

I did like the CV product, but wood won the day because I felt it was easier to finish than plastic.