Track
Track
Now that Exeter Central fitted the shed a start was made on repairing and rebuilding the track. At the same time each board would be aligned and fastened to its neighbours. One issue yet to be faced was the control system as without power it would be difficult to test the finished track however, I made a start on the track in the loops using a temporary rig from the H&M Duette.
As you can see from the photo on the left, the non scenic rails in the loops were sat on a few widely spaced PCB sleepers. These had proved inadequate for supporting the rails which had been bent out of shape in both horizontal and vertical planes. By inserting a small screwdriver blade under a bent rail I was able to press down gently on either side to straighten the rail. Judicious use of long nosed pliers took care of the horizontal bends and working round each of the 4 loops gradually restored the correct rail shape. The underlay was glued back down by poking PVA underneath with a steel ruler and where it had shrunk or broken up, replaced with cork floor tiles (below left).
I then tried to insert additional PCB sleepers between the 'skeleton' sleepers originally fitted and found a big problem. The track was built from 0.8mm thick sleepers (1/32”) and having struggled to find 3 mm PCB sleepers in the first place, I discovered the modern ones were 1.6mm thick (1/16”). A quick adding up suggested something like 1000 were needed. I ordered some 0.8mm PCB board from Ebay and cut additional sleepers but soon discovered that it's no fun cutting PCB. After more cogitation I opted for sleepers cut from 1/32” plywood, stained black and glued with impact adhesive under the rails. Together with the existing sleepers (and a few new ones), the wooden sleepers proved effective at holding the rails in place and to gauge (below).
Moving onto each scenic board in turn and working methodically along, each rail was straightened, tested with a gauge and a free running wagon fitted with intermediate wheels, re-soldered where needed and any broken. sleepers replaced with either hand cut PCB or Ply. At the board ends the rails were soldered to brass screws placed along side the rails. These did detract from the look but I prefer a robust fastening at this weak point in the track work as I'm making the layout as transportable as possible on the off chance it has a life after me. At this stage the boards were precisely aligned and new 6 mm diameter holes drilled right through the end frames for screws, washers and wing nuts to hold the boards together.
The next large issue to be dealt with was the 300mm gap where the East end board (10) had to be rebuilt and I had to lose some track. I couldn't use society track as it would not match the existing track so I cannibalised as much of the old damaged track as I could and set about building this bit from scratch. I needed to construct a jig for the half track based on the existing sleeper spacing so I counted and averaged this out at 15 per 100 mm (45 per ft). The jig was made by first gluing a strip of 0.8mm ply as a straight edge on a piece of planed softwood. Then narrow 'spacer' strips were cut to fit between the sleepers and glued against the straight edge. When dry the plywood was sanded down to flat so the new sleepers stood a little proud when in the jig.
To use the jig, I cleaned up as many of the sleepers as I could and made a few more from sheet PCB before placing them in the slots between the spacers on the jig. I soldered a reclaimed length of rail to each sleeper to make up a couple of feet of Half track.
Jig with a few sleepers positioned
I sanded down the ballast on the missing section and inserted brass screws into the board end in line with the existing track on board 9. To tackle possible expansion problems on the longish board, I a cut a Peco code 75 rail joiner in half and placed it onto the existing rail end. I then applied Evo-stik and laid the half track in position adjusting by eye to the new alignment. It was held with weights until the glue was dry before I then positioned the second rail. One end of the rail was inserted into the cut down rail joiner and using a rolla-gauge, the rest of the rail was soldered to each sleeper in turn before finally to the brass screw. This 'end to end' method ensured that no kink was created because of the rail expanding as it was heated.
Assembled track shown in position (Left). A ply sleeper is used under the rail joiner. Note the hardboard embankment base at the top of the picture, used to replace the plaster bandage scenery.
The same process was used on the exit from the lower (west) loops. A 25 mm piece was removed from the station end of board 5 in order to reduce the layout width to fit the shed. The down line was straight at this point and required very little to realign correctly. The up line however, was seriously out of kilter and needed a rebuild on smaller radius.
End of board 5 showing condition of tracks prior to removal of 25mm.
Board shortened and fitted to board 4 (on left) prior to down line being refitted and showing new alignment of up line
Down line in place, up line being 'sleepered' on reduced radius of 380 mm (15").
That took care of the main lines leaving the East carriage sidings and west yard tracks to repair.
East Carriage sidings lifting from shrunken underlay together with down main and Loco spur bent and twisted.
West yard showing broken fiber based track and shrunken cork underlay.
More surgery was required in the west yard sidings as few tracks had survived unscathed. Shrunken cork underlay had pulled the tracks loose, so much of it was scraped off, re glued with PVA poked underneath with a steel ruler and replaced. Some new pieces were added as required from cork tile. The original track was fibre based with rails glued in position and some of this could be recovered and tidied up. I was lucky to find in the boxes of goodies received with the layout, an unopened pack of 'Peco spiked track' dating from Victorian times....this provided new fibre track bases to which the rails were stuck down with contact adhesive, gauged and weighted until dry. The track spikes were too soft to penetrate the chipboard baseboard, hence why the rails were glued. One of the sidings contained 3 dummy wagon turntables which had warped and pulled the track out of shape so these were removed. A bit of research found 2 articles and a picture in old Modelling magazines which allowed me to build new ones in Plastic card.
Once the plain track was repaired I re-soldered any broken point blades, replaced a few tie bars and soldered all rail ends to brass screws. A seriously heavy clean with a track rubbers was required but eventually I could run a wagon all over with few derailments but there were undiagnosed short circuits which prevented a powered test.
This the length of replaced/repaired track in the cutting. The track has been re-ballasted with some spare ballast which came with the layout. Cess'es have been added from plaster painted dark grey and await the addition of grass tufts to soften the edges. The cutting is described under Landscaping