Stage 3

Ok Stage 3. Now it's getting serious!! Time to lay the track. This is one of the hardest things to do to get right, especially when you are 'playing with' gradients, undulation and curves. Trains as a general rule like to run on flat surfaces. They do not like to go up and down hills and inclines. This goes for both actual and scale models. So with my 'ambitious' plan to put all the 5 tracks on elevated sections going up and down, acutally laying the track without issues is the biggest challenge to the layout.

Generally from my past experiences, obtaining a smooth track on an undulation is extremely difficult. It's the challenge of obtaining that gradient where the trains will go up and down without derailing. A train will derail with the slightest imperfection with the track in this instance and therefore continuous testing retesting and retesting again is required.

For this layout i'm predominantly using flexitrack, made by a company called Peco in England. This track does what the desicripiton indicates, it allows you to be flexible with the layout, in that your not fully stuck to a standard radius curve and straight, it allows you to have gradual curves, or large straights with slight bends to work around landscaping and scenery elements if necessary. This is imperative for this layout as I will have 5 tracks running under and over each other.

For the sake of the blog and describing the tracks I've numbered them from a controller sense too. Track 1 will be the far outer loop scaling down to track 5, which will be the inner loop

As I began to lay my first couple of tracks it was becoming increasingly evident that what I had done was potentially not going to work - Just to prove that this blog is not all lollipops and rainbows!!! This day was proving to be a touch frustrating.

I proceeded to lay the first three outside tracks (tracks 1-3) anyway to see the extent of the problems that had arisen, and commenced running the trains in a test sense.

It was a nice milestone to achieve, sending power through the tracks, however the trains did not run well at all. The gradients on the outer track (Track 1) was far too steep for most of the engines to climb and this was before I had even loaded any of them up with carriages! The result of this was a total rethink of the track design and as you can see from below, the first casualties were the 2 inner tracks (4 & 5) as these were at a steeper gradient than the outer track! So I proceeded to tear up the rise and falls and go away and reassess.

The outer track (Track 1) after a few adjustments began to run well with 5 of my engines, and in particular the Flying Scotsman, which after a few cobwebs were blown out, (It was her first run in about 10 years) she began running really well. However the gradient still gave her troubles - especially on the climb up. So this track would have to be revised also.

Tracks 2 and 3 were ok apart from a couple of join issues. As discussed above, it is extremely vital to ensure the joins in the track are spot on as a variance of 1mm can have a massive effect on the running of the locos and for the most part can easily cause a derailment. After a few tinkers these tracks began to run really well.

After thinking about it for the best part of two weeks, I decided to keep a slight rise and fall in track 1 by elevating the front straight, so this would take out the excessive variations and result in the trains running much better and negotiating the rise and falls easier. In regards to tracks 4 & 5, I decided to elevate them at the same level as the rear. This reasoning will become a little clearer as the landscaping and scenery takes shape.

But for now it's back to the drawing board!!!

Stage 2

The next step was to complete the rest of the elevated sections of the track, which meant checking radius' of the respective curves to make sure the trains would actually turn around them. 

The radius for a curve for a HO train set should be no less than 380mm. This is approximately a Hornby Radius 1 curve that is a section of track you can purchase at any hobby shop - This minimum allows for large locomotives and in particular passenger carriages to negotiate the turns. Smaller 2 axle 'tank' engines or shunters will obviously be able to get around a tighter curve but this is the minimum for anything larger. 

I own many larger locomotives which struggle to negotiate even 380mm, so i decided to make the radius considerably larger at 600mm which in old school terms is about 20 inches. This radius is a super safe turn which will allow all my locos to negotiate the turns without any issues like derailing. It also makes the locos travel better around the track as a more consistent speed can be taken around the curves. 

The other testing issue when laying the elevated sections for any layout is managing to get the trains up and down a gradient. In this situation a model railway is not that much different to a full size railway. If the up gradient is too steep, the wheels slip on the track and the train goes no where. If the gradient is too steep on the down slope, the train will gather too much speed and derail at the bottom. 

It is because of these reasons that careful thought has to go into the rise and fall of track. You will see by the photos that the initial gradient I adopted was approximately a 1:16 or 6.25%. Now before I go on, I must describe that this is a steep gradient for railway, both full size and model. Due to the constraints of brief -  ie to manage to build a large 'compact' model railway it was an experiment that I have to try to see if it works. Normally on a layout you would take nothing more than a 1:25 or 4% gradient, so to achieve the 100mm rise I would need 2.5m of track and this at this current stage is just not feasible for what i want this to be. 

Once the gradient had been sorted it was time to start placing the track underlay down. Again through that wonderful entity that is eBay, i managed to come across some felt underlay for a very cheap price. Track underlay serves two purposes for a layout. 

Firstly it serves as a great insulator between the track and the base board, which creates a much quieter and smoother base for which the trains can run. The little electric engines in the locos can be quite loud and coupled with the vibration on an MDF or chipboard base board, this can become quite a noisy past-time! 

The second reason for using underlay is simply an aesthetic reason. The underlay provides the look of ballast (the rocks and stones between and around the tracks you see on railway lines) without actually having to use ballast. With my layout needing to fold vertically, the use of ballast is impractical as the second I turn the layout vertical the stones will obviously fly off into a great big pile of rock. The underlay solves this issue by giving the impression of this ballast without actually providing rocks.

Track underlay usually comes in either polyfoam felt (which i am using) or cork strips, which is easier to work with as you can pin the track down to it before you fix it - which allows you to test the track before nailing. Cork is unfortunately a fair bit more expensive than the polyfoam felt. 


Below are some photos of the felt underlay. When the underlay is down you can now start to see the track layout 

 

 

I thought I would include these below photos as promised in my last entry. The below photos show how the layout folds vertically for storage. The wheels on the base of the table tennis table also allow the layout to be rolled and moved around easily without the need to lift. 

Next one soon..........