The main line of the Franconia branch of the Boston & Maine Railroad (HO
gauge) is finished today. A car coasts clean around the train room, no
bumps, jumps, lurches or derailments, even when hand pushed at a scale
200 miles per hour. Gotta do some wiring before I can run locomotives
under power. One thing at a time.
Lessons learned. After cutting the flex track to size with rail nippers,
clean up the rail ends with a flat single cut file. File the end square,
and then file a slight bevel on the tops, bottoms, and sides of the
rail. This gives a smooth-to-the-touch rail joint, rather than leaving a
burr that might help a wheel flange climb over the rail head. Use fresh
new rail joiners. Lay a 4 foot straight edge along the straight tracks
to make sure they stay straight and kink free before nailing the track
down.
PL300 foam board adhesive has the pleasant property of coming off with
just a sharp putty knife pushed under the roadbed. Comes clean from the
foam without destroying it. How do I know this? Just one or two places I
had to move the roadbed over a bit to make things fit better.
Nailing down the flex track to wood roadbed also lets me relocate track
to eliminate kinks and other bad spots. Just pull out the track nails
with long nose pliers and move the track. Easier to correct problems
than had I glued the track down.
The wire guides (1/2 inch holes and dadoes in the under neath of the
table work) are already doing good. I started the Cab A bus (#14 solid
copper house wire) in the wire guides and lo and behold, it stays in
place, runs straight, and it will be obvious just what wire it is even
after the usual under layout rats nest of wire gets started.
--
David J. Starr
Blog: www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
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