IronBeltKen
Lazy Daydreamer
Hi all, just wanted to share my experiences with embedded "street" track - what I should not have done, and how I'm correcting it.
You may remember a thread last year about my Iron Belt layout as I was adding scenery to it. A large section of it consists of steel mill trackage that I saved from my previous home. Everything worked perfectly fine there - because I hadn't added scenery to it yet. Well, as I was dismantling it to prepare for the relocation I decided to make the tracks look 'embedded' the way prototype steel mill tracks are. But I figured I knew what to do, just put joint compound on either side of the rails and cut grooves along the inside edge for the wheel flanges....right? Well not quite, I didn't realize that the joint compound doesn't always dry exactly level with the rail. If it is even one micron above, that will cause the loco wheels on one or both sides to lose contact:
I was blissfully ignorant of this blunder until I finally built myself a new layout 6 years later. I got all the large industrial structures in place and did some test-running, discovering that my switchers would hardly move at all on the embedded tracks! I was totally heartsick, thought I would have to live with that mess until I could tear this layout down and build another.
But luckily, I let a friend convince me to try Dremeling little depressions along the outside edges of the tracks (I had thought the cutting bit would go astray and chew up the rails so I was hesitant at first). Lo and behold - it worked - a test run of one of my mill switchers confirmed this! Only one problem: There was about 15 linear feet of embedded rail edges left to grind. So I have spent most of my evenings this past week, grinding little depressions along the outer rail edges:
I had to temporarily remove many of the structures and relocate some trains to prevent dust damage. Holding that dremel steady for hours, and coming up behind with a Shop-Vac to clear the dust, was exhausting work...but worthwhile, since the payoff would be smooth-running mill locos. Now all I need to do is repaint the ground-down areas.
Moral of the story: If you want to embed your trackwork, make sure each rail juts slightly above the surrounding 'pavement'.
You may remember a thread last year about my Iron Belt layout as I was adding scenery to it. A large section of it consists of steel mill trackage that I saved from my previous home. Everything worked perfectly fine there - because I hadn't added scenery to it yet. Well, as I was dismantling it to prepare for the relocation I decided to make the tracks look 'embedded' the way prototype steel mill tracks are. But I figured I knew what to do, just put joint compound on either side of the rails and cut grooves along the inside edge for the wheel flanges....right? Well not quite, I didn't realize that the joint compound doesn't always dry exactly level with the rail. If it is even one micron above, that will cause the loco wheels on one or both sides to lose contact:
I was blissfully ignorant of this blunder until I finally built myself a new layout 6 years later. I got all the large industrial structures in place and did some test-running, discovering that my switchers would hardly move at all on the embedded tracks! I was totally heartsick, thought I would have to live with that mess until I could tear this layout down and build another.
But luckily, I let a friend convince me to try Dremeling little depressions along the outside edges of the tracks (I had thought the cutting bit would go astray and chew up the rails so I was hesitant at first). Lo and behold - it worked - a test run of one of my mill switchers confirmed this! Only one problem: There was about 15 linear feet of embedded rail edges left to grind. So I have spent most of my evenings this past week, grinding little depressions along the outer rail edges:
I had to temporarily remove many of the structures and relocate some trains to prevent dust damage. Holding that dremel steady for hours, and coming up behind with a Shop-Vac to clear the dust, was exhausting work...but worthwhile, since the payoff would be smooth-running mill locos. Now all I need to do is repaint the ground-down areas.
Moral of the story: If you want to embed your trackwork, make sure each rail juts slightly above the surrounding 'pavement'.
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