kjchronister
Member
So, about a year ago I started my own business and subsequently took an unintended year off from model railroading and this forum... I don't recommend it, but being my own boss is worth it.
Point is a friend at my MRR club started giving me grief about not showing up. So I came to an ops session and jumped in: That reignited the bug and I'm back!
Today I went down to the basement, powered up the NCE on my own layout and started running some trains. Two things became immediately apparent:
1) A year without track cleaning was a BAD move. After a few hours of hand-cleaning and coaxing the CMX car around the layout the first few times (then letting it run a few dozen more times), this was solved.
2) Ballasting track has some real benefit beyond "looks"... The approximately 33% of my layout that was ballasted... Bulletproof. As good as the day I left it. Solid as a rock (or more precisely, thousands of little scale rocks). The 2/3 that wasn't ballasted?... It was like spaghetti. It had wiggled, wobbled, expanded, contracted, and otherwise just gone haywire. Gaps closed up causing shorts. Track pushed and pulled, causing nasty twists, bumps and lots of derailment. Hours of work with my track gauge and much 'tweaking' later, I'm again derailment-free. But it has convinced me that my 're-entry' into the hobby after my hiatus should begin with getting the remaining 2/3 ballasted!
Point is a friend at my MRR club started giving me grief about not showing up. So I came to an ops session and jumped in: That reignited the bug and I'm back!
Today I went down to the basement, powered up the NCE on my own layout and started running some trains. Two things became immediately apparent:
1) A year without track cleaning was a BAD move. After a few hours of hand-cleaning and coaxing the CMX car around the layout the first few times (then letting it run a few dozen more times), this was solved.
2) Ballasting track has some real benefit beyond "looks"... The approximately 33% of my layout that was ballasted... Bulletproof. As good as the day I left it. Solid as a rock (or more precisely, thousands of little scale rocks). The 2/3 that wasn't ballasted?... It was like spaghetti. It had wiggled, wobbled, expanded, contracted, and otherwise just gone haywire. Gaps closed up causing shorts. Track pushed and pulled, causing nasty twists, bumps and lots of derailment. Hours of work with my track gauge and much 'tweaking' later, I'm again derailment-free. But it has convinced me that my 're-entry' into the hobby after my hiatus should begin with getting the remaining 2/3 ballasted!
