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Adding a second main that I planned to go over the helix was harder to do than I thought. I decided to use the hexagon method for the project instead of cutting up a 4X8 sheet of plywood for the large curve. I added some bench work to the helix to support the hexagon. The photos below show the project.
Thanks every one for your comments. I just started soldering 5 sections of Peco track together in the straight position. Later I'll bend them to fit the curve. After I solder the power leads in I'll run a test train and see if there's any problems.
Thanks every one for your comments. I just started soldering 5 sections of Peco track together in the straight position. Later I'll bend them to fit the curve. After I solder the power leads in I'll run a test train and see if there's any problems.
Hi George,
Looks like quite a bit of work but it turned out real great.
One word of caution, if you haven't already found out, your statement about of soldering 5 sections of Peco track together before bending into a curve is probably going to cause you problems as the outer radius will require a longer length of rail compared to the inner and you may find yourself having to cut ties off to allow the outer joint/s to feed back through the ties enough to allow the track to flex around the Helix!??
Well Trussrod I guess I had about 2 inches or so to trim off on the last section of flex track. I just cut the track even at that point and added three straight sections to complete the project. After dinner I'll go down and add the power leads to the blocks I created and see if the new main works. The project adds a second main line to the upper deck. The layout now has double mains on both decks which gives train movement many more possibilities.
Glad it workded out for you, I wasn't sure if you were going to run into trouble or not but I guess your Helix is a large enough diameter so not too much curverature is required.
I soldered one power lead in and then called it a night. I'll finish tomorrow. I uploaded a photo of the soldered lead. It doesn't show it but I cut out two ties before I attached the lead. Other wise they'll just melt. After I closed in the space by moving in some ties in a little. You cannot do this with atlas track. If you want you can just stain some wood ties and use them as a replacement for the 2 ties you cut out. I do this all the time and you can't tell the differents.
Thanks to you Rex I made sure the blocks were done as I laid the new track instead of waiting until later to install them. This time I was more organized then in the past.
