Fast Tracks

These look like a wonderfull tool for soldering your own STRAIGHT sections of track. I assume you would need some kind of tool to make sure the rail stays in gauge whilst soldering.

My question is, can they be ordered in various radii? That way I can have the complete layout using all the same rail, ties, tie spacings and tie texture ( plastic, wooden and PC ties DON'T look the same ). Then all the rail would also be at the same height, as I will be using all PC ties for the turnouts, just using the thinner ones for the throw bar so it won't foul on the road bed. My way may not be the cheapest, but I'm more interested in consistency.

I believe they are working on curved templates. I used to assist in a Live Steam club, and we laid track in 7 1/2 inch guage. We had a table set up to make ten foot sections of track to lay down. For straight we just laid in the ties, and screwed down both sides of the track with a jig to ensure ends matched up. for curve we set up the same and screwed only one side down completely and tacked the second rail down about once per foot for the ten foot length. Then when it was laid in place the second rail was guaged in place and cut to fit on the inside of the curve, where less length was needed. This allowed the ties to adjust to the bend. You could do some thing like this, but care must be taken when handling the setup with all the loose ties. We found that slipping a piece of wood under the track as the first side was lifted up help carry the track to final place.

Kurt

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Kurt Konrath

SP was king of the road, Cotten Belt will run forever! D&RGW will rule the hills!

Rather than cutting the inside rail that gets longer around the curve to get 'even joints' - let the outside rail slide back along the way. This gives the joints a nice offset that lets the continuious rail serve as a greater stabilizer for the trackwork. Eventually, somewhere on the straight, you'll need to cut and fit a shorter rail (or a longer rail on the shortened side). but even then, it's far better to have some amount of offset in the joints until you get to a turnout.

Even at a turnout, it's best to have a little offset to the rail connections. It's easy to allow when using the fixture jigs - just leave some extra rail extending along during the construction. This all works well with any size or gage. I've used this method on 7-1/2" live steam track as well as the 0.649" Proto:87 trackwork. Offset rail joints will dramatically reduce the tendency for kinks and greatly stabilizes trackwork subject to expansion and contraction of underlying roadbed issues.

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-ed mccamey-
COSLAR RR - http://www.coslar.us/
NMRA Standards and Conformance Department
PROTO & FINE Scale Coordinator
I estimate I have about 5 pounds of coupler springs somewhere in the vicinity of my workbench.

You might want to take a look at the RIBBONRAIL track gauges (Walthers 170-10). This is a 10 in. long straight gauge used to space the rails when spiking, but it should also work just fine for soldering to PC ties.

They also market a line of 5 in. curved gauges that can be ordered in increments of 1 in. from 18 in. to 48 in.

Kurt had a good tip about soldering only one rail. The gauge could then be positioned and the rail curved to agree with the gauge. Now the second rail could be soldered.

I use them to fabricate "odd-ball" frogs.

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Chuck Lobaugh
cfl9280@sc.rr.com
"oldsnowtop" ... A seller of switches on eBay

Thanks for the replies. One thing I thought of a couple of days ago was to glue the PC ties to some flexible road bed and then when dry, bend the road bed to the radii required. Then solder the rail to the ties and away I go. ATM, I'm just trying to figure out the most fool proof way of achieving this. Let the ideas keep coming.

I also agree with emccamey's suggestion of having offset railends through out curves. I tried having the "even" rail ends with a sharp radius turn and then wound up with a horrible looking "dogleg". Obviously this didn't help with keeping the trains on the rails, unless I went super slow.

When you think about it, if you glue the ties to he roadbed and then try to bend it, the ties will not allow this since they are glued in place.

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Chuck Lobaugh
cfl9280@sc.rr.com
"oldsnowtop" ... A seller of switches on eBay

Depends on the road bed you use. I'll find a link to the road bed I use. It allows radii as small as 15" in HO to be formed AFTER you glue the ties or flextrack to it.

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Now waiting for a better currency exchange rate before I order.

Sorry about the delay, but I only found the info sheet about 20 mins ago. The product is called "Trackrite Flexible Track Underlay". It is Australian designed and manufactured product, made from.....stuff. It's available in 5 metre and 10 metre rolls for HO, HOm and N scale with other scales ( apparently ) to follow. It's about AUS $25 for a 10 metre ( 33 foot ) roll. Lay out the underlay, paint PVA glue on the entire surface, lay down the track and firmly press the ballast on last. The track, underlay and ballast is now one complete unit! It is flexible and can be shaped after the track and ballast has been laid, provided flex track has been used. The complete unit can then be pinned or glued to the base. They don't have a website, but I found a web page of a retailer who sells the stuff. Not much info there, but I can scan the brochure I have and post it up if anybody is interested.

Cheers.

Trackrite Flexible Underlay

Scroll down about 4/5 down the page.

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Now waiting for a better currency exchange rate before I order.