Model Railroader – September 2019

STEP 1

STEP 2

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

LAYING TRACK

September 2019 25

By Eric White

I gathered my tools at the work site

(the soldering iron is out of the frame

to the right), then started by soaking

the track with a spray bottle filled

with water. I was fortunate the track

wasn’t glued down with caulk – that

would’ve meant more elbow grease

to pull everything up.

With the track and ballast

wetted, it was easy to slip the putty

knife under the track and pry it up

while scraping away the ballast. As

I worked, I found spikes holding the

rail down. I also used a soldering

iron to loosen soldered rail joints. It’s

best to remove full sections of track

up to the joints. All of the old compo-

nents were replaced with new. I also

heated and removed feeder wires

from the track and pulled them up

and out of the way.

With the bad-order turnouts and

track out of the way, it was time to

bring in the replacements. The switch

rods on the new Peco turnouts were

about the same distance from the end

of the rails as the switch rods on the

old Walthers/Shinohara turnouts.

That meant I could place the switch

rods over the slots cut in the roadbed

for eventual switch motor installation

without having to cut any rail.

After removing a few straggler

ties, I was ready to lay new track.

I was again fortunate, this time that

the roadbed was made of cork.

Homasote roadbed would’ve been

shredded by the soaking and attack

of the putty knife. I used spikes driven

into the outside of the rails to hold

the track in place. To make spiking

easier, I drilled holes in the ties with a

no. 78 bit in a pin vise. The spikes are

about 6 inches apart.

One of the turnouts I replaced

led to a spur. The ballast had been

detailed with weeds to simulate

spillage in front of a grain silo, and

I didn’t want to pull that up, so I had

to make the Peco turnout fit the same

space as the Walthers turnout.

As you can see, both no. 5 turnouts

have the same geometry, but the

Peco turnout is shorter after the frog

than the Walthers turnout. I cut short

filler pieces of flextrack to make up

the gap.

Once all of the track was in place,

I replaced the feeder wires. I also

added a few new feeders to the spur

tracks to improve reliability.

Needlenose pliers

Putty knife

Spray bottle with water

Multimeter

Slip putty knife

under track

Dampened ballast

Remove

track nails

Loosen soldered

joints

Align switch rod with

original location

Clean up the

connection

points

Filler pieces to match old turnout