Parallel Track

[Ozymandius]

Thanks for the advice Ted, as I'm just about to start building baseboards, getting the track laid properly this time round is very important - It's not good to see a grown man cry when only some of your stock will stay on the track. 

Best regards

Tony Deighan

[tedp]

Good luck with that, Tony - you will find that laying track is a question of trying out what works best. Getting 009 to work isn't black magic.  ;)

I think one point Brian made is very important: don't start ballasting the track before you're happy with it and all your stock runs over it. Once you start ballasting you cannot easily correct what's wrong.

[tedp]

....Is it not better to point out the ideal way to do things before they get to this stage or become disillusioned with 009 and walk away?...

Yes of course I agree, but everyone is entitled to find out for himself. I am a firm believer in learning from past mistakes, and becoming proficient in 009 modelling step by step. This starts with building flat baseboards and learning elementary tracklaying skills, and getting your rolling stock to run well. Therefore I think encouraging a new 009 modeller should follow the 'little and often' principle - perhaps laying down a multitude of 'rules' will scare him off before he starts.

[Hobby]

Flat surfaces? I know of at least two very experienced modellers who still use hardboard as they baseboard surface...

[Ozymandius]

Very wise advice gents, my last disaster in OO9 - hence my self exile in garden rail land for 10 years - was to ballast the track before I had got it working properly.  It's so much easier to find best practice now that the internet is around.

Being an OO9 addict I am now determined to get it right this time around and I learnt a lot building the big stuff where I made lots of mistakes too. 

At least if you get it wrong in OO9 you don't get eaten alive by the mossies at the bottom of the garden while you put it right!!

Tonights job is to work through my collection of Peco points and to make sure that everything will go through them.

Best regards

Tony

Ps apologies for diverting the conversation away from the original topic! 

[tat2drod]

Flat surfaces? I know of at least two very experienced modellers who still use hardboard as they baseboard surface...

Hardboard is pretty g... cough cough. Let me rephrase that.

I find hardboard pretty good if you handle it properly and support it well. I use it as a base on top of a chipboard base unit and all the inclines are made using it with a suitable cross-brace between the running surface and the base piece. It's so strong in fact, that the one unit I made up with slightly too steep an incline for my OO layout will happily take the full weight of me standing on top of it and, as Ted will tell you, I'm no lightweight! 

[tedp]

I use hardboard, and even cardboard for some areas of baseboard. The only problem is it won't take pins very well - you have to pre-drill it.

Took me a while to figure out who is behind your pseudonym but I found out!

But I'm afraid we are drifting away from parallel track.

[danny]

Loading gauge is a problem. Most of my layouts are industrial and have a small loading gauge, and as a result, a large Pugbash loco I have does not fit onto many of them.

[kebo66]

Hi, I'm 67 and am currently planning my first layout so I'm afraid I cannot add to the advice already given on this subject.

I'm writing to say that I am in a similar position to DavidLM insofar as tracklaying is concerned, so I am reading all replies and other postings with great interest. What a brilliant 'tool' the Forum is for people like us.

My layout is likely to be a winter project but I am busy collecting track, points etc in preparation. I am particularly concerned (nay, horrified) by the comments in this and other postings about Peco points and their need to be modified (switched) in order for them to perform correctly. I have currently only bought 2 which seem to be of the old type (pre-2010) but as I will need several more I must try to ensure I get the modified ones, although some are even recommending that they should also be switched. Layout size determines that I cannot go to the 18" radius 'mainline' points which seem to be much better.

There are some very interesting replies containing some excellent advice. Many thanks to all those concerned.

[Graeme Dunbar]

It is a good idea of yours, planning ahead and gathering up bits and pieces for the winter. As part of that preparation you could do some dry runs. If you doubt the reliability of your Peco points then connect them to lengths of track temporarily and try them out with the stock and engine(s) you have to hand. Bear in mind that older Peco points are used in exhibition layouts so despite the stories, they can't all be bad.

A test bed need not be fancy. If it is used on a flat table top then it does not need to be particularly rigid, just something to hold the track in place and lay flat on the table without curling. Short lengths of double-sided tape will do for fixing track in place temporarily.

After laying track flat and avoiding "hump backs" then good electrical connection is likely to make the biggest difference to running. Sacrificing a length of track for a test bed will give you a chance to practise your soldering.

The new "mainline" points have received good reports. If you do have running problems and you are not sure of the state of your old points and wish to keep the cost down, perhaps buy one new one for comparison. The you can check that it is the points and not other problems like wheel back-to-back settings and so on.

[JulienW]

Apologies for the slight topic drift but if I may add an explanation...

<snipped>

I am particularly concerned (nay, horrified) by the comments in this and other postings about Peco points and their need to be modified (switched) in order for them to perform correctly. I have currently only bought 2 which seem to be of the old type (pre-2010) but as I will need several more I must try to ensure I get the modified ones, although some are even recommending that they should also be switched. Layout size determines that I cannot go to the 18" radius 'mainline' points which seem to be much better.

The problem is that as supplied the Peco point relies on good eletrical contact between the point blade and the side of the fixed rail (correctly termed the stock rail).  Whilst it is fairly easy to keep the head of the rails clean it is harder to clean the inside side faces of the rails and even harder to do so in the 2-3 mm gap between the stock rail and point blade - and don't forget you'll need to clean the side of the point blade too to ensure good electrical conductivity.  Without doing so the point blade soon looses cotact with the stock rail and does not get any power fed to it - and no power means the loco is stopped in its tracks!  New points fresh from the packet should be fine but older ones that have been allowed to build up even a thin layer of grime will not.

This situation is equally applicable to other brands (probably all brands) of model railway points in pretty much any scale, but is a particular issue for 009 where 4 wheel locos (with only 4 pick up points) running any low(ish) speeds (and more suseptable to stalling) are the norm.  Therefore it is not just 009 modelres who are adding switches to their points (who ever made them) to bypass the dodgy point blade to stock rail contacts with a proper electrical switch to improve running, and it is a fairly simple job - no harder than soldring the feed wires from your conroeller to the track.

[B.Meldon]

As Julien said it is not just the 009 points that cause problems. Every single 00 point on my layout has frog polarity switches as well.

It all depends on how reliable you need it to be. For me as it is not easy to obtain good running in 009 anyway I aim for 100% reliability and having the occasional point fail electrically with a poor connection between the blade and the fixed rail is not expectable to me.
Others are quite happy to clean up the side of the rails when this failure happens, and it will happen.

I have two 009/HOe layouts all with the pre 2010 Peco 009 12 inch points. Both layouts run very well indeed, including extensive shunting operations, but every point has been fettled to make this happen.
The later Peco 009 12 inch points made after 2010 and the 18 inch main line 009 points are a lot better and if I were building a layout today that is what I would use, but I would also fit frog polarity switches.
This does not need to be expensive or complicated three wires and a simple slide switch at the end of a control rod is enough. Here is one I recently fitted to an old 1970

[kebo66]

I know my entry into this topic has sent the discussion off at a tangent, changing from 'parallel track' to 'Peco points' and for this I apologise.

However, I am indebted to JulienW for explaining so clearly the cause of the problem and the reason for the need for 'fettling'. My ignorance had led me to believe this was only something applicable to Peco 009 points.

Also, my thanks to Brian Waldon for this easy fix method of fettling. I had already decided to use wire-in-tube to switch my points, this method seeming to kill 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. I had intended starting a new topic to see if members could suggest ways of doing this.

Many thanks.

[JulienW]

Like Brian I have used wire in tube to operate the points with the actuating wire fixed to a sliding switch that is wiered to change the frog polarity so can vouch for its efficacy.  It is somethign that has been covered elsewere on the forum so it's probably worth having a search through to see how it has been done.