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Ahhhh, civility. I’m sitting here in the
library, a snifter on the end-table, pipe in
hand, and cat in lap, comfortably reflecting
back on the track and benchwork exercise
now completed (The scars are pretty well
healed now, thank you.) Sure, there are
some tweaks here and there, but I have a
good handle on the locations and purpose
for each feature, and they are actually in
place, wired, and under wheel. I’m also
thinking of all the less-than-stellar features
I had incorporated in railroads-past, and
decided not to incorporate in railroad-present.
Here are a few, in case you want to
think about them, too. Before you ignore
this sage commentary, I fully support the
idea that you’re free to add them if you
wish. Of course, I will now feel free to tell
you, ”I told you so!” because I wrote this
all down.
Turnout Location
I was very careful about turnout placement
on this iteration. In several previous
railroads, I let prototype scenes dictate
the turnout and track locations as a priority.
That was fine, except where a turnout
ended up in a constrained location.
Switches are the primary trouble source in
trackwork maintenance, so this version has
them out in front of God and everyone. I
thought about turnouts within the context
of this rule of thumb. If you can’t reach it
to work the points with a groundthrow,
you can’t reach it to fix it, either. You might
want to consider moving the fool thing
someplace more accessible, just so you can
fix it when it breaks. The turnout you can’t
reach is the one that will cause trouble first
and most often (Scace’s Third Law). For us
hand-thrown-switch types, remember to
put the groundthrow on the near side of all
the trackage if at all possible, so you don’t
knock that Pacific Limited 1920 steel boxcar
on the concrete with your shirtsleeve
when you’re bending the iron. I didn’t do
that religiously on the current railroad, and
I intend to revisit ground-throw placement.
Lots of Power
On my previous railroad, I had added
a separate 15-amp circuit to power three
extra outlets around the room. I thought
I was being smart, but it was nowhere
near enough. On this railroad, I dropped
in a couple separate 15-amp circuits and
brought power out to the fascia with about
five power strips. I’m probably going to
add more power strips. You can’t have too
many. The railroad has three Controlmaster
20 tethered cab-control power supplies
and three Powerstation 8 DCC boosters.
(How I’d love to see MRC marry the eightamp
guts of the Powerstation with the Controlmaster
front end and make a stronger
version, especially when folks are running
three unit Diesels with China drives in cab
control nowadays. That’s six loaded motors
summed up real quick-like!) Add to the
list some power supplies for scenic lighting,
”button” supplies for stationary sound
and some Miller Engineering neon signs,
soldering irons, hot glue guns, the rechargers
for my DeWalt and a Dremel, and it
doesn’t take long before there’s no place to
plug in the coffee pot. I still didn’t plan on
enough outlets.
Insulated Joints
Don’t merely leave gaps in the rail when
you’re gapping the rail. Take the time to
physically insulate them with something,
whether it’s a commercial rail insulator, a
piece of styrene or business card CA’d into
the gap, or whatever your preferred method
might be. Put this magazine down right
now and go do this, if you haven’t already.
Fill the space with something, because the
most invisible gap in the most inaccessible
place will close first (Eschbach’s Corollary
to Scace’s Third Law). You’re back You’re
done Good.
Reverse Curves
They look so cool, and cause so much
trouble. Two abodes ago, I had this absolutely
lovely three-track super-elevated
reverse curve, reminiscent of the B&A
trackage climbing out of Pittsfield up to
Washington Summit. I designed it in and it
certainly looked, well, curvaceous. It also
caused me the most pain of any feature on
that railroad. If you have to have a reverse
curve, make sure you allow enough room
between the curves for a tangent (straight
piece) equal to the length of your longest
car. I didn’t, and I ended up having to
increase the lateral of the draftgear boxes
so passenger cars would go through the
fool thing. They looked ridiculous, even in
success, so the magic was lost.
Remember that a crossover on a
double-tracked main, or a switch between
single-track and parallel double-track,
constitutes a reverse curve. Here, because
you are constrained to the standard spacing
between track centers (usually 4-1/4” or so)
for the width of the form, salvation comes
in the form of looooong turnouts. Use the
highest number you can; double-digit if it
fits, such as #12 or #14.
Nifty as it may look in an interlocking,
don’t put crossovers back-to-back without
that straight section equal to the length
of the longest car in between them. By
the way, this interim tangent concept is
especially important for all you sectionaltrack
users, because you don’t have access
to the other good tool in the arsenal,
the easement. Here is also where I send
you flex-track users and hand-layers off
in search of a book that explains how to
shoot easements for entering curves. Combined
with our interim tangents (not only
in this case, but in the next two as well),
easements help.
We tend to think of this issue only with
relation to curved track (the ”yaw” case),
but the same thing applies for reverse gradient
changes in the vertical (”pitch”) direction,
too. Short violent ones are rare (Lucky
us!) in the standard-gauge mainline world,
but can be something to think about for the
roller-coaster/hill-and-dale environment
of the backwoods narrow-gauger or the
Southern shortline peanut-hauler.
The sneakiest trap, however, is lying
in wait for those of us who love superelevated
trackage. Here, the twisty (”roll”)
case is common and insidious. Back-toback
reversal in super-elevation (as in a
traditional reverse curve) without a length
of ”normal” in between will send rigidwheelbased
locomotives and six-wheel
passenger car trucks skittering off the main
as ”sure as a gun’s iron”. If you want superelevated
mainlines, learn to think in threedimensional
terms (and learn to leave one
bolster screw loose on your rolling stock
to create something close to a three-point
suspension).
Hidden Trackage
I’ve come to loathe hidden trackage, but
for most of us it’s a necessary evil. I’m sure
I’ll catch the most flak from these snippets
of questionable wisdom, but here they are,
anyway. If you don’t need hidden trackage,
don’t build it. If you want the now traditional
off-scene staging areas, go ahead
and call ’em advance yards and build them
on-scene, just so you can get to them to
fix them, if nothing else. If you really have
to hide trackage, at least keep the throats
and ladders out in the sunshine, so you
can maintain the turnouts. If you absolutely
have to have completely hidden staging
trackage, have a twenty-year-old friend
with a hard head on hand to weave his/her
way into the benchwork to fix that turnout
we talked about in Scace’s Third Law. That’s
where you’ll find it.
Let’s go Exploring!
u
July/August ’07- O Scale Trains • 11