Flimsey4 | modelrailroad

Tips for Building Your Layout Pt. 4: Track

Ready to Lay Track?

General Tips for getting the Trains up and Running

After you have gone to all the work and trouble to prepare your Layout Room, planned and built your Bench work, it is now time to breach another point where we modelers make other avoidable mistakes: Track. This deserves a closer look, because what you choose to purchase for track and how you “install”/”lay” that track will also have lasting ramifications well into the future, and can have negative repercussions or be a positive experience. There really is no “in-between” with this topic. Smoothly done track work is a goal every model railroader strives for------it is both odd and alarming so few ever attain it.

-Track is a Model, too!

This particular point becomes contentious between modelers. To me, this is actually another point of what pleases you, the person building your model empire, and how detailed you want to be in your model work. But, I can honestly say that, once I decided to really look at real track, and compare it to the model track, I found a wide disparity. The Atlas Flex Track we use doesn’t even come close to the “real thing”; it is far from realistic. In fact, only Model Rail Craft/Micro Engineering markets Flex Track that comes remotely close to the real item. The ties are scale sized, and the rail is the correct thickness and contour. Now, most of this means absolutely nothing to, probably, 75% of the modelers out there, but, take it from me; track and what you choose to do go a long way to “dress up” your model railroad. The track your trains are running on is, quite definitely, a model, and it should be approached as such.

One mistake I made years ago was climbing up into the Elevator Hoist House at Figi’s Miller Building, walking out on the roof and looking down on the railroad track below me. Since we, as modelers, only see predominantly “down-on” views of our model railroad, when you get this perspective of the real thing it shows you a stark reality: the Atlas Flex Track we use is in no way close to what the real thing uses. Real rail is disproportionately smaller than what runs atop it. This is another item you won’t notice unless you are looking for it and choose to “see” it. This, then, brings up the next point:

-What kind of track do I choose?

Believe it or not, there is still debate going on yet in this day and age about using brass track versus Nickel Silver track. Recently, photos were posted on the wc2scale internet group of Todd Grayhart’s HO Scale Layout and, lo and behold, all the great HO Scale equipment Mr. Grayhart modeled was running on Code 100 brass track. Well, each to his own. I’m not going to tell anyone what they should do. I’ve found that brass rail needs a little extra care to keep clean, but it will give as good a service on your layout as nickel silver. Brass track’s only drawback is a tendency to corrode and turn green in an area predominantly moist most of the time; that is why there was the large movement to nickel silver rail. With Brass Track, if you choose to paint the rail and the ties, the only notable give-away will be the gold color of the rail heads. There is nothing saying you can’t use brass track.

Of course, in the last 35+ years the big push has been to use Nickel Silver rail, and all the improvements and additions to track has been in Nickel Silver. In the past ten years the trend has been to use “Code 83” rail. Atlas released Code 83 in their long-running “Snap Track” line and it looks really, really nice. In fact, when I re-laid almost all of the main lines on the Hub City Central Club Layout (there is only one module I haven’t re-done because other pressing work has prevented me from completing the entire re-lay of track on the HCC), I seriously considered switching the entirety to Atlas Code 83. What stopped me was knowing what the membership was running for engines and rolling stock, and, knowing that some of us have Rivarossi engines and cars with the “cheese-cutter” sharp, deep flanges kept me from using Code 83; I’m also aware that some of us are running Tyco, cheapie Life Like and Model power rolling stock with deep flanges. There are clubs with traveling layouts that use Code 83 and run Rivarossi cars and locomotives on it, but most modelers have changed the wheel sets on the cars to Proto 2000 or Kadee scale wheel sets with metal wheels. I wasn’t sure anyone in our Club was really ready to spend the money to do the changes, nor was I about to require anyone to do so. So, it was Atlas Code 100 Flex Track with Code 100 Peco Turnouts.

Now, as for my own personal tastes for rail, on my own never-to-be-built model pike, I was considering Code 70 for the main line itself, Code 100 for hidden trackage, and a combination of Code 55 and Code 40 for spurs. Numerous authors have made the assertion that “you can’t tell the difference after you paint the rail”. This is, to a point, true. Again, it boils down to whether you choose to see the differences. You needn’t go far to look at real track and study it. I’ve tinkered with Code 70 and Code 55 rail in HO Scale, and, believe me; even painted you can see a noticeable difference in size.

ITEM: Since beginning this part of this series, I began doing some research into Code 40 HO Scale Rail and stumbled across a “movement” within HO Scale called “Proto: 87”, similar in nature to the “Proto: 48” movement, both of which espouse to follow scale dimensions religiously. One could make the assertion that “Proto: 87” is for the “snob”-type modelers and I won’t argue. However, through Proto: 87 I have the opportunity to study Code 40 Track a little closer and it may restore my ambition to build my own layout at some point in the future.

Believe me, you should see Code 40 rail in comparison to Code 55 and Code 70; Code 100 looks huge (and, it is!).

I regret to write that I am not comfortable making any sort of suggestion to anyone as to what brand or another, or Code (size of you prefer), of track you should use. I know what goofy ideas I have of my own, but that personal preference is based on what I saw being done by the real thing. Believe me, nothing makes an impression on you to see a “modern” (circa 1974 in this case) Box Car standing on 60 pound rail and the wheel treads hang over the outside of each rail head by an inch or more.

Model Railroader magazine has published a complete “Conversion” list of HO Scale Rail in proportion to Real Rail. Off the top of my head, Code 100 approximates 142 pound rail. Code 83 is 123 pound rail, Code 70 is 110 pound rail, Code 55 is close to 80 pound rail, and Code 40 comes close to 60 pound rail. Unfortunately, I can not recall what the proportions were in the other scales (O, N, OO, TT, S and Z)

“Snap” Track or Hand Laid?

I’m a lazy fart about certain aspects of track laying, and my own take on this has been: The Manufacturers are making ready-to-lay track sections, so why would I want to bother with hand-laying my track? This subject, too, is one of a matter of personal preference; at one time, most modelers in any gauge were basically compelled to hand-lay their trackage. This was especially true in Scale O-gauge (not “Lionel” or “O-27”), with the outside third-rail electrical pick-up. John Allen’s HO Scale Gorre & Daphetid was 80% hand-laid trackage. Frank Ellison’s Delta Lines was hand-laid Scale O track with outside third rail, as was John Armstrong’s Canandaigua Southern, another Scale O pike with all hand-laid track and the outside third rail; Roger Hildebrandt of Waupaca, hand-laid most all of his HO Scale home layout’s trackage. Carl Whittaker of Stevens Point has dabbled in hand-laid track. To me, at this point in time, with the innovations in manufacturing, hand-laying your track is like raising your own chickens. With innovation certain things become unnecessary. If it’s something you want to undertake, by all means, have at it. But, if there is an easier way, it hardly makes sense. In referring to my own never-to-be-built pike, I had planned at one time to hand-lay all of the former Fairchild & North-Eastern trackage the Soo operated over in Greenwood, plus the Soo’s Greenwood House Track, the Loyal Canning Co. spur, the trackage into O.W. Trindals and Bordens, and the spur at Spokeville near the Spokeville Elevator. I’ve flip-flopped back and forth over this idea several times, thinking of using Code 55 instead of Code 40 rail to avoid what I consider an onerous job of hand-laying track, in particular, turnouts, of which I would need to fashion myself of at least six----one of which had been a three-way switch (with stub points rather than the “feathered”, or “split”, points of a “Normal” switch)! The tracks mentioned above were the places of 60 pound rail on the Greenwood Line; in my addled thinking, it seems a shame not to model it as accurately as one could without committing one’s self to the Booby Hatch. I figured even with the small amount of hand-laying required, I would only need a couple months of intensive psychotherapy or electro-shock treatments to beat off the effects of hand-laying HO Scale Code 40 track. Although difficult to obtain, there is BK Enterprises that markets ready-to-install Code 55 Turnouts---you have to lay ties before inserting the turnout, but the turnout is ready to install. The Late John Ruple had used this company’s Code 70 N-Scale turnouts. The use of Code 55 track on my own pike was based on the fact that these turnouts are available.

Not everyone wants or desires to be this detailed (and I can’t think of anyone in the Hub City Central beside myself), and the question you have to ask yourself is: How soon do I want to get trains running? Keep in mind that the more detailed you want to be with your track, the more time it will take to get your trains running, which, inevitably, results in “rushing” yourself and not taking the time one should have to do a good job. But there is a wonderful selection of Code 83 and Code 70 ready-made track out there that make it very easy to lay your track in with a minimum of difficulty. It is no harder than using all snap-track sections from Atlas.

It is still far better to use Flextrak for as much of your track as possible. I know it sounds hard to believe, but even in scale you are far better off with as few rail joints as possible. A reason for this is made mention of farther along.

Ye Olde Turnouts

Growing up around the Soo Line, there is no such thing as a “Turnout”. “Turnouts” in real life are “Switches”. Because we modelers use actual on/off switches to control our layouts and other functions there upon, a “track switch” became a “turnout” to ease confusion. Herewith, I will try to refer to “track switches” as “turnouts”, although, if you know me personally, in conversation I almost continually refer to “turnouts” as “switches”. So, here we go:

When it comes to turnouts, I lean very heavily to Peco. I like the “fail safe” nature of Peco Turnouts because of the spring-loaded turnout points. The points are always held to which ever side they are thrown to. The chief reason the Club abandoned Atlas Turnouts was because Atlas Code 100 “Snap” Turnouts’ points became loose as Atlas made the turnouts as cheaply as possible, and you couldn’t rely on them to stay shut with a train passing over them (even with the turnout connected to an Atlas Switch Motor) as the rivets used to fasten the points to the throw-bar became looser over time which translated into sloppy turnout points that would wiggle with enough play to have the flanges on your cars “pick” the point and take off onto another track it wasn’t intended to. In most cases, we were forced to solder some turnout points shut to keep them that way because the points had gotten so sloppy. That isn’t a problem with Peco Turnouts. Peco, too, has joined the ranks of track manufacturers and added Code 83, Code 75 and Code 70 Turnouts to their line of Turnouts, although to be very fair, Shinohara, Rail Craft/Model Engineering, BK Enterprises, Walthers/Shinohara and Atlas Turnouts in Code 83 and smaller are very good. No one but Peco has spring-loaded turnout points, however. Shinohara Turnouts in any Code/Size have a DCC-dislike problem, but I’m told that has been addressed satisfactorily.

Something I found to my great surprise was that real railroads like to use as long a turnout as possible, where possible, to make the transition between tracks coming together as smooth as possible. A “typical” turnout used by Real Railroads works out to a “Number 8” type turnout in HO Scale, which to real railroads is referred to as a “Number 69” or whatever type Track Switch. Again, it boils down to trying to reduce the co-efficient of friction and resistance which also applies to models as well. But, I’ve found in Scale, that if you choose to use the longest turnout available, you’ll run in to difficulty and lack of space. Therefore, one must settle on smaller radius turnouts; an acceptable compromise is using No. 6 Turnouts in HO Scale. If situations call for a sharper radius turnout, real railroads will use them, and will suffer the inevitable problems associated with them. If they can avoid it, they do, and I don’t think that’s the worst example we modelers can ask for or try to follow.

A “high speed” turnout out in real life is known as something like “a number 89” by the real railroads and is a very, very long turnout that takes up something like 3 full feet in HO Scale to accomplish! But, brother, you’ll never see such a smooth transition from one line to another as you do when you use these long turnouts.

Square Joints!

This may strike some of you as odd, because you’ve seen me cutting rail with both Dremel Tool and a Xuron Rail Cutters, but I really hate using either method of cutting rail, mostly because you don’t get a square cut no matter what you do. With a Dremel Tool you are cutting at an angle so your rails butting together really only do so at the beginning of the cut---usually at the top. Xuron Rail Cutters destroy the rail on the opposite side of the cut, and the cut itself is neither square nor plumb. It is ragged and needs work with a file to smooth the out the cut. At that, it is next to impossible to get a square cut with the Xuron tool. One thing I’ve learned is that you really need nice, square rail ends to make a decent rail joint. Just how one obtains that end is a “crap shoot”, for lack of a better term. You can use a large Bastard File to square these joints up before addition of the rail joiner, or, you can use a bench grinder where you only need to touch the wheel. There really is no specific method to cutting track that I like. The method I’ve found that works (but in of itself is work) is to mark your cut with a Square, cut as closely to a pen mark made on the rail as possible, and file or grind to the mark. At that, you still need to remove burrs around the cut with a jeweler’s file; this is onerous, but necessary, which you’ll find out when trying to slip on a rail joiner that refuses to slide over a burr. This is especially true when using Insulated Rail Joiners. These are a tight fit and the least little burr will result in your adopting language fit only for use behind an outhouse.

By this time you’re asking, “Is this really necessary?” To be honest, I think 98% of Model Railroaders will get by quite adequately not squaring cuts to make good, square rail joints, but I’m the kind of nut that leaves very little to chance. Plus, my experience with this through the Hub City Central has proven to me that square rail ends do make a difference that is noticeable. On most of the track I re-laid on the Club Layout, I took the time to do this and we have nice, smooth joints. Where it hasn’t been done, the gloves are off and anything can (and usually does) happen.

This onerous step is very necessary when using Flex Trak in long curves. You’ll never regret the extra step. I can’t say this is necessary as a whole, but I know it works. After all, I am writing this to give you positive tips in building your layout and that is why this

information is included.

Use of track gauges to lay any sort of track

I highly recommend investing in Track Gauges to help you lay your track, even if all you choose to do is use Atlas Snap Track. This will help in keeping the flex track straight where it needs to be, and when it comes time to put parallel trackage in, another gauge will help maintain even spacing between tracks. Gauges like this are available through Walthers. Items like these make the task easier and take some of the “By Guess and By Gosh,” “Aw NUTS” and “Oops” out of track work.

What about bridges?

At this point, you may want to install the bridges you may have planned for your layout. However, I do not recommend installing them “permanently” until after you’ve gotten your scenery around it to a point of “completion!” Often, what is done is that a “temporary bridge structure” is installed to take the place of the eventual bridge model that will reside in this particular spot. This becomes a particularily picky point if you are in a bit of a snit to get trains running---this is something I can understand. When it comes to bridges, scenery and track laying come together to conspire to cause a small amount of grief and leave you wondering, “gee, what do I do?”

My own “remedy” to this is to “rough in” the model bridge, that is, to build the model, and get the dimensions laid out for it on the layout, “dry” install the bridge in its place and then return to it and install it later. At least where the bridge will go is “roughed” in. If you wish to put a temporary track over this on temporary roadbed, you can.

Painting and Ballasting

I heartily suggest painting your track, the rail a Rail Brown color, and the Ties another shade of brown with other colors added at intervals to break up the “sameness” of the ties. Real Railroads do not have all brown ties under the track----they vary in weathering because of age. On Main Line trackage seeing heavy use, ties pretty much look all the same because of routine change-out, but spurs and yard trackage tend to become very noticeably light-gray as the Creosote washes out over time. Colors lie within the Dark Brown (almost black) to almost White color spectrum when it comes to ties. Painting your track gives it a realistic look and it is an easier task than ballasting.

The color of rail is another interesting and sometimes contentious point. I’ve used Floquil’s “Rail Brown” which is a color very close to rail that is well-used on main routes, but rail, like everything else left in the Great Outdoors, weathers with varying degrees according to age and frequency of use. Rails on spurs can be a color often looking like a dark Tuscan Red. I’ve even used “Rust” colored painted for spur rail color. It works is all I’ll say.

Speaking of Ballasting, two notable modelers, Larry Nast of Green Bay, and Joe Seidl of Menominee, MI., both echoed one another in their advice about ballasting: Once you have your track work laid down, operate the layout for a year or more without ballasting it. This will give you time to “work out all the “kinks”” in your trackage and make corrections/additions/deletions/changes as necessary before you start putting the ballast on the track. You can proceed with other scenery work not related to track ballast.

The actual “Laying”of Factory-made track

Believe-it-or-not, there is a “trick” to laying flex track and ye Olde Snap Track. Both come with pre-drilled nail holes for track nails. To get smooth track structure, you really should not pound these nails into the track like you’re building a house and nailing 2x4’s together. When you drive the track nail in too far, the tie it is in will bow downwards, causing the rails to cant inward causing a narrow spot in the track which will lead to troubles later on. Track nails only need to be driven in far enough to touch the tie; any farther is over-kill. I’ve always preferred to use Atlas Track Nails. You can use ¾ inch Wire Mails, and if you are using Homasote under the Cork Roadbed, this is not a bad idea, but I consider it to be slight over-kill, the reason for which will follow.

Securing turnouts with track nails is another issue. Peco turnouts only have nail holes in the outside edges of the ties and care must be taken to keep from setting the nails in too far and spreading the home rails away from the points. I’ve found on the Hub City Central that it is necessary to drill additional nail holes in the ties at strategic points on the turnout that are not provided for by Peco. You want your turnouts to lay flat, not be humped up, as this will cause problems. Atlas, Shinohara, and Model Engineering turnouts are holed for nails in their ties. Code 55 track has no nail holes in it. You either drill in your own or simply cement the track to the roadbed. When hand-laying track from “scratch”, one uses very few nails and mostly rely on glue to hold your ties in place.

Decision time: What kind of Power System am I going to employ?

I don’t like getting ahead of myself, but at this stage you’ll need to make a decision on what kind of power system you intend to use to power your layout, because this will affect your track work. Depending upon your selection, you need to make provision for blocks and insulated rail joints where applicable. You really should know before this point what your plans are, and should have better than a ghost of an idea just what it is you plan on doing. I do not recommend going back and trying to cut-in gaps. Plastic insulated joiners are still the best way to achieve this end if that is what you are looking for.

Flex Track and a Helpful Hint

Flex track presents some unique problems. One is that it likes to “move”, not unlike real Ribbon Rail (or “Welded Rail” if you prefer). One way I found to combat this was to install 3” snap track pieces at the points on the Club layout where there are joints. The Old Rule of Thumb tells us that one should not solder all rail joints, but to leave “some” (the number of which is, apparently, up to the discretion of the builder) un-soldered for an “expansion joint”. I have found, with the extremes encountered with the Hub City Central Portable Club Layout that, by adding the 3” or 6 ”snap track pieces, although I prefer the 3,” and cementing the track to the roadbed (discussed immediately after this section), that one can completely eliminate the problems of expansion of rail. Like adding feeder wire, it doesn’t hurt to add these pieces every three to four feet.

“Gluing” your track in place on your roadbed”

Something I learned from the Late John Ruple: “Gluing” the track in place to the roadbed. John liked to use a diluted Matte Medium for this (I’ve used it as well), but Matte Medium dries so very hard that, if at some point later on, you are forced to make a change, you will not get the track off without destroying everything including the cork roadbed!!!!!!! I forgot what John used for a dilution mixture, which is what the problem was when I used his method, but I’ve found that even in a much, much diluted state, Matte Medium holds like nothing I’ve ever seen before. (I wish it worked as well on scenery, but that’s another story……..)

Now, the reason for gluing your track is that it will move on its own due to various external stresses, most often temperature and humidity. Ballast will not hold your track in place----even nailed!! I’ve used diluted White Glue in place of Matte Medium, and it works for a while, but Matte Medium will hold your track long after you’ve departed this life. Gluing the track is another way to avoid the sudden appearance of problems you didn’t expect. I do consider this step to be necessary.

This brings up the question: “So, if I glue my track to the roadbed using Matte Medium, do I really need to nail my track down?” Well, John Ruple never did, and his old corner module held up for over 20 years and the Matte Medium did a magnificent job holding the track in place, BUT, towards the end, the Matte Medium was losing it’s grip and I was forced to nail down the track in spots. So, my rule of thumb is it probably wouldn’t hurt to nail your track down in addition to gluing it to the roadbed.

However, when you do this, stay away from your switch points on the turnouts! One sure way to ruin your turnouts is to slop diluted Matte Medium into them and they may never operate---again or ever. I “paint” on diluted Matte Medium along the outer edges of the switch ties outside of the points, and I take great care to keep the mixture from inundating the area of the points. The rest of the track is liberally painted but I stay away from the points.

Curve Radius

I’ll bet you thought I’d never get to this point. Surprise! As I touched on in Part 2, Curve radius is something that because of the space limitations we face in the hobby, we can’t often follow what the prototype does. It’s interesting that the scale trains face the same problems as the real thing: resistance and co-efficient of friction from wheels being forced against one inside surface of a rail or the other in making a curve. The sharper the curve, the more problems you’ll have, and that is why “wider is better”---if you can do so. That is why you need a radius tool to lay out those curves on your main line. There is nothing better than a smooth, flowing curve, and it makes operating your layout so much the better, even if all you want to do is watch your trains travel in a circle.

Yard and Spur trackage

When I lay yard and industry trackage, I generally do not put cork roadbed down. If I do put down cork roadbed for a yard, I use Sheet Cork, for reasons explained farther on. On a whole, tracks radiating off the main are lower---essentially, real railroads did not bother with extensive grading work on Yard Tracks, House Tracks and Industry Spurs. The track angles downwards very noticeably from the main route and is equally noticeably lower. This is easy to do; I just sand cork roadbed down from the main line and get the result I am looking for. You needn’t worry about the gradient. This is often short enough there is not much to worry about with gradient.

As I’ve mentioned above, the real railroads like the longest turnout possible to make the spur transition to the main route as smooth as possible, but the spur trackage itself is another story. Once the spur rails get at least five feet away from the turnout frog, railroads will curve the spur trackage any damned way they please, with as sharp of curvature as deemed necessary to get the track where it is needed. I’ll never forget how the flanges on both locomotive and cars would howl and scream (also groaning, snapping and popping) in protest when the Soo Switch Engine would switch the Mid State Cheese Corp. spur next to where I reside. Since switching a spur track does not entail high speeds, sharper curvature is the norm.

Yard tracks---where freight cars are switched to make up the train---may have a sharper radius turnout. Again, switching cars by gravity doesn’t require a long radius turnout. The first turnout in the “Ladder” of switches making up the Yard might be a long radius turnout, but the rest are often a shorter radius type. Modern “Hump” Yards are a different story. There the railroads try to use as long a turnout as possible. Often, even in Hump Yards, the “Body” tracks---the Yard Tracks between the turnouts---are slightly rough and uneven. This is not something one would try to model (although there are those they have done it), my own preference is to have smoooooth flowing trackage, even if you choose to make the yard tracks lower than the Yard Ladder. Generally, Yard Tracks have little---often no roadbed grading---and can be laid directly to your layout’s top surface. Or, as I alluded to above, I’ll use sheet cork for a roadbed beneath the tracks because having any sort of roadbed or ballast contour in yard trackage is relatively rare. Again, newer yard facilities are a different story, but not by much.

Solder those rail joints!

The next point to make on this installment is to make mention of the practice of soldering all your rail joints that are not insulated! We found out the hard way with the Hub City Central that just joining the track together with the rail joiners is not conducive to good electrical contact. It was a project I hated having to do, but it made the layout so much more reliable and eliminated the problem of “spot shorts” which cropped up anytime the layout moved. Moisture, specifically, humidity, and corrosion, love those little rail joiners (think of the Athlete’s Foot commercial where the fungus lifts a toe nail like the hood of a car before settling in underneath; its basically the same with corrosion and humidity settling in in-between a rail joiner and the rail), and really enjoys making itself at home in a joint that is dirty, not square or loose. Hence, one really needs to solder all the rail joints to ensure continued reliable operation of your layout, as it will aid in eliminating the effects of corrosion from humidity. It is a chore, but one you’ll never regret doing.

Soldering joints also helps reduce the tendency of Flex Track to “hunt”, i.e. move back and forth, as mentioned previously. Additions of 3” snap track pieces where applicable and cementing your track to the roadbed helps to eliminate Flex Track’s natural tendency to want to buckle and/or otherwise move out of alignment.

In line with soldering rail joints, is another facet I stumbled across: Cleaning the ends of the bare rails to be joined---before you add the joiner. Nickel Silver Rail actually has a light coat of what appears to be lacquer on it, I’m guessing as a preservative to keep it from corroding while standing in the Hobby Store and turning black (Nickel Silver track corrodes like Brass Track does, only Nickel Silver rail turns black, not green) Using the wire brush tool on a Dremel Tool solves the problem quite nicely, and helps polish the joint for receiving solder later on. Once you’ve heated the joint prior to applying the solder, the cleaned joint with accept the solder, which will flow smoothly into the joint and create a nice path for amps and volts to flow through.

Electrical jumper wiring

At this stage of the game, you will need to address your feeder wiring as you go along laying your track. My own layout was based on the Hub City Central’s 2x4 foot module design and I would have used jumper and feeder wiring every four feet, just like our Club layout modules. Depending on your layout design, feeder wires should be let down about every four-to-five feet. Like our Club layout, it doesn’t hurt to give the electricity as many pathways to follow as possible.

The best way to attach feeder wiring is to solder your feeder wire to the bottom of the rail, but if you use a small enough diameter wire, you can solder your feeder wires to the side of the rail. This is the way it has been done on the Hub City Central, but I really don’t like it. Then again, soldering feeder wires to the bottom of the rail isn’t the easiest task, either. There are rail joiners sold that have feeder wires already attached. This seems to be the best way to go. If memory serves, these are brass joiners, but if you are taking the time to solder your rail joints, it isn’t going to make that much of a difference.

Feeder wires should use a wire of 22 gauge or smaller, preferably a stranded-type wire. 22 gauge wires are hard to find except through the local Hobby Dealer or at Walthers direct. On the Hub City Central I was forced to use what I could get locally, which is far, far too thick, but it works for the most part. I would not use something like this on my own layout, because such size wire will increase resistance and restrict the flow of electricity.

These feeder wires will be commented on in the next installment.

“73”

Keith