I have added a few pictures of my progress with the hand laid turnouts. The first turnout took about 3 hours to build, the second one about 1 ½ hour, and I think I finally figured out the exact order of putting down the rails for the turnout. One problem I seem to have though is to keep the rails centered on the ties, in one end they are closer to the left side, and on the other they are closer to the right. Problem here is probably that I was off to begin with, and I didn’t notice until it was too late, well, it’s not too bad, and I’m still happy with the result so far. The pictures are here http://community.webshots.com/album/61130360zIWIIf Jesper
Jesper, you may have run into the same problem I did. (My Dad pointed it out to me. ) He showed me that I had started with the straight track centered on the center line drawn OK, but I gauged my diverging rail from where the frog ended up instead of centering my diverging rail on the diverging center line I had drawn. My diverging rails didn't center on the center line either. He slipped the whole switch along the straight center line toward the point rails until the diverging rails centered up parallel with the diverging center line. After re-mounting the switch here, I had no "kink" in my diverging trackage. He started by laying the curved diverging rail first inorder to align it with both center lines, then constructed the frog and point rails to gauge, followed by the straight-through rail last. His switches werealways lined up with his track plan lines. (Now that he is gone, I just buy a good Peco and get on with it.) (Don't tell anyone, no one knows I made a mistake).
Today I finally finished hand laying the code 40 tracks in my small 1x4 test layout. I have pictures here http://community.webshots.com/album/61130360zIWIIf Overall I’m pleased with the result, but I do have a few issues. First, I didn’t cut the slot for the wire to throw the switch until after I was done (actually, I had installed 2 throw bars when I realized that I was missing something, so I had to remove them again). Another thing is the ties at the crossover. I should have used PC ties for all the ties instead of only for every other tie. And then of course the misaligned track / tie problem. Next time I will be a little more careful, and start the rail at each end instead of just building from one end. Maybe that will prevent the misalignment. After building these 7 turnouts, I must say that it’s quite easy and fast, but the crossover clearly shows that it’s the first one, and is not the most “elegant” crossover I have seen, but maybe next time. Now I just need to figure out where to cut the gaps. Jesper
You raised the bar Jesper, I've decided that my next layout will be handlaid track too. I'll probably use code55 so i don't have to mess with all my locos though.
Well thanks. Actually, I tried a car with the normal MT wheels, and it runs just fine, doesn't have to be the low profile. But maybe some older locos has even bigger flanges than the regular MT plastic wheel. Jesper
What do you do with the racket generated by this form of tracklaying . Trains on track laid on plywood = bass drum , I ken. What do you do about it?
I just ignore it. Honestly, I don't think there is too much a difference whether the track is on cork roadbed or directly on the plywood. As you can see from some of my pictures from my layout http://community.webshots.com/user/jkristia I have the main line on WS foam roadbed and the yard directly on the plywood, and I think it make almost the same amount of noise when I run in the yard as when I run on the mainline, so I simply just ignore it. By the way. I used WS foam roadbed and WS risers on this layout, and definitely on the next one I will not use any of them. The foam roadbed is to soft if you want to hand lay track, so from now on it's only cork or none, and I had a hard time getting a smooth transition (vertical easement) when using the risers, and I', still not happy with it, so no more risers and no more foam roadbed. Jesper
