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Laying the Rail Road Track
Club member Larry sent in this tip:
Laying the track is one of the most important aspects of building a railroad model. Design the entire track on paper first. Once done, loosely place the sectional and curved pieces to get the whole idea of the layout. Do not join any pieces at this point. For curved tracks, choose a radius that is bigger than the size of the train.
You can now proceed with joining the track. Start at one end and work on small sections at a time. Fasten the track down. Soldering is a good option to finish off the track because it prevents derailments.
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Also, remember that when measuring track for curves to measure the inside lean of your longest car(s) as the ‘in swing’ can create problems on tracks with two curves, inner and outer, and with any obstacle(s) on the layout.
I agree with Gerry. When using sectional track there is usually only a couple of radius readily available. So through your curves the turns will be hard to match on your inner and outer track. and keep an even clearance throughout the whole curve. So when you want to get more realistic in your layout designs you will want to try flexible sections of track. In the straightaways you might want to hold a closer on center distance between tracks but in the curves you will have to expand the center to center distance to allow the clearance on the inside and outside of a track.
Each track in the same curve will have a different radius. Both usually measured from the same point but adding the appropriate extra inches the farther from that point you get. I have a 5 track ladder of yard switches and the inner track curve is a 22 inch radius but as I progress outward each track will add another 2 1/2 inches apart center line to center line to hold the car clearances As your radius gets larger then your distance between tracks can get closer because as your radius gets larger , your car overhang gets less because your curve is shallower. Even if you are only doing single track clearance in the turns (inside and out on obs-tickles,tunnel portals, is important. On duel parallel track clearance of one of the tracks is not enough. You need to make sure that the clearance of both tracks together do not cross a center line between the two sets of tracks. Put the longest cars with lots of overhang on each track and that clearance should not cross over into the clearance of the other track. Also a tall long car with height clearance needed might clear the wall of a tunnel portal but many of them have rounded ceilings might also have clearance problems when the long car overhang high roof line meets the tunnel lower ceiling where a straight track through the portal would clear just fine. Sometimes a wider portal would be needed in the curves. I am sure they would be on the real prototypes too.
from Newman Atkinson Terre Haute, Indiana
have a question about getting back into building scenes and collecting model trains have not done N 20 years very rusty..O & N scale