Electrical connections on track - a positive experience.

GrahamMills

Many & various. In G scale it is American Diesel.
On GSM and here there are often requests for information on maintaining a good electricity supply through the track with many requests asking how frequently the electrical connections should occur. Responses normally cover graphite grease, rail clamps etc. Since I have had a very satisfactory Sunday concerning track laying I thought that you might find my experience of some interest.

I had my track temporarily laid on some paving slabs. Unfortunately these are not far from the front door and during the winter our dogs redesigned the layout a little. I did consider relaying it all but knew from experience I would be repeating the exercise throughout the summer.

We do have a terrace that is around half and half gravel & slabs but until recently it was so overgrown that I could not lay track there. However the bad 2008/9 winter killed off some of those plants and late autumn last year we cleaned up the terrace removing a lot of the stuff that was there.

Last Sunday was the first dry and warmish day we have had so I took my courage in my hands, picked up the track and relaid it on the terrace. Since I was having to weave it around the remaining plants and ornaments I just laid it as it came with no grease, clamps etc. By the end of the day it was all laid with just half a dozen small pieces left over. It forms a sort of unbalanced pear shaped oval and turns out to be 164 feet long.

This Sunday I thought that I would move to the next phase. I knew that I was going to need to undertake a lot of work to get anything operational, remember I had not even cleaned the track, but I thought that I would start by putting a train on the track and seeing how it got on. It totally surprised me when it got stuck in only two places. Since I am using Aristo-Craft track I used screws to connect the track in those areas and sure enough I had no further problems all afternoon.

Towards the end of the day I got my camera to take some photographs to show you all but of course the batteries were flat. However I will load some as soon as I can.
 
I finally got a chance to take some photos.
This is the track layout
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GrahamMills said:
This is the track layout
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Wow, looks huuuuge! I almost thought it was OO track when I first saw it....
 
looking very good - fits in with the topographical obstacles as a railway should
 
I was pleased that it worked. I was concerned that it would need tight curves in some places but the smallest I have used are 10ft and they could be replaced by 12.5fts. I need to add some sidings and I would like to add a second loop but I really do not think that there is room.

I was amazed at the amount of weeds that had grown in the couple of weeks since I had laid the track. The locos kept riding up on the weeds and losing power! What you see is after some weeding, need to find the Roundup.
 
I know track is expensive but protecting it with cannons.......:admire: :bigsmile:
 
I knew people would spot the cannons and tried to think of a witty comment but yours was much better than anything I thought of.

The photos also show some of our Magnolias. I am a bit of a Magnolia fanatic and we moved here in order to grow them. They have given a good display this year.
 
GrahamMills said:
I knew people would spot the cannons and tried to think of a witty comment but yours was much better than anything I thought of.

The photos also show some of our Magnolias. I am a bit of a Magnolia fanatic and we moved here in order to grow them. They have given a good display this year.

Graham
I also found Magnolians a lovly people and believe Genghis Khan was very misunderstood, but im not sure i could put up with them living in my garden if they arnt keeping the weeds a bay

Tony
PS very nice setting you have
 
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