Just finished re laying track and thought I would update this thread a bit.
To save anyone reading all the old posts, a quick recap. I bought a Piko starter set along with some extra track 5 years ago to use as a garden feature. Unlike many on this forum, I'm not particularly into trains or their operation, my plan was just to have something interesting and nice to look at in an otherwise dull and shady area of the garden.
I quickly discovered though, that it wasn't as easy as throw the track on the ground and watch the train loop through the plants! So ever since then I have gradually made improvements on the layout, with only the simple goal of having nice trouble free running on dc track power. All I really want is to set a train off, and for it to loop smoothly at a slow speed for a few hours at a time without any further intervention. That has not been as easily achieved as I assumed when I bought the set!
In the rush to get going, I didn't pay much attention to track laying. Then over time as I began to understand the difference it would make I still only made little corrections bit by bit. Which usually meant one area got a little better but the adjoining area was then upset.
A couple of years ago I had a lot of corrosion on the rails, whole chunks reduced to crumbling oxide. Big maintenance was required, time to rethink what would improve the layout as a whole. I decided to lift the level of the track about an inch (which in areas was sitting in a poor draining mix of mud, grit and baby tears) by laying it on bricks. That worked really well all last year, the trains ran the best I have managed so far. Only thing was I didn't spend enough time preparing the bed the bricks lay on, so after time the levels went a bit wonky.
So last month (april) I dug up the channel and did it better, using a lot of sharp sand, spirit levels and a mallet. Made a big deal of getting the R1 points plus the lead in and outs to them spot on, and while early days yet, I think my locos are passing over them more smoothly than before, even at very slow speeds. I've also noticed that I need to do less track cleaning. Half an hour of the Piko track cleaning loco is usually enough, unless there is bird poo on a rail (a constant problem since the track is under trees).
While I was re laying track, I also added another siding along the front, where I can prepare the next train to run. The original (inner) siding is used to park the running train. Both sidings are isolated with a switch so trains just run into sidings and stop. Nothing clever or complex on this railway!
To save anyone reading all the old posts, a quick recap. I bought a Piko starter set along with some extra track 5 years ago to use as a garden feature. Unlike many on this forum, I'm not particularly into trains or their operation, my plan was just to have something interesting and nice to look at in an otherwise dull and shady area of the garden.
I quickly discovered though, that it wasn't as easy as throw the track on the ground and watch the train loop through the plants! So ever since then I have gradually made improvements on the layout, with only the simple goal of having nice trouble free running on dc track power. All I really want is to set a train off, and for it to loop smoothly at a slow speed for a few hours at a time without any further intervention. That has not been as easily achieved as I assumed when I bought the set!
In the rush to get going, I didn't pay much attention to track laying. Then over time as I began to understand the difference it would make I still only made little corrections bit by bit. Which usually meant one area got a little better but the adjoining area was then upset.
A couple of years ago I had a lot of corrosion on the rails, whole chunks reduced to crumbling oxide. Big maintenance was required, time to rethink what would improve the layout as a whole. I decided to lift the level of the track about an inch (which in areas was sitting in a poor draining mix of mud, grit and baby tears) by laying it on bricks. That worked really well all last year, the trains ran the best I have managed so far. Only thing was I didn't spend enough time preparing the bed the bricks lay on, so after time the levels went a bit wonky.
So last month (april) I dug up the channel and did it better, using a lot of sharp sand, spirit levels and a mallet. Made a big deal of getting the R1 points plus the lead in and outs to them spot on, and while early days yet, I think my locos are passing over them more smoothly than before, even at very slow speeds. I've also noticed that I need to do less track cleaning. Half an hour of the Piko track cleaning loco is usually enough, unless there is bird poo on a rail (a constant problem since the track is under trees).
While I was re laying track, I also added another siding along the front, where I can prepare the next train to run. The original (inner) siding is used to park the running train. Both sidings are isolated with a switch so trains just run into sidings and stop. Nothing clever or complex on this railway!
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