File or Sectional in Helix?


KB02

Well-Known Member
For those who have built them, do you recommend using flex track or sectional track in a helix?

I am re-laying track in a section of my layout where the design is basically a single leveled helix - replacing sectional with flex. The sectional track was giving me a problem when trying to back trains up (they would derail), but after laying the flex track, I am having the same problem when running trains forward (granted, only one specific train, but it derails every time forward or backward).

I’ve narrowed the problem down to a specific spot (where two pieces of track connect) and it appears to be, from what I can tell, a super elevation issue. I am working on getting the tracks leveled out and consistent, but it has made me wonder what others use for track when building a helix.
 
I have only built one helix. It was a 4-turn HO Scale, 24" radius helix. I used flex track and soldered the joints before installing the track onto the roadbed. There was no super elevation built into the helix.

Having said that, if it is only a specific car that is causing problems, I would check wheel gauge and if the trucks may be too tight and not allowed to pivot properly.

Scott
 
Sounds like ya need to do a very, very close inspection of your track work. A track connector that's not engaged properly, an easement that isn't set right, lumps in the road bed that is lifting one of the rails. Use a mirror to look down your track. It will show imperfections that you can't normally see.
 
When you say "backing up", do you mean reversing a train up the helix? If so, then I would suspect the problem is more likely to be coupler and car clearance related, made worse by the fact of the curve reducing car clearances on the inside of the curve. The couplers will tend to swing out towards the outside, i.e. bunch up, shortening the distance between cars even further to the point two or more may catch and lock together. Coming down the helix, going forward, could do the same, as the weight of the following cars bear down on the ones in front.

I have had the latter happen on the club layout between cars, as the train rounds the U bend at the bottom of one of the long down grades.
 
For those who have built them, do you recommend using flex track or sectional track in a helix?
Most people I know with helix are running radii in sizes that sectional track is mighty hard to come by (I guess except for Bachmann EZ-Track). That, by default puts, it into the flex track arena. What is the radius you are dealing with?

One specific place in the track causing a derailment, especially near a joint sounds like a kink in the track to me, or possibly an out of gauge situation (too narrow).
 
When you say "backing up", do you mean reversing a train up the helix?

Yes, reversing the train. Best way to test to good track-work, right? :)

I seem to have fixed the issue I was having by a good deal of leveling. There was a bit of a dip on the inside rail right where two sections of track met. All of the joints are soldered together, though they were soldered as I went instead of before insertion into the tunnel.

The super elevation was sort of built in by accident. The old sectional track was not laid very well (admittedly), and neither was the roadbed. In my attempts to sure it up, it sort of tilted... but at least in the right direction. The transition from the elevation to flat was a bit too abrupt and with the aforementioned dip in the rail right in the wrong spot loco wheels were lifting and coming off the rail (always to the inside). Funny thing was, none of the rolling stock gave any issue, it was only the locos themselves.
 



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