It's been a rough winter... and it ain't over yet!

[bklynman01]

As I'm sure is the case with a lot of you, my layout is in the basement. Well, it's not a "real" basement, as I live in a split level home and so the lower floor is only half underground, not as deep as a normal home. In any case, it still gets pretty cool down there. Not so much that I can't stand it when I spend a few hours in the evening getting some stuff done, but cool nonetheless. Well, I live in Ohio, right between the midwest and the northeast where all the frigid weather has been hanging out, seemingly for weeks now (with one or two 30 degree days sprinkled in). I went down yesterday to work on a small task and pushed some cars off onto a siding for storage. A few of the cars derailed and I just dismissed it as too much power when shoving the cars by hand. After getting them all back on, I easily pushed them down the line and the next few cars came flying off. Upon closer inspection, the rail had actually popped out of the plastic ties and became too narrow for the trucks to roll through. After a few choice words, I opened the vent in the ceiling to begin keeping the room a little closer to the 68 degrees the thermostat is set to. Then went on cutting the section out and replacing it. Now it doesn't match the rest, but that's okay right now. As always, the layout is in the construction phase.

 

[montanan]

Winter can be fun. I live in Montana and sub zero temps are quite common up here. My layout is in a basement, but it can get pretty cool down there as now that the kids are grown and out on their own, we don't hear the unused spaces. In my train room I do keep the thermostat set at about 60 degrees if I am not working down there. I have found over the years that sometimes there can be some problems with the track expanding and contracting with temperature changes. A lot of my track is hand laid, but I also have a lot of flex track and commercial turnouts. I purposely left a slight gap, perhaps only a 32nd of an inch in the rails where they meet in the rail joiner which does compensate for the temperature changes. I never had a problem exactly like yours, but I am sure that if the rail came out from the cast on spikes, your rail must have been butted up tight.

Keep this in mind during future construction. It will probably help the situation.

 

[bklynman01]

I have all flex track on my layout with PECO turnouts. I have all of my joints soldered except for two. Those two are on straight sections where the alignment is kept easier than on the curves. After this happened, I wondered why this gap didn't perform as planned. The answer was easy and found within a minute of looking. There are turnouts on either side of this and one other section of track. And so those two sections run this risk. At least I know about it... i guess. This ate up about all the time I had to play last night so I didn't get a chance to look further into a countermeasure. That will be this weekend, as time allows

 

[NH Mike]

I had that problem with Peco flex track. The molded spikes that hold the rail are pretty small. Over time I replaced bad sections as needed with Atlas flex track which has much larger molded spikes and haven't had a problem since. I would add that my basement is mostly below ground and although not heated generally doesn't drop below 62 degrees. Another factor I feel contributed to the Peco rail popping off the ties is most of it was around 30 years old at the time and the plastic more than likely became brittle so even with small gaps at joints the slight expansion was enough to break the small spike pieces. A few sections of Atlas flex that were laid down around the same time as the Peco are still not a problem. And no, I don't work for Atlas.

 

[bklynman01]

And no, I don't work for Atlas.

You sure? Sounds like something a salesman would say.

Actually, all my flex track is Atlas. Only the turnouts are Peco except for 2. Those two are left over Atlas turnouts from a layout in the 90s. They are in places where they will never be used, so no concerns. I do like the Peco turnouts much better.

I will say that having the vent open provided a much more hospitable working environment for tonight. Maybe it's worth having the vent open!

 

[dinwitty]

heh, the real railroads have similar issues, but its the heat, I recall riding Cleveland lines, and one piece of track was severely warped with an S curve. I have 8mm film of it. slow order over it as the train weaved thru it, repair crews were on the scene.