This is related to hand laying track on pc ties without rail joiners.
This is probably well known to everyone who has done hand laid track before, and it’s pretty obvious (now) that it would happen, but at the time I laid the track I didn’t think of it.
What I learned. On curves, never never have a join on both rails in the same place, but stagger the joins. I had a rail join on a curve, both rails in the same place, and everything was fine until today whan I started adding some ballast. What I didn’t think about when I laid the rail is that wetting the ties dissolve the glue (only while wet of course) which causes the rail to straighten out a little bit and get the join out of alignment, so, from now on I will always use staggered joins on curves.
Jesper
This is probably well known to everyone who has done hand laid track before, and it’s pretty obvious (now) that it would happen, but at the time I laid the track I didn’t think of it.
What I learned. On curves, never never have a join on both rails in the same place, but stagger the joins. I had a rail join on a curve, both rails in the same place, and everything was fine until today whan I started adding some ballast. What I didn’t think about when I laid the rail is that wetting the ties dissolve the glue (only while wet of course) which causes the rail to straighten out a little bit and get the join out of alignment, so, from now on I will always use staggered joins on curves.
Jesper
