But before we continue with that thought lets start off with the fact that prior to the last year I never had any desire to hand lay track, in fact I considered it tedious and unnecessary work; this was especially true with all of the great track offerings now available. This all changed in the last couple years due to a couple factors, first I realized that I was not going to have a permanent layout space for many more years so any construction I was going to do now would need to be modular and so there was going to be some serious track work at the module junctions and everything I heard was that hand laid track holds up and keeps its gauge better than flex track. Supply was also an issue as we all remember the track shortage just a short while ago and while I could go with an American made track like Micro Engineering their selection of turnouts is limited. Another factor is that I am considering trying the AP program because after listening to various podcasts a few MMRs have made it seem like it is not as difficult as it appears on paper. Don't get me wrong the accomplishment of becoming a Master Model Railroader is still huge but people like Clark Kooning and Miles Hale have made me realize that the requirements for each of the categories as listed at NMRA.org over complicate things and make it seem daunting to even attempt. Being introduced to the Fast Tracks product line also helped spur this development as I knew from experience in former life working in a machine shop, that a jig is essential to consistently replicating an item during fabrication. I also knew that jigs were virtually fool proof (knowledge also gained at the same shop) Finally I realized cost was significantly lower to hand lay even with the cost of the jig, especially for specialty track work such as crossovers. for example it is $18 US to build a Fast Tracks number 6 turnout (after the jig and tools have been amortized) versus $39 US for a Walthers/Shinohara turnout. Although the savings is less with Atlas or ME turnouts I wanted to keep my turnouts consistent and Walthers has the greatest variety of turnouts (and I know they aren't the best either) so I used Walthers for comparison. even with roughly $270 US in tools to purchase the break even point is only 13 turnouts which will most likely be accomplished on the east end of the Yuma Main Yard. As I mentioned this break even point is smaller with more complex track work and add to all of this that Southern Pacific liked to do weird things like use wye switches at the end of double track (they called them high speed equilateral)hand laying just made sense. Sadly the cost advantage is not there for straight and curved track but that is a decision for another day.
So back to my adventures in hand laying track as promised by Tim when I purchased the Jig from him in Portland I found the process fairly easy, slightly addictive and calming. Plus the huge satisfaction I got from building something from scratch. I did get ahead of myself and skip a couple steps and rushed through some others but over all the end result wasn't bad. next time I will do a couple things differently such as not touch my knuckle to a hot soldering iron when trying to solder in a confined space but overall it was an enjoyable experience and I have included a photo of the first attempt for posterity purposes. This experience has created more questions however; I had considered using smaller rail for the Somerton Branch and I even by chance located the point where the prototype transitions to lighter rail (I included that picture as well). The problem is that having only ever worked with code 100 track the code 83 rail looked tiny and at first it was difficult to handle for my giant hands so I am not sure I want to attempt code 70 and definitely not code 55 rail on the branchline. I could up my mainline rail to code 100 but the general consensus is that that is over sized unless you are modeling the Pennsy and their 155lb rail. Guess I need to pull out my track chart and see what rail was used on this line but that's for another day.
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| First attempt at a turnout |
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| Change in rail size on Somerton Branch |
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