Fighting With the Tracks

After getting the second track glued down I thought that all that was left was the landscaping.  How wrong I was!

I know that there are disadvantages to Z Scale model railroading - It's not as popular as other scales, so there are not nearly so many trains and accessories available.  Also, few hobby shops carry anything smaller than N Scale.  Because the trains are so small it is hard to get them on the track, even with a rerailing ramp that comes with some Micro-Trains kits.  With this layout I was made painfully aware of another disadvantage - The engines and cars, especially the cars, are so small and light that any little irregularity in the track can cause uncoupling or derailing.

I'd had some trouble with derailing with my Birthday layout, but thought the problem was solved when I found that some cars seemed to have a preferred front and back end - when run with one end forward some derailed, with the other end forward they ran fine.  So I put a dot of paint on the undercarriage at the end that I'd found to be the front end.

Neither the Marklin American Old-Timers Passenger set nor the Micro-Trains Santa Fe Table Top set of freight cars would run without derailing or uncoupling on either track.  I couldn't find a preferred direction for the cars. What I did notice was that the problems seemed to occur at the same places on the track time after time.

On the upper track I found a place where the track had not been joined properly and so one rail was held a little higher than the next.  Since the track was glued down, I filed off the extra elevation with a triangular file.  I also found that there was usually trouble when the train got to the short Marklin #8503 section of track.  Again, filing down the irregularity helped. I finally got the upper track so that trains would run round and round with little if any problems.

I also found some irregularities in the lower track.  Filing the track seemed to help.  However, I found one place - at the south end of the loop, where the power leads were soldered to a #8503 piece of track, that one of the Micro-Trains freight cars would derail every time.  The rear end seemed to lift and slide off the track.  I tried filing the top of the tracks where they joined.  I tried filing the inner sides of the rails to even the junctions.  I tried removing some of the pieces of plastic that held the inside of the rails. Nothing worked. 

Finally I realized that it must not be the track that was lifting the rear end.  Perhaps it was dropping the front end - which might then lift the rear end.  I could see nothing that would suggest that this might be the problem by examining the track. But if the junction had a slight inverted V configuration the front might drop slightly as it passed over the tiny "hill" and so lift the other end of a car enough to derail it.  The lower track was laid with caulking for roadbed.  So I pressed down hard at the leading junction.  After that the car passed that part of the track with no problem.

I can now run two trains simultaneously with only very rare problems (knock knock!)

The above description may not sound like much trouble, but only the misjoined track on the upper level was obvious.  The others could only be detected by noting where the problem occurred over and over.  The problem spots could not be felt by running my finger over the track, or by running a car back and forth with my finger over a trouble spot.  Since the problems were not easy to define it was very frustrating trying to figure out what was wrong.  In most cases there didn't seem to be anything wrong - even though there obviously had to be.  I don't handle frustration well, so what I summarized in a few paragraphs actually took me several days of trying to figure out an answer, walking away frustrated, then coming back to get frustrated again.

I can't help but think N or HO scale would be a bit more forgiving/less frustrating.

But I'm over the hump (knock, knock!)