Yep, layout track still changes!

That’s right, I’ve made a change to the track on my layout. But wait, you say, surely all track was laid long ago? That’s almost true. But a problem had developed in connection with some staging that comes off the main line. Here I don’t mean the oft-described staging table (you can read a summary of its history and construction at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2021/07/reprise-my-staging-table.html ).

What I refer to is a thoroughly hidden pair of stub tracks underneath Santa Rosalia (see: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2013/11/constructing-santa-rosalia-staging.html ).  I had modified the original mainline curving track to insert a curved switch, and then a second switch to provide two stub-end staging track. Here’s a repeat of one photo from the post just cited, with the main line curving along the photo bottom.

The view above has long been impossible to see, because the entirety of Santa Rosalia is above it. And that in turn means that working on this area is now seriously difficult. But for years, that never mattered. Trains ran on the main without issue.

I should point out that these two staging tracks were really never very useful. Mainline trains ordinarily come from the staging table, and can easily return there, giving little reason to terminate a mainline train in these stub tracks. And trains coming out from these stubs can only return by backing in. Result? I almost never used these tracks.

For years, then, the presence of this staging didn’t matter. Recently, though, I began to observe occasional derailments when passing through the curved switch that you see at left in the photo above. 

Checking with an NMRA gauge showed that the frog area of the switch had developed a narrow gauge (possibly due to gradual shrinkage of the styrene switch parts, or slow release of molding stresses, or some other cause). This is not the first track switch of mine that has developed this problem. 

I tried filing down the insides of the rails in the narrow area. But it was so hard to work in this area that I soon gave up, having made little difference in the gauge. I decided to pull the switch out entirely, and replace it with plain track. I fully realized that this was going to be more complicated in this cramped location than it would be on open benchwork!

But working slowly and carefully, I did manage to cut a new piece of track to exactly fit where the curved switch had been, and get it installed and aligned. It’s not perfect, but for the working conditions, I was satisfied. To illustrate the location issue, below is an overhead view. This track lies within the two curved backdrops for each side of the layout, where they curve from the peninsula onto the end walls of the room.

A closer-up view from the other side, below, shows the small space at right, beyond the brown top of the bookshelf, in which I had to work, coming from underneath. I couldn’t get both shoulders up into this space at the same time, so had to choose which arm needed to do which part of the work. But you can see the new track clearly. The switch machine for the former switch remains in place.

I’m not fishing for sympathy on the difficulties here — after all, it’s all my own construction — just illustrating that some parts of a layout can be a little challenging to work on, in later years, even a simple insertion of a length of track.

When the trackwork was done, I ran some trains, and found that things ran fine, with a range of lengths of cars and a variety of locomotives. Below is a view of my switcher with a cut of cars, just one of the test rains.

It is nice to have made this bit of the mainline trackage more reliable. But it wasn’t fun physically, working in that cramped space. At one point during the project, I grumbled about it to my wife, who with her usual asperity, replied, “Well, you’re not as young as you were.” Point taken.

Tony Thompson