I've never hand laid track; I was referring to my experience using flex track. But you are correct; if one was to hand lay their track. spike placement could very well eliminate misalligned rail ends.
dlm
That is what spikes are invented for. To align ends...
- Groet, salut, Wim.
As I understand it, spikes were invented to attach the rails to the ties.
*Fishplates*, OTOH, were invented to align the rail ends and hold 'em togerther.when you get to scale track, the strength of the rails is a lot higher than with prototype track. As such, fishplates really aren't needed. It would also be a bit difficult to put together track with real working fishplates! Boplts 0.006" in diameter are going to be a bit difficult to work with. I will note that with 7.5" gauge track, you do need to use fishplates to keep the track in alilgnment as the ties are not glued well to the ground and thus the ends of the rails can move about if they are between the ties and it is a bit difficult to spike two rail ends to a single tie.
-- Bob May
rmay at nethere.com http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net
Or here:
Peco (UK) makes working expansion gaps in HO (Codes 100, 75 and probably
83) These have matching rails halved along their center-line for about 25mm (1") on a sleeperbase which clamps the two halves. Fleischmann makes an expanding section of track in HO which will expand 80-120mm, although this is intended as a make-up section for odd lengths.25mm sounds like overkill to me. 5mm sounds like plenty, and you could do this on your own with a file or motor tool.
I once built a layout around the garage (inside ;-) on one wall there was a 32' straight. (4' modules) Temperature range was about 80 f befire I finished insulating. Ran a train after work one day and it derailed - 1/4" gap at one rail joint! Rather than the contraction averaging at each join, the rails had pulled back from the weakest join.
Yes, 25mm is overkill and yes, you could make your own, but the idea has to come from somewhere :-)
Greg.P.
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