I just built a test track for my hobby work shop, and I'd like to pass on a suggestion. Include a turnout with your test track. That way, if one of your cars is hanging up at the turnouts on the layout, it should do the same on the test track.
I put a couple cars on the RIP track and didn't get back to them before I forgot why I did. When they started hanging up on the turnout on the test track, I knew why.
Puckdropper
"Puckdropper" wrote
I had that problem until I began keeping a roll of masking tape and a felt-tip marker on my workbench.
Now my bad-order cars get a short length of tape stuck on top with enough verbiage thereon to remind me of the specific problem when I get around to fixing them a month later.
Pete
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In addition to a turnout, I put a curved section with a slightly tighter radius than any that would be encountered on the actual layout.
Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:
Bill wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com:
I thought about doing that too. There's still room to do so. Maybe an S-curve would be good. (That'll make sure the trucks must rotate both ways.)
Puckdropper
Add a short rise to check that the trucks will adapt to a change of gradient. It needs only be a truck length and then level again. Twist? Coupler height end stop.
I've actually milled a piece of 75mm x 25mm (3"x1") pine with flangeways and a coupler gauge, which I find most handy when building rolling stock, as heights from railhead are easily measured. Of course that's a seperate function from the test track.
Greg.P.
Look dear, that is NOT a layout in the garage ... it's just a well decorated test track ... honest!
Paul N.
I built a test track for my club, and I included the following:
- Walthers Code 83 flex track
- Kadee "delay" magnet
- NMRA Clearance Gauge made of masonite
- RP25 flangeway
- Bars inside the gauge to catch narrow wheels
- Small section of rail hand-spiked to be slightly tight in gauge to catch broad wheels
- Spring scale in 1/4 oz. increments for measuring drawbar pull of locos
- "Go-No Go" guage made of aluminum bars for coupler height
All equipment that's registered must pass through the above. Originally, we thought of putting in a grade, tight curves, and the like, but found it too cumbersome. All of the above fits on a 1 x 4" x 54" (or so). With an "S" curve, the space would be much larger.
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven *************
ROTFL.
Just a thought, but you might want to use drafting tape instead of masking tape. Drafting tape has far less adhesive properties which would greatly reduce the chance of pulling the paint off your rolling stock!
The Seabat wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
*summary of trimmed messages: I forgot what some cars were put on the RIP track for and a poster suggested a way he left reminders for himself using masking tape.*Now I keep a notebook with the majority of my rolling stock, mainly for recording DCC decoder addresses, but I could use the notebook to note trouble I'm having with other rolling stock. (Everything's been running pretty good recently, except the two cars I bad ordered.)
Puckdropper
"The Seabat" wrote
Thanx for the suggestion, but I don't push the tape down hard; just tight enough to stay put.
So far -about seven years- I've never pulled off any paint.
Pete
That is because you did not leave the tap on for more than seven days.
"wim van bemmel" wrote
Well, no, in fact I only *wish* that I got around to repairing my bad order cars every week or so.
As it happens, I've often got other -paying- work that has to be taken care of first, and it's sometimes more like seven *months* before I finally stop procrastinationg and hold a repair session.
Pete
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