Laying an HOm third rail

[MichaelE]

In another post I had said that I now have a dual gauge HO/HOm mountain line for running RhB trains as well as standard gauge.

 

It didn't start out this way. I had given thought about installing narrow gauge HOm track in the beginning of planning my layout but abandoned the idea early on.

 

Then I started watching Swiss  RhB train videos and caught the bug for narrow gauge.

 

I had a couple of ideas for a narrow gauge railway. One, I could remove all of the HO track and re-lay narrow gauge in its place. That wasn't too appealing to me so I sat on that idea for awhile. Then I thought maybe I could actually add a narrow gauge railway above and behind the current mountain line in HO. This wasn't feasible due to space constraints on the ends that needed a turn around as I don't care much for point-to-point operations.

 

My third and final solution was to lay in a third rail between the two HO rails spaced precisely at 12mm for the RhB line. I thought about how to secure this rail without tearing up the existing rail. I stripped a couple of rails from a piece of Micro Engineering flextrack and used Loc-Tite 404 AC adhesive to secure the rail. This test track was allowed to thoroughly dry overnight, and then I proceeded to try and pry it from the ties to test the strength of the adhesive. To say it "stuck like glue" would be an understatement. It took considerable prying before the CA finally cracked and released the rail from the ties I had glued it to.

 

Maybe not the most aesthetically appealing way to get a narrow gauge railway, but it does work and works well. Granted, there are no tie plates or spikes to be seen, but it is not really noticeable unless you get close in to look in detail.

 

I bought an RhB coach from eBay to test the track and it all gauges out correctly. The third rail is electrically tied to the closer HO rail for DCC power with small jumper wires and the rail joints are all soldered. CA glue smells horrible when heated so after the first time I tried making the shortest contact possible to get solder to flow without burning the CA glue.

 

Now, if only my Allegra ABe 8/12 would show up out of Customs...

 

 

 

 

[JimFin]

Good solution. If you want to take that idea further Tillig do a comprehensive range of HO / HOm dual gauge with points (called switches in our former colonies I believe  )  which might be easier than scratch building them.

[simonmcp]

I used the same technique to produce HOm/HOe track and modified the points, all Bemo and Liliput stock ran over okay, sadly I had to break that layout up 10 years ago and didn't take any pictures.

 

Good luck with your project and I hope you get your Allegra soon.

 

Simon

[MichaelE]

Me too. Still in Customs with no end in sight.

 

I've looked at and studied the points, but I don't think I want to try and modify one of those. I'll probably go with the Tillig offerings. I want to install a passing siding along a stretch of the dual gauge, but keep it HOm only and not dual gauge. That's down the road aways, but I am going to plan the space for it as I work on the scenery.

[simonmcp]

I fudged it and used a point of the narrowest guage and put a rail on the outside of the straight road to make the wider guage (I think I just heard several finescale modellers hitting the floor in a faint).

 

Simon