Laying rails directly on to a base? No sleepers

[Butler]

Hi

I am wanting to make a service depot, and wanted to see if I could avoid sleepers in the yard. Is it feasible to glue the rails straight on to a card base? I’m using OO Peco code 75 flatbottomed rail. It is just for inside the shed and yard. How would I glue it, it would be more or less a straight run.

hope someone can offer some advice.

B

[Grovenor]

Superglue should do that job, I have had a programming track made by superglueing rail to a piece of board for over 10 years now, the rails remain securely stuck.

[Butler]

Thank you,  I guess spacing can be done with a Peco track spacer, mark it in pencil , then just glue.

B

[DCB]

Not sure about the card.  I would use something more solid, ply maybe, as the surface of the card may well break away.  A few track pins soldered to the sides of the rail may well help tp hold the track in place.  I have some track with rails inset and glued  into fibre board without sleeper for some coal sidings.  Should be OK, just dig out a hole for the fishplates.  I have soldered rail to Printed circuit board for bridge decks with no problems.

[teaky]

You could solder the rails to a sheet(s) of copper clad and then cut / score gaps in the copper surface afterwards to electrically separate the rails.  This could be made and tested away from the layout and the whole assembly could then be treated like a piece of home made set track.

 

I am puzzled though as to why you are bothering?  Most people seem to cover the sleepers with card, plasticard, filler or DAS to bring the ground surface up to near rail height.

[Butler]

Thanks, yes I have done that, but in order to leave a decent gap for the wheel flange, I didn’t think it looked so good, the outside of the rail looks great tho.

B

[johnofwessex]

On the PECO Individulay system, the rails were spiked to the baseboard through a fibre 'sleeper' (I think!)

[DCB]

Depending on your wheel standards you could lay pairs of brass or aluminium channel instead of rails.  TRiang super 4 rail or O gauge rail on its side might do it.  Some tram tracks were U shaped rails but full size flanges and flange ways are much shallower pro rata than model ones.  For modellers who embrace 21st century technology you could just dig grooves in the baseboard to suit the wheels and flanges and paint the rails on.  I'm planning on doing ths for some storage sidings outside. Battery power doesn't need rails, neither does DC or DCC if you have "No Locomotibes beyod theis point" and use a raft of wagons to reach the ones you want to shift.   The Glasgow and South western was not averse to having the stop blocks pushed back away from the tracks and wagons parked on the ground betweeen, sometimes rails were subsequently laid in the groooves!

[Artless Bodger]

On 18/03/2021 at 19:06, DavidCBroad said:

The Glasgow and South western was not averse to having the stop blocks pushed back away from the tracks and wagons parked on the ground betweeen, sometimes rails were subsequently laid in the groooves!

Ah, that reminds me of an article many years ago (by Derek Cross in The Railway Magazine?) 'Shunt the Bargany', apparently at Bargany Colliery the sidings had been lengthened by just such a technique. Ties in with the LNER buffer stop tests film linked in another thread on here.

[Trog]

Like this?

[melmerby]

Needs re-gauging.

Looks like they've used the metre gauged jig by mistake.

[rdr]

you could lay sheets of plasticard (or equivalent) for the yard base and glue the chairs directly to it with acetone.

[melmerby]

I did this for my traverser:

 

Plywood base with copperclad strips glued in place, track soldered to copperclad.

The screws were to keep it in place whilst the adhesive cured.

 

 

[Butler]

Thanks for all the advice, but the simplest is often the best. I have glued the rails to the cardboard base I am using in the depot, using only a type of UHU ( can’t use superglue due to a bad allergy, I’ve used it for years but it suddenly came on ). Leaving the glue with a weight to hold it overnight, it’s as firm as you like. Once it’s painted I think it will look great.

not sure what colour to do the base, dirty concrete I guess.