Station Master

Just a quick reply to say thanks for the suggestions from various people. For info, the rodding was put down in March. It was a bit chilly, but certainly not anywhere around freezing. The problems were then observed in April, so the temperatures were not extreme at either end. I'm a bit loath to make any changes until the height of summer, And the rodding was not in direct sunlight either. The main problem is that each base is glued-down, so that the run remains straight. If I were to use a different style of joint, to try to allow the sections of rodding to slide against each other, I would have to do this for every single section. And then I can't disguise this using planking, etc Alternatively, I could just glue-down every few bases and leave the others floating, but then any expansion is likely to cause the run to buckle as a whole. And in fact, by adding ballast and landscaping around the rodding would almost inevitably result in some glue of some description fixing down the bases by default. So in reality, I don't think there is much that I can sensibly do to alleviate the issue. I'm not giving up yet. I shall try to improve the situation because I don't want the hours of effort already spent to be thrown away. If I find a method that seems to work better, then I shall post again.

Just a cautionary note from someone who decided that adding rodding to a layout would a great idea. Indeed, I thought it would add a terrific look of realism. I purchased lots (and lots) of packs of rods, cranks, etc, etc - enough to run multiple metres of rodding from 2 signal boxes. Then spent hours and hours and hours painting/weathering before painstakingly fixing the rodding alongside tracks, under tracks, fiddling with cranksed rod ends, nested cranks etc. And finally the result that I ended up with was great. I was very proud. The rod ends were butt-jointed, as recommended with liquid poly. The bases were glued down using superglue and then ballast added around the bases and glued with PVA. But then the British weather arrived. My layout is confined to a shed. It seems the small temperature difference between the start and end of spring has a massive effect on this rodding. It seems this plastic rodding expands more than metal! Nearly every joint on the rodding it distorted - either bent to the side, or lifted-up in the air. I've attached a photo of a typical joint: I am very, very disappointed. Having phoned Peco, they told me that it would do this in a shed. It was suggested scarf joints might help, but then you'd be cutting through the moulded "bolt heads" at the rod ends to achieve this and would spoil the effect. And I don't see how this would stop expansion. So I just want to advise fellow modellers that unless they have their layout in a temperature-controlled environment, don't waste your time. If you are in a shed, garage or loft, you may get disappointing results. And I know that there are probably people out there screaming at me now, expecting me to have known that you can end up with this sort of result. But I didn't know and I'm sure there are others out there that also don't know. So just trying to be helpful.