Wood Tie Replacement

For the last few years Tim B, Joe and Kelly have been trying to get all of the old wood ties on the main line replaced with plastic ones. On Sunday 1-27-11 at about 1 in the afternoon Tim B talked to Steve C, Tom D and Shane H who were working on the track and asked if they had time to put in one new 15' panel of track by the yard switch as the wood ties had rotted away in a few spots causing Tim to derail at the end of the last run day.

Tim had to leave for some family stuff so he couldn't help but the boys through it wouldn't take to much to put in just one panel in. BUT as seems to always happen after looking over the track from the return  switch from Crenshaw to the yard switch, it was decided it was best to just replace all but 30 feet of the track in that stretch of the railroad as it had a mix of  both wood and plastic ties and had a lot of dirt mixed in with the ballast. So we looked, and Steve had just about enough track panels built to do the job. Steve built two more panels, the old track was removed and set by the red car for a future parking siding  and then Steve had to leave. So Tom, Phil and Shane finished one more panel and scraped away all the old dirt ballast and installed the new track panels.

On Saturday 3-5-11 Tom D, Howie, Shane, Phil and Shane Jr ballasted the new track and Tom D  tamped, aligned and leveled all 90 feet of it. The new track still needs time to settle in but it seemed to work well on the 3-6-11 Sunday run.     

Tom D.


Edited by PhilC - Mar 10 2011 at 10:15pm

Wingtip,

We use 1 1/4" modified truss head screws to attach the track to the ties. I get them from a local bommercial building supply costs about $65 per box of 5000 if I remember right. I will take a pic next time I am down at the club. We also build our track on a jig and ley it in sections.

    There is a pattern to how you put the screws that seems to help with letting the track bend a little easier when ajusting the track. Our freind, Bill at RMI showed us his track and how it works. There are four predrilled holes in the plates, two on each side of the rail. You only use one of the holes on each side with the installed screws maching on the left and right rails and alternating from side to side of the rail  tie to tie to form a w pattern on the ties, a photo of this will help you. The epstores ties are the way to go they cost the least and are very easy to use and have shipped. The next order of ties for S.C.L.S. will be for the epstores ties.     We haven't used their rail, but I would think it as good as their ties. We use the rail joiners from train mountian, as they let the rail move alot better than the screws and plate type of joints. We have been putting spray lube on the joints latey to try to get the rail to not kink in the sun. There have been reports from other clubs that theese joiners will stick if installed dry.     We do use plate  joints for switchs and we use plastic 2x4s laid on their side under most of the joints to try to keep them from droping and getting low joints. We use a combination of 2x2's and 2x4's when building the switchs. I build lighter switches for yards out of 2x2's to try to save some cost, as the 2x4's are pricey. The tie spacing is 1 1/2 to 2 times the with of the tie but you can go more, but I would think 4" would be the most I would go on the spacing.Tom     

Edited by Steve C - Feb 15 2012 at 7:03pm

wow those ties look really good... and the maint will be minimal hopefully...  thanks for posting..  keep us informed if u have issues or other comments on these... i like these ties very much..

Edited by wingtip - Feb 15 2012 at 6:26pm