# Hand aid Track - how long to make?



## gaugeonebloke (Aug 18, 2008)

Hand laid track - how long did it take to lay your hand-laid track per yard please ?

By lay, I mean the rail and the ties are pre-supplied and you take these parts and turn them into track

Simon
p.s. If you used a jig, how did you cope with bent rails and a rail bender for curves?


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Do you mean actually driving spikes into the ties to position and hold the rail? Or slipping plastic ties (or groups of ties) onto the end of the rail?

I did the latter with Llagas Creek ties and rail... ties come in groups of 4 and slide on from the ends of the rails. I bought the tool they sell to aid in sliding the ties along the rail (it is a wood bar with gaps along one edge that fits the tie spacing so the ties all get pushed at the same time and don't bind). It was cheaper to buy rails and ties and assemble it myself than to buy "track" where I would be paying someone else to do the assembly... Also, since rails can be bundled into a small diameter mailing tube, and the ties can be nested interlaced into a small box, these two packages are cheaper to ship than assembled track of similar lengths.


I filed the ends of the rail flange to remove burrs and to give a slight wedge shape to make it easier to start the ties over the rail.

To hold the rails securely upside-down, I routed two grooves in a board 1.75-in. apart (inside edge to inside edge) long enough to hold the rail (6-ft. long rails) and put a nail in the end of the grooves to keep the rail from sliding in the groove.

I also cleaned the rail with "Armor-All" which left a slick surface (other wise I hate that stuff... especially when someone cleans a car with it! SLIMY YUK!)

Since all my curves were to be a fixed radius, I was able to route the grooves in a board at the proper radius, but that required a 10-in. wide board, at least 9-ft long! I also had to make a "compass" to hold the Dremel tool router attachment to make the curve grooves to the 95.125-in. and 96.875-in. radii I wanted (radii of each rail of an 8-ft. radius G-Gauge track).

I also made a rail bender (three small wheels with the mirror image of the rail profile) arranged on a flat plate such that the middle of the three could be moved to adjust the curvature as the rail is PUSHED through the device... (don't PULL the rail, PUSH it! or you will not get a uniform curve!) It only took a couple of tries adjusting the middle wheel to get the rail to fall perfectly into the routed grooves (dumb luck!).

To put the ties on, I'd get one started and move it up about 4 inches or so, then put another on and move the first one up another 2 or so feet, and move the 2nd one about 4 inches up. As more were put on, I'd move the 1st one closer to the other end and move the others up until the section was complete.

I think the total assembly time of 160-ft. of track (curves and straight) was on the order of 2 or 3 hours on a pleasant Saturday afternoon. About the same amount of time that it took me to make the Compass and rout the grooves in the board! Took a whole lot longer to make the rail bender on a lathe!

If I were to do it again (and didn't already have the board and bender in the shop) I'd buy a commercial Track Bender and assemble all the track as straight sections and bend it as a whole to fit, instead of bending the rails individually and then assembling the curves. That would also be easier to fit track to a route that is not perfectly uniform like mine was, too!


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

gaugeonebloke said:


> Hand laid track - how long did it take to lay your hand-laid track per yard please ?
> 
> By lay, I mean the rail and the ties are pre-supplied and you take these parts and turn them into track
> 
> ...


Far too long spiking plain track - which is why I went to tie strips and rail (as described above.) Maybe 10 ft / hour spiking.
Even the tie strips weren't quick, though it partly depended on which Llagas tie strip you were using. The 1:20 8-piece strips were a PITA to get on the rails. I made my own jigs to hold the ties to stop them binding. Maybe 10 mins/yd, then stop for a rest, etc.

The same jig worked on curves (for me.) I bent the rails in a single-type rail bender (Llagas again) and then threaded them into the strips. If your minimum radius is 10', the tie jig works fine.


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## IllinoisCentral (Jan 2, 2008)

I've not done it, but if you want to drive the spikes into wooden ties there was an issue of Garden Railways magazine from 1998 where one of the authors did just that, if I recall. I think it more or less gave the step by step instructions on how it was done. For some reason I want to say it was the April issue and featured the Paradox, Dilemma, and Quandary RR if that helps at all for tracking it down (pun intended).


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

I did hand spike a very short section of track to use as a display track for a Lego train that my son built (long before I got into G-Gauge trains). It was not a standard Lego Train set, but a free lance (non-scale) train. The wheel gauge was way too wide for the actual size of the loco (probably a 1:1 scale of 12 ft gauge!) I knew nothing of available track so I used plastic (plastruct, brand ??) "I"-beams and found a bag of really small spikes (probably designed for "O" gauge). Nice spike with a realistic offset head and square shape.

To hold the spikes for driving them a uniform distance apart, I made a tool to hold two spikes at a time. 

The tool was a 1/2-in. square, 4-in. long metal rod; it was the same width as the ties so that it could be aligned with the tie to put the spikes in the same place on each tie. I bent it to a shallow "L" shape to make it easy to hold. The short end of the "L" was cut at an angle of about 5 degrees to drive the spikes at an angle and had two slots (hacksaw kerfs) to hold the spikes up. I then used an old screwdriver and tack hammer to drive the spikes down the slots and into the tie. (see attached image.) 


Worked very well, but required two Saturday mornings sitting in the sun shining in the window to get enough light (dark rail on dark ties with dark spikes is hard to see!) to drive 8 spikes per tie for the 6-ft of track. Tedious (but a labor of love!)

We had a ceremony driving the last spike, too. I took 3 spikes to a local jeweler and had them gold plate them, so we had one "gold spike" to drive and then I presented my son with a flocked (ring) box with a spike (tied down with a thin black thread) in it and he in turn presented me with another one. The train was displayed in a local hobby shop at Christmas a couple of years and at a city park (that is a re-creation of a 1900's village) several times. It is presently at my son's home in North Dakota as inspiration for his sons to play with Lego.

I would not recommend hand spiking a whole Railroad, but I guess some folk do it.


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## Dwayne (Jun 10, 2010)

I handlay my track in order to achieve track that looks proper for my 7/8ths scale layout. Ties are ripped on my table saw, pre-curved in my railbender and spiked using 5/8" x 19 nails bought cheap at the local hardware store. I learned that commercial spike tend to rotate and not hold the rail foot letting the ties move.

Anyways, it takes me about one hour to spike a six foot long segment of track. I actually found hand laying track to be an enjoyable aspect of the hobby. Making turnouts turned out to be easier than I had thought it would be.


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## du-bousquetaire (Feb 14, 2011)

I use a different approach to renovate my handlaid track now over 38 years old and still going! This track was made using brass code 200 rail made for coarse scale O gauge but scale for 1/32. I used oak ties and a brass rail clip which is pressed into a slot in the tie and has three prongs which are bent around the railbase with pliers a lengthy process (about 5 hours per linear meter) The club that was producing these clips and lent me their press to make up the track closed so this method could not be continued. Besides these clips had a nasty tendency to slide out of their grove after some time, notably on the ties which are screwed down into plugs on the concrete base (my soil is very damp clay). Of course the ties are treated in creosote periodically (a mixture of creosote, tar paint and old crankcase oil). This method was described fully in the G1MRA newsletter around 1982 or so.

Because of the defect noted above, I was determined to find a solution, also all my pointwork used brass pins placed through drilled holes in the rail base, this after a few years as often noted in books on track work outdoors, slipped out much like the spikes on the old Penn Central days of old... And had to be pushed back in, periodically during the drier summer months. The method I developped to cure these problems was using some left over copper electrical wire which I stripped and bent into U shaped clips of the width of the rail base. These are inserted from the underside of each tie which is predrilled using a simple aluminum drilling jig. The excess length is cut off and then these are bent around the rail base. This has saved my pointwork now very old, I have renovated the old points changing ties where necessary and using this technique every five tie and at strategic points such as at the frog point etc. 

I then commenced to renovate the oldest rack dating back to 1978 with this technique placing one new tie between every older one and changing ties as needed. I have since spread this to 1/3rd of the track,on the portions dating back to 1978. And I plan to do another third this summer. 

One improvement I would like to make to this technique is to provide rail plates beneath each rail preventing any future deterioration of the track. An added interest to this method is the fact that I can add individual pre treated and dried ties to the track without even removing the track on location. Just brush out the ballast and slide in a new tie between two older ones and turn it one quarter and bend in each copper wire with pliers. Making this lengthy process quite flexible time wise. It took me about a week to cut the 1cm X 1cm oak ties to lenght (I also plane the two top edges bevel), drill them, prepare the clipps, insert them , trim them and treat them in the creosote. This to make about 23foot of track. Then the drying time is often a bit long depending on the weather, I use an empty space in my loco terminal between the engine tracks for this. Once dried I place each tie in place and fold the two clips around each railbase. This process took a day or two. Of course I was able to do this because I just retired.


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