HO Scale Track

[John J]

Should you solder the tracks together or not ?
And if you do solder them together does it affect the turns and straight at all ?

[RobBob]

definately not.  I have built many model railroads in both HO and N scale, there has never been any need to solder the track rails together.  Having said that I expect a dozen replies to the contrary.  If you solder the track it will warp out of shape with changes in temperature and humidity.  Better to leave a tiny gap if using 3 foot lengths of flex track.  For B-Man ez track, the connection is good enough.  It's a waste of time and effort to solder.....

Good luck

[jward]

soldering does have its pros. i am wholeheartedly in favour of it.

among the pros:

soldering ensures good electrical contact between adjacent sections of track. rail joiners can corrode over time and break contact, leaving dead spots in the track which can be a bear to fix. a properly soldered joint does not.

soldering also ensures the rails stay in alignment, especially with flex track on curves. properly soldered rail joints don't kink.

i suspect robrob's problems with soldering joints stem more from the use of a less than ideal subroadbed in a less than ideal environment. or having too many lengths of track soldered together. materials such as homasote expand and contract with changes in temperature and humidity, and can cause the track to kink out (but not at the soldered joints).....to avoid problems such as these i recommend laying your track on a dimensionally stable material such as pine, plywood or even foam insulation board. and having a joint every 6-10 feet left unsoldered helps with the expansion. on my layouts these joints have usually been insulated as well, for block boundaries.

properly laid and soldered track does not warp.

[Doneldon]

John-

The best answer is, "It depends." It depends on things like the gauge you are modeling in, what kind of track you're using, your control system, where you live, where in your home you'll be building your layout and so forth. One thing that is for certain is that you don't want to solder all of your rails into one (well, two, I guess) big system unless it is a very small layout. That's because of the temperature and humidity considerations mentioned by a previous responder. However, you definitely want to solder your rails if you are using flex track or hand-laid rail on curves. That is the only way to ensure that you don't have kinks at rail junction points and won't develop them. Also, you should consider soldering at least some joints because rails, and especially rail joiners, are not very good at conducting electricity. In the case of rail joiners, they get worse with age. Again, this might not be a big deal on a small layout or one operating on DC, but large layouts and DCC layouts can become problematic unless you have LOTS of feeders. And they're a lot more work to put in than it is to solder a few joints. Also, it's probably more important to consider soldering smaller scale track than larger track. O-gauge and large scale have enough weight to make very good contact with their rails so they will be able to get any power that gets to the rails. That's not necessarily so with HO or N. And take a look at the new T-scale; those tiny trains (three millimeter gauge) are magnetic so they can make good track contact.

It's your layout and you get to make all of the decisions, but examine your plans carefully to see if some soldered joints are needed. Larger trains, small layouts, sectional track layouts and DC (or AC) layouts might well be fine with no soldered joints. Smaller scales, DCC, hand-laid or flex track and layouts in changeable climates or areas of your home with significant environmental changes (e.g., basements, attics and garages) during the year will probably need some.

Good luck with your planning and building. And welcome to model railroading!
                                                                                                                      -- D

[Jim Banner]

May I add to Doneldon's 'Depends List':  It also depends on how long you expect your layout to last before you tear it down.  If only for a few years, then there is a good chance you can get away without soldering.  But if you measure expected life in decades, then better plan on soldering.  By all means keep the blocks of soldered track to a reasonable length, somewhere between 6 and 20 feet depending on temperature range, moisture range and road bed material.  Also use at least one feeder per block, and more in blocks over 6 feet.

The worst thing you can do is decide to wait until the track is giving you problems and then start soldering joints.  By the time the joiners and rails have oxidized inside the joiners enough to cause conductivity problems, they have also oxidized enough to prevent doing a decent solder job.  Dabbing a bit of solder on top of the joiners just won't do - the solder needs to penetrate and fill the joiners.  But it cannot do so if oxide prevents the liquid solder from wetting the rail alloy.  Using a flux that is aggressive enough to attack the oxide will also attack the joiners and the rail and eat them slowly away.  Then too, even aggressive fluxes take time to work, giving lots of time for melting ties and distorting the track.  About the best you can hope to do when the joints start giving electrical problems is to add feeders to each and every section of track, and that is a lot of work.

There is an alternative to soldering that I have not tried but might work for you.  That is to fill the joiners with silicone dielectric compound ("silicone grease.")  This is most easily done with a small syringe fitted with a large bore needle.  For safety, you might want to cut the end of the needle flat with a Dremel tool.  The idea is to keep the air away from the critical surfaces inside the joiners and outside the ends of the rails so that they cannot oxidize.  It sounds like a good idea and would let all the joints slide a bit to compensate for expansion and contraction but I wonder if the grease would tend to work its way up onto the tops of the rails.  Has anyone tried this?  If so, let us know how it worked out.

Jim

[John J]

Thank you guys for all of the great pointers on the soldering of the rail joints.
I have came to the conclusion that in My area it would not be a good idea to do this because I really due have all four seasons here and I found out by doing some it cause some wrappage to the track. 

Thank you For the great pionters

John J

[Doneldon]

John-

Many hardware stores sell a conductive waxy material which is designed for
lubricating light sockets. It's easy to use and will both help conduct electricity
and protect the metal surfaces from oxidation.
                                                                              -- D

[jward]

Thank you guys for all of the great pointers on the soldering of the rail joints.
I have came to the conclusion that in My area it would not be a good idea to do this because I really due have all four seasons here and I found out by doing some it cause some wrappage to the track. 

Thank you For the great pionters

John J

use a good solid material to lay your track on and you shouldn't have problems. stay away from wallboard products like homasote. i've had layouts in minimally heated, leaky basements. track laid on pine plank had no problems with kinks or warpage, even with soldered joints. track laid on homasote was a nightmare to keep in running condition.

[mabloodhound]

You should NEVER depend on solder joints to conduct the electricity to each section....wire drops to a bus wire for each 3' section should always be used.   The exception as stated above is for curves where the joints should be soldered before bending the radius.

[jward]

why would you not rely on soldered joints to conduct electricity? they are more reliable than rail joiners alone.  and do you not rely on feeder wires soldered to the rails?

[Jim Banner]

Jeffery,

People using normal 9" sectional track and putting drop wires every 3 feet apart are relying on rail joiners to power the 3 sections between the ones with drop wires, whether they know it or not.  Soldering the joints will assure constant power to all sections.  Not soldering these joints can and probably will cause loss of power to some or all of these sections if they are not soldered.  Then you are faced with adding drop wires to each and every section of track to make the railroad reliable again.  Note that if you solder ALL the joints, you can reduce the number of drop wires to one every 6 feet because now every 6 foot section is getting a guaranteed feed from both ends.

As you rightly pointed out, soldered joints are more reliable than unsoldered ones, although I might add one word, making it read "PROPERLY soldered joints are more reliable ..."

I might also point out that the whole world of electronics relies on soldered joints to carry electricity and in many cases, at far higher voltages and currents than we ever deal with in our model railroads.

Jim

 

[jward]

jim,

that has been my experience in 40+ years of modelling. unsoldered joints do eventually fail. and usually the ones in tunnels or other hard  to reach places fail first for some perverse reason. (murphy's law run amok?) when using sectional track it is impractical to add feeders to every piece of track. and i've found that when laying out  the track, several sections of track soldered together as a unit tend to be easier to work with.

one thing i have noticed is that unsoldered joints on ballasted track seem to fail first, probably because the glue-water mixture used to bond the ballast seeped into the joint.

[Jim Banner]

one thing i have noticed is that unsoldered joints on ballasted track seem to fail first, probably because the glue-water mixture used to bond the ballast seeped into the joint.

I have noticed that too and the corollary is that these joints with glue in them are impossible to solder properly.

Jim

[Doneldon]

joints with glue in them are impossible to solder properly.

Ergo, solder first, glue ballast last.

[Doneldon]

Some people solder just to solder.  They'd solder the cherry onto a banana split if they could.

PF

You mean you can't?