More fun....

Looks like the line is going to be out-of-service for a while in the vicinity of Goff Brook . . .

I'm a little surprised I'm still getting this sort of problem since the layout (and the associated benchwork, etc.) has been in place for many years/winters now. But here you have it - apparently, the wood benchwork/subroadbed has shrunk and caused the track to lift where it isn't secured. The humidity in the basement is typically around 50-65% during most of the year, but as of today it's just below 15%. I don't want to have to get a humidifier down there, but may not be able to avoid it. . .

For now though, I guess I'll get out the Dremel and cut-off disk and gap the rails in the area - but it's mostly curved track (heh, horizontally not just vertically, as above %^) and I don't want to risk introducing any lateral kinks. And, of course, any gapping will likely require additional feeders to be installed.

And it's not only Goff Brook. Just a little north, near Valley Coal, this turnout is lifting as well. Heh - not gluing down the turnouts seemed like a smart idea at the time. Now I think - not so much.

Until I figure out how best to fix these problems, the track will continue to be OOS. That'll likely undermine the possibility of having a January ops session, but on the other hand that's one of the benefits of having a fairly large layout, made up of multiple branches: I could just operate on the other lines with a smaller number of folks.

The prototype had to deal with similar problems, so I'm not going to stress out about it too much. If you have any great suggestions on getting the track back in service asap I'd love to hear them :^)

Gaps

Obviously the bridge track is just a little too long. If this was my layout I'd shorten the approach track about a 1/16", fit the joint with rail joiners but not solder the joints. This would allow for expansion and contraction of the rail while holding horizontal alignment. 

Dick

PC ties...

If you are worried about alignment, replace a few plastic ties with PC ties, two on each side of the proposed gap (leave room for joiners). Drill a #56 hole in the center of two ties so you can secure one side of the gap location with track nails, letting the other ties slide when expansion happens.

pqe

It's this recent weather

Chris:

I assume you're located in the Northeast, and specifically Connecticut like your layout. If that's true, the record breaking cold we've had is responsible for that RH of 15% you're seeing and the problems you're experiencing.

I think you have the solution. A few gaps in the right places and warmer temperatures should put you back in business. Based on your previous experience, installing a humidifier may not be worth the cost.

Jerry

have the same problem

The only thing you have to do is to get the moisture level up and the wood will expand again. I have a layout in a bonus room in the house and during the cold and dry humidity level came down to 13%. I added humidifiers to the room for around 24 hrs and brought the Level up to 26%, best would be 50% but the wood seems to expand back as it was before.

I would not recommend to glue it down now because if it happens again the ties might not hold the rails in place and it might will pop off and you need to replace the whole track. The cause is just that metal and wood expand in different rates, so you track is not to long. Shorten the track might present you with another problem when your moisture levels are back to normal. Adding more gaps with rail joiners will prevent this from happening again if you leave sufficient room so the rails will not touch each other when the wood contracts again. To add "smart" spacers you need to place those all 6ft. what was recommended to me by others. So, this adds some work so I prefer to control the humidity level throughout the house.

Right now Walmart has humidifiers on sale for around $42, called "breath easy". I bought two of them and it works. BTW...dry air is also not health for you so I definitely would go with the air solution. For me this is a temporary solution since I can see signs in the whole house from to low humidity.

Here is a picture from of my shadow yard from Monday

This is a picture from yesterday, after around 26 hours (almost straight again, best seen on the freight car)

same on the visible track that is not glued down (only hold in place by some nails)

Picture from Monday

Picture from Tuesday (look at the gabs I made for the block detection, they are almost back to normal)

Here are the humidifiers from Walmart, they are portable, a tank last around 24 hours and you can use it when needed.

Vermont did the same thing to me.

Like Dick said above I cut the gap with a Dremel tool and fit in a rail joiner.  Pelsea’s Idea is good but I didn’t need to go that far.  After the gap is cut you should be able to pull the offending track back into the gap.  A bit of filing to smooth up any rough spots around the gap would be a good idea too.

Nick

Tis the season...

A friend of mine is hosting an operating session this weekend and I spent last night trimming the rails around switches where they ran on his layout (brand new track), and I have one to adjust on my layout (track less than a year old.)

You need some expansion gaps

You need some gaps. You need 0.020" thickness every 6 feet, or 0.010" thickness every three feet. That will accommodate most temp/humidity swings in a climate controlled layout room.

No getting around it -- you need expansion gaps*. Do not underestimate the power of expansion/contraction. If you contact cement the track down on the bridge, you will just move the problem somewhere else.

When I have encountered a situation like this, I just pull up the track in the problem area, then relay it with fresh track done right. That way the alignment is not compromised by trying to do a hack workaround.

I have never found "tweaked" track to give satisfying performance -- every time there is a derailment on the tweaked section, I wonder if it's because this section of track is now compromised.

I have found the greatest peace of mind and greatest relief comes from taking up bad track and replacing it with track laid properly including the proper gaps.

*Do not fill expansion gaps. Yes, always fill electrical gaps with styrene or some other insulator so those gaps can never close and create a mystery short! But you must leave expansion gaps open to allow them to do their job -- never fill expansion gaps.

You could cut the gap further down the line

Since the standard is approx. 6ft.  just find a straight length of track near the curve to cut in the gap. The expansion / contraction will just slide the track along the spikes and relieve the tension from the bridge.  No need to cut AT the  buckled location, that is just where the track isn't glued down,  just near enough to it to allow the rails to slide and stay aligned properly.

Roger

Thanks much!

Thanks very much for the suggestions so far! As a first step, I'm going to look at adding a humidifier to the area. I know that'll help, but I also agree that I'm going to need to add some expansion gaps. The only question is "where?"

I'm encouraged that the gaps don't *have* to be at the buckled location (especially in this case being on a bridge AND on a curve), but I'm worried that cutting gaps too far away will be ineffective. I'm using Micro-Engineering track which isn't known for its "floating" rails. They're pretty tight. And this track has been painted - which might have "glued" the rail to the spikes/ties(?)

I'm not worried about any touchup needed if the rail moves a lot past the spike heads - I'm more worried that the rail won't move at all.

Any additional suggestions/tips/guidance is really really appreciated - and thanks again VERY much to you who've taken the time to comment so far!

Chris

Replace the track ...

... like Joe suggested.  Fix it once, and fix it correctly, and you will not have to worry about it again.

Chris, I like the fact that

Chris, I like the fact that you need to cut atleast a couple if not more expansion joints to relieve other potential pressure points.I too have a couple of places where I need to do the same work to re-position track and relieve pressure on the rail.

As information, this is exactly, what we go through on the prototype. Expansion in the summer (sun kinks which require cutting out a chunk of rail) and contraction in the winter (pull aparts:at the joints which require heating the rail up so it expands and can be have new angle bar bolt holes drilled and tightened to close the gap). We also often have to insert  wood wedges under the rail in winter to compensate for low joints which are hard to raise in frozen ballast and ties.  

We as modelers have it easy since we get to make these adjustments in a comfortable, cool or warm, dry, basement. 

Happy railroading,

Barry

It looks like a cut at each

It looks like a cut at each end of the bridge  abutment would easily give you the expansion joints needed. Also if you use a small length of bare feeder wire with a tiny u bend in it you can solder it to the rails and it will carry power and look like signal detection wire on the prototype. It will also bend and move with the track.

"It looks like a cut at each

  Yeah,since the bridge is straight it looks like this would be the easiest solution. While the gaps are cut you could gllue down the bridge ties and then put the rails together with unsoldered rail joiners and a pair of power feeders to the rails....DaveB

I had similar problems on my

I had similar problems on my layout in my basement in New Jersey some years ago. Humid summers, drier winters.

I installed an air conditioner for the summer (often used it as just a dehumidifier) and ran a humidifier in the winter.

The problems never recurred.

From my perspective, it's better to fix the room than try to make the layout work with the climate swings. Your mechanical and electronic components will also suffer much less that way.

I agree with Mark.

I’m glad he mentioned room humidity conditioning.  I’m sorry I’m late with the comment.  I prefer dehumidification.  I feel that excess humidity can cause more environmental and electrical problems than a drier environment.  I use a single dehumidifier in the winter.  It is more for air circulation.  In the summer I bring a second one on line.  I know when it’s too dry when the track doesn’t lay down correctly.  When this happened at first I just increased the humidity setting until I balanced the track issues.

Nick

I agree with Mark.

I’m glad he mentioned room humidity conditioning.  I’m sorry I’m late with the comment.  I prefer dehumidification.  I feel that excess humidity can cause more environmental and electrical problems than a drier environment.  I use a single dehumidifier in the winter.  It is more for air circulation.  In the summer I bring a second one on line.  I know when it’s too dry when the track doesn’t lay down correctly.  When this happened at first I just increased the humidity setting until I balanced the track issues.

Nick

Control the humidity level

As I mentioned it in my first post, if you can control the room temperature and the moisture level the problem will not occur. If you do not have that option you need to have gaps all three to six feet as Joe suggested. Since I spray paint my rails and also add glue with the ballast I see a good possibility that the gap solution might not always work. You can test it yourself. Use a piece of flex track and glue it down on a piece of wood, ballast it and let it dry. Now try to move the rails by pulling or pushing it back and forth and you will notice they do not freely move but in order that the gap solution will work they need to.

In general should you maintain a humidity level of around 50% in your home because this is the most healthiest level for humans and pets. A dryer environment, especially during heating periods will increase your risk of getting infections like the flu etc. You also might notice that not only your railroad gets the problem of expanding/contracting wood, your whole house will experience it.

As I mentioned, my solution will be to control not only the temperature throughout the whole house, also the humidity level by adding a device to the A/C unit that adds the needed amount on moisture automatically to maintain the desired level.

This is not only about our model trains anymore, there is more to it.      

The sensible thing....

The sensible thing is to do both.

(A) Control the environment as best you can because humidity affects more than track and 

(B) cut the gaps because (A) is only partially effective.

pqe

Yep, belt AND suspenders

Absolutely, belt AND suspenders when it comes to optimum layout trackwork always. Once I've gone to this principle (I call it the "Chester Principle" after the Gunsmoke character who always wore a belt and suspenders), I have never regretted it. That is the secret to bullet-proof performance on a layout.

This principle runs all through my Run like a Dream series how-tos. [shameless plug]

NOTE: If you ever wondered what the antidote is for Murphy, it's the Chester Principle!

Joe, I will keep that in

Joe, I will keep that in mind. It would mean some rework but better now that later when all of the scenery is in place.

The 20% Difference

20% humidity, that is.

Based on RRVRR's first post, I got a "Breathe Easy" humidifier from WalMart on my way home from work last night, set it up under Goff Brook, and left it on for 24 hours. And Did Nothing Else. That's all I did. Behold!

I guess increasing the humidity from 15% to 35% (or, rather, allowing the the air to get so dry in the first place) really does make a difference. Not that I doubted any of the comments, but it's amazing how profound the difference is.

Now the only downside is that I won't know whether any expansion gaps I cut will have made any difference. Looking back on it, I might have been better off cutting the gaps first and seeing if the rail would shift back into place before doing anything with the humidity.

But based on Joe's "Chester Principle" as well Pelsea's and others' comments, I'll go ahead and cut the gaps anyway. That should certainly prevent anything like this from happening in the future. And, having seen how the rest of the layout copes with "worst case/humidity scenario" now, I'm pretty confident it should be ok.

Thanks again to all of you that took the time to comment and provide feedback!

Best,

Chris

@ Chris

Although not quantitative, I think that track I’ve ballasted has behaved better than that track that wasn’t.  The ballast and glue seem to have some holding power.  Your pictures are very good but didn’t allow me to see whether you had ballasted yet.

It might not be a bad Idea to ballast at 40 to 50 percent relative humidity if you haven’t already.  My dehumidifiers run at about 45%.

Good job and good luck!

Nick

Non-Ballasted and Ballasted

Thanks for weighing in Nick! AAMOF, the track that was the subject of the initial post was mostly non-ballasted (bridge track and an unballasted section of track).

But as it turns out, after these posts here, I got noticed ANOTHER track had popped up - this time on a section of ballasted track (specifically, a turnout). I just posted about it over on my website, with pictures and captions Hope you'll check it out!

Best,

Chris