When soldering leads on the rails I like to keep them invisible. I cut out the plastic tie spacers and slide them out of the way. I then solder the lead to the underside of the rail across the base. Sliding the ties away from the soldering area prevents them from melting. After the rail is cool slide the ties back to their original locations. The ballast will hold them in place. I bend the wire straight down and stick it through a hole drilled in the roadbed next to the rail. If you want to mark the location of the wire lead there is a prototypical way of doing it. If you live near the BNSF go to a location about 80 feet either side of the crossing. You will see silver marks on the rail. These marks mark where the wire attachments for the crossing circuit are.

     I think that the most unsightly thing you can do to your track is to have a blob of solder on the side of your rails along with melted ties.  Art.

Agree that painting/weathering track after fine tuning and running a bit is the way to go.  AND as a final step after ballasting, a thin wash of your basic earth scenery color flowed over the ballast will tone everything down as well as help secure it down even more.  I cribbed that one from Dave Frary's scenery book so credit him for a great tip.

If you have time to brush paint or have an airbrush then there is set of acrylic colours by Lifecolor; item CS21 a set of 6 rail weathering diorama paints. They will need thinning for airbrush use.

Most all of the advice is spot on !! Remember Track is also a model and needs Special detail painting especially Turnouts!

I found painting track and turnouts, only after installing power to the track and turn outs have been tested and working as close to perfect as possible. BUT, Turnouts should each be masked and not sprayed with paint. I don't care how good your painting skills are over spray is a TURNOUT Killer. After you have sprayed all your track Ties and highlighted the rail sides and you have applied all your ballast on everything but the turnouts it's time to work on the turnouts and remove the masking tape or paper covering them..

Now find a small paint brush about the width of a single Tie and use it to paint the ties inside the turnouts but, don't paint the inside areas of ties within 1/2 inch of turnout points where the rails are going to close to make contact. Paint the Ties and come as close to the rails as you can. Now paint the rails only on the outside edges and the rail inside by avoiding that 1/2 inch area between the movable rails point so you don't destroy the electrical contacts. Doing this will make your life much more pleasant as you won't have to spend hours trying to figure out exactly where that last little piece of painted rail is that is keeping your engines from flowing smoothly through the turnouts. 

By Treating your Turnouts as super detailed models and hand painting them the small sections of rails within the turnouts lacking paint won't be noticed by 99% of people that visit your layout and the problem of electrical dead spots will be eliminated in your turnouts.

One last thing about soldering rail joint connectors.

Personally I don't solder rail joiners to allow the tracks to expand and contract normally instead I tin the bottom of every rail on both ends 1 inch from the ends of every section of track. I then add a 2-1/2 inch section of bare jumper wire to only the left hand rail as you look at the end of the track . This way no mater which end of the rail meets with the next rail your wiring is half done. With every track pre-tinned it only takes a second to attach the jumper wires to the next rail even if you have pre painted the rails and ties (something I never do) it only takes a second to scrape the paint off the under side of the rail in order to attach the jumpers. I also add a 12 inch piece of leader wire to the center of each rail so I can connect it to the main bus running under the table.

Hopefully this will help you with your track electrical installation, weathering and painting. 

From years of experience diagnosing problems for other people; for the best in electrical reliability and smooth operation the following rules should be followed:

1) A feeder of some sort must be connected to every section of rail, no matter how short.  This includes frogs and points.  If the points are connected to the frog with small rail joiners, a bond wire should connect across the joint.

2) Rail joiners are for alignment only, they are not reliable electrical connections.

3) Rail joiners should not be soldered to both adjoining pieces of rail, with the possible exception of the use of flex track on curves - but then only one rail, inner or outer.

4) A small gap, on the order of size of the thickness of a business card should be left at every rail joint to accommodate expansion and contraction of the layout.

You may want to take a paint brush and quickly (this is only for a suggested color variation or "texture") paint a few ties a lighter shade and a few darker, almost black. It takes me only 1-2 seconds per tie to do.  Paint only the center and ends, leave the tie plate area the same color as the rail.

If you look at prototype track the newest ties are still quite dark from creosote and by the time the tie has the wood preservative bleached out and it is getting rotten, it is noticeably lighter.

I only do this for track that is highly visible.

Also, back tracks and yards tend to have lighter color, older ties.

Has anyone out there tried the pre weathered track from Micro Engineering ? It seems to me to be an easy alternative to painting and then un-painting or removing paint from the railhead. I'm almost ready to order track and need some help.

Thank you,

JimHohn

Jim,

I bought it before and I did not liked it. The flexibility of the track is very hard. To solder is very hard. Too much trouble for what is worth.

Has anyone out there tried the pre weathered track from Micro Engineering ? It seems to me to be an easy alternative to painting and then un-painting or removing paint from the railhead. I'm almost ready to order track and need some help.

Thank you,

JimHohn

Has anyone out there tried the pre weathered track from Micro Engineering ?

I've used a lot of it. The "weathering" consists only of a chemical blackener applied to the rail.  The sole advantage of the product is that chips in the painted rail won't reveal a shine underneath.  The ties are still shiny plastic, and are unrealistic unless painted.  The blackened metal won't accept solder unless you clean the joint to bare metal first.  As already noted, because the blackened rail is less slippery than plain, the track is stiffer.  I like having the defense against paint chips, others may not care for the inherent compromises in workability.

*EDIT* looks like I answered a similar question a long time ago on page 2 of the thread.