Southern Pacific Switching Layout

[tetters]

Umm... you didn't melt all the ties did you? Just at the ends where you used rail joiners or installed feeders right? I would hardly call the track unusable. You can easily repair the damaged ties with wood or plastic ones slipped underneath the rail. While the appeal of the ME track is nice, you would be best advised to repair and reuse your existing track instead of plunking down coin on new track just because of a few melted ties.

Just my 2 cents.

My main Concern was that the melted ties made the track out of gauge, but I guess once I connect them to other pieces of track The track should go back into gauge. I just bought a bag of wooden ties at the hobby store the last time I was in there, looks like I will finally find a use for them! Thanks Tetters

Benchwork Will start by the end of the week, so stay tuned for pictures!

Invest in an HO scale NMRA Track Guage. So when you connect the track again you can check to make sure everything is well within the acceptable tolerances. When you solder the joints use some wet paper towels to act as a heat sink. This will help keep the heat to a minimum and hopefully keep your ties from melting. Pre-tinning the rail helps too and allows you to work quicker and avoid prolonged application of heat from your soldering iron. I think I know a little thing or two about soldering too...