I hate my layout

[FCIN]

Prototype railroads are exposed to enormous natural extremes - do their rails "kink"?

Absolutely!!! What we called "Bucked Track". Pretty common occurrence on welded rail in the hot summer. I've seen instances of the track where it "bucked out" to the point that a train could not safely pass over it. The cure is to cut a thin slice out of the rail, shove it back into alignment and then re-weld it.

I made the mistake some years ago of soldering all the joints on a layout and I'll never go that route again. Even though the layout was point to point and only 34 feet long, I experienced several instances of the HO track "bucking". Fixed it just like the prototype, but I'll never again solder all the joints. This was in a basement with very little temperature change year around, but lots of humidity swings. I know that some folks recommend soldering all joints for better electrical flow - but I'll just put feeders to every turnout and every section of track. Won't even mention all the problems when I wanted to salvage all the turnouts for use on another layout.