11-05-2009, 01:11 PM
I had an expansion problem last winter with some of my handlaid track. I quickly figured out what had happened though and it kind of made sense.
The first batch of track I laid during the dead of winter I think I started in late December or early January, furnace going full bore, nice and toasty in the layout area of the basement. So throughout the season, spring, summer and fall no problems. Everything stayed in guage on the exisiting trackwork and worked just fine. That same year I got a jump on things and started spiking track down before we started using the furnace to keep the house warm. We had an unusually mild start to our winter last yeat, but by December I noticed after a few nights of the furnace consistently kicking out the heat the newly laid track had gone all squirrelly on me. It had expanded so much it even distorted (pushed in) some of the PCB ties on my turnouts and closed the isolation gaps at the frog creating dead shorts. I even left tiny gaps in between rail sections which was obviously not enough wiggle room in order to allow this effect to take place. Meanwhile the first laid areas of trackwork saw no such change, remained in gauge and did not appear to expand at all. So while I have started spotting turnouts and such for my new trackwork, I'm going to try waiting a few more weeks and allow the house to "warm up" a bit first and see if my little theory is right.
The first batch of track I laid during the dead of winter I think I started in late December or early January, furnace going full bore, nice and toasty in the layout area of the basement. So throughout the season, spring, summer and fall no problems. Everything stayed in guage on the exisiting trackwork and worked just fine. That same year I got a jump on things and started spiking track down before we started using the furnace to keep the house warm. We had an unusually mild start to our winter last yeat, but by December I noticed after a few nights of the furnace consistently kicking out the heat the newly laid track had gone all squirrelly on me. It had expanded so much it even distorted (pushed in) some of the PCB ties on my turnouts and closed the isolation gaps at the frog creating dead shorts. I even left tiny gaps in between rail sections which was obviously not enough wiggle room in order to allow this effect to take place. Meanwhile the first laid areas of trackwork saw no such change, remained in gauge and did not appear to expand at all. So while I have started spotting turnouts and such for my new trackwork, I'm going to try waiting a few more weeks and allow the house to "warm up" a bit first and see if my little theory is right.