[Guest]

after a couple of long, dusty and silent years, the Southern & Gulf is back on track.
even if it is only a temporal oval for investigation.
nearly 40 year old No. 4 had the honour to take the first rounds. she ran like new. (never greased or oiled her in all these years)

 

[Madman]

Let's hope your investigatory adventure leads to more railroading fun.

 

[Guest]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

i think so. i just have to get rid of the junk occupying the room, and off i go!
in about five or ten years the most should be ready for being rebuilt...

my tests showed me, that styrofoam is not, what i am looking for as a subroadbed.
it is just as noisy as wood only.
felt seems to be the most efficient silencer.

 

[vsmith]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

Felt works good, cork also is good.

 

[Guest]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

the prices of cork are prohibitive down here. so i did not even try it out.
but i got some rolls of felt lying around for a lot of years. so felt it will be.

 

[pacbelt]

Never thought of felt! Sounds like a good, economical idea.
I'd love to find out how that actually turns out!

 

[Guest]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

i found one disadvantage of felt.
the weight of the trains presses it down a little.
so i can't use glued ballast.

 

[vsmith]

Posted By kormsen on 07/10/2008 5:45 AM
i found one disadvantage of felt.
the weight of the trains presses it down a little.
so i can't use glued ballast.





Well now your getting fancy! If you want ballasted track as well, use cork, you can glue the ballast down onto the cork with no problems.

 

[Guest]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

Well now your getting fancy!

sure! whats new?

till now i never used glued down ballast. (save the borders)
but living in a very dusty area, i was thinking that glued ballast might be easier, to use with compressed air plus a vacuum-cleaner.

 

[vsmith]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

On my portable I used kitty litter for ballast on my portable layout, no kidding! Its about the right size and is dirt cheap so to speak, but if you can't find the kind without the deoderant crystals, maybe use the stuff they sell for cleaning oil stains in the garage. I stained mine reddish brown to match my terrain, so the pink crystals mine had blended right in. I used a 50/50% water/white glue based adhesive in a spray bottle to fix my ballast down. Once it dries its rock hard. Just make sure you place tape over the rail tops and if you wanted to paint or use blackenit on the rails to do it before you bakllast and be very carefull ballasting around switches, some dont even fixe their ballast but I think just make sure you leave the switch machine removable and the points well groomied and free moving, you can ballast all that to but I would use the eyedropper glue application and not the spray bottle method.

 

[Guest]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

did you ever try portland cement with kitty litter?

just drymix the litter with the cementpowder, put it in place and wet it with water from a flowersprayer.
that holds together, but is easy broken up, if needed.

 

[vsmith]

RE: Southern & Gulf RR

Nope, not indoors anyways. Read that others have done similar outdoors but not in.