Exactoscale Fastrack

[bobwallison]

I like Exactoscale's Fastrack and have rather a lot of it, but I find the webs between the sleepers rather troublesome. Not only do they prevent the ballast flowing nicely, but the grey ribbon of plastic is highly visible against the pale cream limestone ballast.
So I think the webs need to be removed entirely (time consuming but strangely therapeutic). The problem then is holding the sleepers at the right spacing and perpendicular to the rail as I bend the track to shape, paint it and then transfer it to the track bed.
I have about 20m of the stuff to lay, so I'm curious to know how other people have tackled this problem.
Regards,
Bob

[davebradwell]

Stick it down with the ties in place then cut them out with a pointy scalpel when the glue's dried.

DaveB

[Philip Hall]

I have about the same amount to lay, but looking at mine the web is much thinner than the sleepers. I shall loose ballast mine after testing, so I think the ties should be covered by the ballast.

Philip

[David Thorpe]

I suppose what you'll be doing is basically the same as rail already strung onto loose sleepers. I laid mine onto a Templot printout, thus ensuring correct angle and distance apart.

DT

[Dave Franks]

On my layout I stuck 1/2'' masking tape down the middle of the C&L sleepers, which then held the sleepers in place whilst I cut the webs. The track was trial laid approx 500mm at a time (2 x 60' panels) and dressmakers pins pushed into the cork on the outer side of the rails to allow the section of track to be lifted out and placed back, contact adhesive then applied to every four sleeper and the track placed back in position between the pins and weighted with old beer cans full of water to everyone's laughter. Once fixed the masking tape was removed, the odd sleeper that had moved was re-aligned and I figured the ballast would hold the free sleepers very well and it has proved okay so far. Three years since the first ballast was laid.

Wharfeside station bridge 2.jpg

Dave Franks.

[bobwallison]

Thanks for the responses guys - a few ideas to try out now.

It's interesting that nearly everyone seems to fix the track first and ballast later. Ever since I made my own OO gauge track, I have laid track and ballasted in one operation, same as Norman Solomon, but we seem to be a dying breed in this respect.

Regards,
Bob

[garethashenden]

Thanks for the responses guys - a few ideas to try out now.

It's interesting that nearly everyone seems to fix the track first and ballast later. Ever since I made my own OO gauge track, I have laid track and ballasted in one operation, same as Norman Solomon, but we seem to be a dying breed in this respect.

Regards,
Bob

I don’t think there’s a “right” way of doing it. With RTR track it’s easier to lay it, wire it, ballast it. But with handlaid track there isn’t the same impetus. I personally prefer to wire the track before ballasting, but I have done it both ways successfully.

[grovenor-2685]

I think its largely a matter of sleeper thickness, the ability to lay and ballast in one operation was one of the advantages given for use of thin sleepers in the first place. I think that is the best method for thin sleepwers as needing only a single layer makes it quite tricky to ballast after laying. With thick sleepers the opposite would seem to be the case as a normal thin layer of glue is not going to hold enough depth of ballast.
Rgds