Lay your underlay (cork) onto the flat surface and any track laid onto the cork is bound to be flat. Just take great care with the joints, all of which should be electrically bonded and of the ballasting, especially around the points.
The use of both the `Tracksetta’ and `Permanent Way’ gauges when track laying will help.
Ensure that all wheels run true and that you do not have poor bearings or bent axles. Similarly, ensure that all wheels are clean with no build up of dirt deposit collected from dirty track – keep your track clean at all times – carry out a track cleaning session either immediately before a running session or immediately after a running session.
GET INTO `GOOD HABITS’ – IT WILL PAY DIVIDEND TIME AFTER TIME AFTER TIME.
Another thing to watch is `Scale Speed’.
However, little `Johnny’ or `Janet’ is not likely to bother about `Scale Speed’ and since we’re now having to consider DCC we are just as likely to get a `head-to-head’ situation on the same track – great fun!!!
Another `preventative’ measure is to split your layout into separate `Power Districts’ so that when a ‘short’ does occur only the affected `Power District’ will shut down and leave the rest of the layout functioning correctly.
That may be OK for the larger layouts but if you only have the one `Power District’ – the whole layout – then we need to find a way of not shutting down the entire layout following a de-railment whilst shunting in the yards.
Look out for ‘Power Districts’ and ‘Short Circuits’ - these are the subject of two more articles.