I have 2 tracks that won't go together all the way no matter how hard I try. I got them together most of the way, but there's a paper-thin gap between the 2 rail ends. I know there's nothing in the rail joiner that's preventing them from joining. So, does a tiny gap like that matter?
If it's as small or smaller than the gaps in the frogs in your turnouts you should be OK as long as the alignment is true and the elevations of the tops of the rails are even. Paper thin gaps would help in the event of track expansion due to an increase in temperature.
You don't say what kind of track it is, but one that can do that is not trimming the end tabs of the rail joiners so they end up too long for the pieces to fit flush. This happens if you just bend the joiners to get them off their sprue (is it sprue if it's metal?). Jason
What Jason said. I had the same problem with my code 80 joints until I nipped off some of the bottom (the flat part) on my joiners. After that the joints were nice and tight. (is that an obscure Cheech and Chong reference?) :tb-smile:
ok; thanx! Yea; it's only about an eighth of an inch; so acording to you; it should be OK. Besides; I just remembered; I had this on my old HO layout; and it was OK.
An 1/8 of an inch is a big gap in N scale. I thought you were talking about paper thin gaps. On HO the wheels are large(diameter) so It could navigate larger gaps, but in N the wheels are smaller and you might have derailment problems with the larger gap. I would try and figure out what is causing the gap and try to bring the rails closer together.
