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Track Base Construction with Recycled Plastic Products


pammikebruno
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I am about to embark on an OO Garden Railway and am learning the ropes. I have found this website and have received samples from the company. Based on re-cycled plastics, it looks as if it could be a useful concept to use for the track base. Does anyone have any experience on using these materials and are there any reports on successes or problems?

https://www.filcris.co.uk/category/garden/garden-railway-products

Thanks for any advice.

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Welcome to the site!

I have used recycled plastic boards on my recent construction (Summer Hampton Railway).

The plastic sheet does expand / contract with changes in temperature. As per Duncan's advice (Minffordd Garden Railway) I tried to avoid pinning the track near the board ends, as the pins here will break sleepers with the expansion / contraction.

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  • 3 years later...

I just used this stuff and have noticed the expansion and contraction is a bit more than track pin breaking.

In the day time it expands a lot opening gaps in the track. Then at night when cooler shinks so the track expansion gaps disappear buckling the track until it warms up again.

Am going to try some methods to fix the issue, this being ensure the plastic base has gaps every 300mm on the straights, and ensuring my track peices are cut into half yards to spread the movement across more joints. 

I will see how i get on

 

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My dad said glue the track to the felt, then remove the pins holding the felt and place aluminium bar down the side with slots in for the few fastenings needed to allow the felt to slide. which if my small bits don't work out then i will have a look at doing as the. The track is mostly decoupled from the plastic, but i would need to keep to set track to keep by geometry neat any tidy.

Overall i think the plastic might be ok as a deck as per Duncan's work on a wooden lader but the plastic on plastic ladder is a no and i wouldn't recommend it to anyone going forward.

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