Track Recycling

I’m back!! The corn is super tall here in Indiana and after 4 months away doing stuff around our new home, I’m ready to start laying track on the long completed benchwork. Before I can start I need to prep the hundreds of feet of Atlas code 100 flex track I had salvaged from the old railroad.

The track had been glued to the foam benchwork on the CWI. It scraped up quite easily when we demolished the railroad almost 1-1/2 years ago.

The glue and foam residue that remains on the underside of the track has to be removed.

To start the cleanup, I take my cordless sander and sand off the bulk of the residue.

The track is resting on a 2×4 that has a slight raised edge that keeps the track from vibrating off.

Sanding gets the bulk of the residue off but there is still the glue left between the ties.

Jen pushes these bits out one by one with a screwdriver. This is the result.

The track is now clean and ready for installation on the Rockville Western.

It’s tedious work but the cost of new track is an expense I can do without. Fortunately, I never got to the ballasting step on the CWI which makes this cleanup quite easy.

As for the turnouts, I purposely didn’t glue any of them to the foam on the CWI so those were all easily removed and are ready to be installed on the RW.

Hopefully I’ll soon have another update as I start actually laying track.

Have a good day and thanks for stopping by.