South curve

For a while now, I've looked at the south curves - in particular the outer track - and have been dissatisfied with them.  I realized that the easement into the turn wasn't easy enough, but for the boxcars I had this was no trouble.  It just didn't look nice.  Well, those Exactrail gondolas changed things.  For all the detail, the proper weight and metal wheels, they sure are finicky.  They had a habit of jumping the tracks with one of the trailing wheels at a couple spots.  Plus, the yearly problem with the track coming un-glued in that curve (which I have deduced is most likely because of the changes in humidity over the course of different seasons).  I hadn't allowed enough room for the rails to 'move'.  After I got done painting the track, I thought the next step would be to ballast it.  And it's a lot easier to re-do this before ballasting than after.  So I managed to pry up the track and the cork, carefully, by running an x-acto knife under it.  I worked out a more shallow easement into the curve which ended up using as much of the space along that end that I had.  (Throwing out the whole "keeping the track 5 inches from the edge", I'll need a little wall along the end to keep disasters at bay).  I decided to just tack all this down with track nails rather than glue, partly so I could adjust it now, and partly so maybe this allows it some room to stretch.  After plenty of playing around, it's not great but it's a lot better.  Those bleeping gondolas make it through there almost every time now.  I kinda want to keep playing with it but it's alright.  I managed to add a 6-inch piece of track to address the added length of the run.



Something like this bugs the heck out of me, so it became a priority to get it fixed.

Lessons learned:

1. If you're going to re-do track, do it before ballasting.  I decided not to learn this the hard way.
2. Re-wiring these was a pain.  I had them nicely connected under the rails before, but I had to snip the wires and re-attach them in the new positions.  I don't know why this was trickier than before, maybe I'm just out of practice.  But I tested the track and everything works again.
3. Paper shims and styrene pieces for the slight superelevation are useful to ease the train into the curve and keep it from derailing.  Also, as you run the cars along the rails, you can tell if the easement is too tight that there's a little tension to them there.  That's probably where the engine is briefly helping to pull them off the rails. 
4. When you're planning for curves - make them as big, wide, and easy as you can.  I thought I already had, and oddly enough the inner curve works fine.  It's this outer one that needed work.  But a layout should always be "in process".  Always something to improve.