# Shelf Train Ceiling Train



## Winston (Feb 1, 2013)

Things I have learned from it so far 

one a good level and tape measure comes in handy for sure 

two once your testing out your track to see if your train can make it around the tight bend of a corner you made the flex track make sure you take your case off and remove your light bulbs  or your train will fall and bust its lights out learned that the hard way. so what kind of light bulbs can a guy replace his busted light bulbs with?

besides that and getting a curve peace of my bachmanns ez track to sort of use it as a guide. to help bend my corner parts to let my train with busted lights go around a corner easier. Because some bends just don;t work don;t know what yall do when yall work with flex track but so far I started messing with flex track for the first time I will tell you I won;t ever buy any more ez track ever this flex track is the bees knees. 
got some rerailers for the shelf train and might pick some more up next time I make a order have to add light bulbs to it once I figure out witch kind I can put in there. 

a few more days and a few more trial and error and more testing and then more testing I am pretty positive I get my Up to go around to room. I took a few snap shots with my phone but will have to read up on how to post a photo of it


----------



## sstlaure (Oct 12, 2010)

I draw my radius on the sub-roadbed prior to the cork going down to ensure a smooth radius. No reason you couldn't use the outside edge of a piece of EZ track as a guide for the inside edge of your track, that would ensure you are at a radius greater than the minimum required.

Hold the track in place with glue or construction adhesive and pin it down with thumbtacks while it dries.


----------



## Winston (Feb 1, 2013)

yup man I used some of my easy track for the radius. because just bending the flex track around a corner just didn;t work out. 
its been a few days and I got the track bed installed and the track glued down and tested my curves to make sure it would work before I glued it down. nothing says more fail than glue it all down and it not being able to make it or hit the side of the wall before it makes the turn. 
going from bachmanns ez track to flex track has been a realy neat process and a little learning curve. 
a rotozip tool with a little cutting disk makes fast and easy work of cuting flex track to size that is another tip I have found out in my process with flex track.
no the road bed I picked up was some woodland Scenic stuff it was foam instead of cork. with I haven;t worked with either one of them. well only the foam stuff so far but I have no clue witch is better. found hot glue gun to be a fast way to lay the foam and track. I don;t know if others use that approach or use some form of glue to hold it all together. I did find out that i had to go back to a few parts of the track with a razor blade to scrape some of the hot glue off the made its way back threw the ties of the flex track. with is odd the loco runs over that junk but the rolling stock derails guess its the weight of the loco that keeps it on there after cleaning the hot glue up no probs man loco and boxcars go around the corners now and no derails. 

if I get some free time I will take some pic with my phone and figure out how to post some pics of it. I will prob get some laughts since I am a amature or week end warrior at the whole rail road thing. but I think its nice it dose what it is ment to do let my train run around my computer room


----------



## sstlaure (Oct 12, 2010)

Another trick to laying flextrack without kinks is to not trim both rails at the same spot. Allow one rail to extend into the next section of track and be joined a few ties further down the track. This allows the rail on one side of the track to reinforce the weak spot at the joiner on the adjacent rail.

Just remove ties in the spots where you need to place the joiners. You can trim the ties and slide them under the rails at the joints to hide the transitions.


----------



## Winston (Feb 1, 2013)

well here it is the train up and going I had fun makeing it I won;t do another ceiling shelf train for a good long while if I do something else it will be on a table where I don;t have to clime up and bump my head on the ceiling was a pain but yet fun and what i wanted to accomplish. i am going to try to forget about 
commuter trains for a while would be night to get them with light kits and have them going around but I will have to put them out of my mind for a little while untill I build up a little hobby cashflow for them maybe if i am lucky I can find a deal on some used rolling stock to add to the train on ebay for the cheap but so far looking on ebay it seems the prices are almost like buying them from a hobby shop online with when you add the shipping to them. i don;t know iam a sucker for long trains they just look cooler to me chugging along thats if i can find a real good deal but when i look on ebay they all seem to have the the big square rapido couplers and i use the little rapido knuckler couplers that came in the box


----------

