So after having some issues with the Masonite splines, I regretfully decided to remove most of them and replace them with plywood.
The principal reason for removal and replacement was that even though I tried my best to keep them level both along the track and also across the track, I was not successful. I tried using a belt sander. That did not work. I tried putting in shims to level the track across. That worked to a degree but was very time consuming.
The other disadvantage of the Masonite spline was that I could not spike into the Masonite. Originally, I had assembled the splines with a beveled edge on the outside of the roadbed to simulate the shoulder of the ballast.
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| Photo of a piece of removed spline showing the beveled edges. The slot visible in the upper portion was for the track feeders |
I had glued the Central Valley Tie Strips directly on the Masonite splines. When the original Barge cement dried the rail often came off the tie strips and needed to be reattached. If I had put a Homasote roadbed on the spline I could have spiked the rail down that would have helped but that was not to be.
It was a difficult decision to remove 175 feet of spline as it had taken quite a lot of time to install it and lay the track. It also is the major part of the railroad. Only the yards were on a plywood Homasote sandwich so all the main and siding tracks outside of the yards was removed with the exception of the Surf Wye.
Gary Siegel, of the L&N Eastern Kentucky Division, volunteered to help. The entire railroad was done in about three days over the period from July 28 to August 4, 2017. The first step was to remove the Red Rosin paper a la Howard Zane that I had used adjacent to the roadbed. The track feeders from the power bus were removed. The switch motors were removed from the turnouts for sidings and spurs. Then the track and ties were removed.
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| East end of Goleta Siding area showing Red Rosin paper |
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| Middle of Goleta Siding area |
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| West end of Goleta Siding |
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| West end of Goleta Siding with Red Rosin paper, track and ties removed |
We set up saw horses just outside the garage and cut the plywood using a jig saw. The spline was cut in sections and used as a template to cut the plywood. In most cases the plywood was cut just a little wider than the spline it was replacing. Where there were spurs or sidings, the plywood was cut wide enough to handle both tracks.
Because I had model the sidings lower than the main I used two methods to achieve this. Most of the time I used two different thicknesses of Homasote roadbed (more in a later post). In some areas the replacement plywood was cut to allow for the lower grade on the spurs and sidings.
For the most part, the horizontal supports for the spline could be reused but the vertical supports were adjusted to level out the plywood. As the plywood was installed, a level was used to check both across the track and along the track to eliminate the problems we had with the spline.
With just the two of us, we were busy so I did not take a lot of photos. Here are a few from the Goleta - La Patera area.
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| Goleta Station looking east showing plywood replacement in progress |
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| Goleta Station area looking west showing plywood replacement in progress |
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| Goleta Station area looking east with plywood replacement complete |
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| Goleta Station area looking west showing plywood replacement complete |
Here are two more photos of the pile of removed splines.
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| Pile of removed splines |
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| Close up of removed splines with a yard stick for scale |
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