Are You Happy With Your Choice Of Track?

Wow, there sure is a lot of diversity on opinions of The Best Track for these Toy Trains. I think, after 60 years of playing with these trains, if I ran conventional, I would almost without thinking use Lionel O  Gauge Tubular Track, Hands down. However, do to the fact that Lionel, MTH, Atlas O, Weaver, and many others are making trains that look, act, run, and smoke, and talk, and do wheel slipping, and all these finely detailed features, I am thinking that Ross, Atlas O, Gargraves is the best.......Its a great Hobby and everyone is Exactly right, the choice of track is the one that works for them. Lets enjoy Running Our Trains.... Great Thread....Happy Railroading

To answer - yes.  Went with Atlas O for a host of reasons and zero regrets.  

Scrapiron - I use mostly No.5 turnouts. Most all my locomotives, right up to my VL Challenger,  don't have pickup rollers spread far enough apart to maintain electrical contact - even going through the non-diverging leg. The 6924(?) gizmo is great - for power loss going through the diverging leg, not the non-diverging.  Any suggestions on how not to lose power on these things?  I know Atlas is revising the turnouts and subsequently will offer a bandaid fix for those who own older turnouts. But this is of no help today.  Thanks for any advice. 

Peter

I run 031 and 042 o gauge tube track and I'm happy with it.  Works for me. 

Yes; Super O with custom bent curves and Ross Custom Switches.  Old layout was Gargraves which was excellent track but wanted to try the Super O which, IMHO, looks better and is quieter.   Only problem is with slide shoes on the switches.  Lionel 022 switches are the only ones I've never had slide shoe problems with.  Both the Gargraves and the Super O custom curves require more labor than sectional track. 

Too much time on my hands?

I committed to Atlas track early on.  I am pleased with the product.  I am getting ready to do the ballast next,once my signals are wired.  Incidentally,I have drops every 4' and everything works OK.

Norm

Yep, totally happy with 027 in 034, 042, 054 and 072 curves by Marx, K-Line and Lionel..

Yes, totally pleased.  O  and O-27 tubular tinplate.  Nice noise, just like when I was not an old kid.

After 30 years of scale with 14 in O72 tubular and 16 with Atlas O, I am back to postwar semi-scale thanks to PWC and CC on Super O. Used Super O previously from buying first pieces in 1966 to 1985. Will admit that it was scale steam that seduced me.

Leapinlarry posted "Wow, there sure is a lot of diversity on opinions of The Best Track for these Toy Trains."

I don't read this thread as the best track, but rather as the title asked - and as most folks have responded - are you happy with your track choice. But I suppose folks are choosing the track system they think is best.

For me, I don't know if 027 tubular is the best. It has it's liabilities as well as advantages. It just works for me. Best for me is not necessarily best for anyone else.

There is a diversity of opinions here - just as there are a diversity of choices. The vast majority of the history of 0 gauge is one that is mostly toy trains. Now with the interest in scale 0 gauge, we have a greater diversity of choices in this still small market.

One might assume more choices would mean growth. And I'm sure there has been some growth. But not equal to the choices or variety.

Reading this begs one question I wonder if folks consider: How does a train company come up with one single product that will please a majority of train consumers when we are such a diverse group?? Especially when one considers the high cost of new product development versus actual market demand, meaning sales and profits.

Just because a particular product would be a hit with one small segment of this overall hobby 0 gauge market, doesn't mean it's going to sell enough to be worthwhile of the initial investment costs.

Well, this is a great time to be a consumer in the 0 gauge market... there are more choices than ever (as witnessed by this thread) even if there are products yet to be made.

But I more than suspect this is a very challenging time to be in the manufacturing end (and the retailing end too) of this train hobby.

Yes.

Jeff Davis

Somewhere around 1955 I started to glue and HO spike O27 tubular to 1/4 inch square hardwood ties. Except for trading 27 inch curves for 54 and 72 inch and hand making turnouts the process hasn't changed in 60 years of model railroading. This all started because 3 rail looked so unproto-typical to a 12 year old especially one with friends that had American Flyer or HO so something had to be done.

Round 1 was painting the center rail black, still not super good.

Round 2 went to brass brads every several ties with brass rod soldered to the tops of the brads, pretty good looking but required a connection between conductors every few feet which never satisfied well in looks or longevity.

Round 3 went to brass tube which then could be joined with pins much like tinplate rail.

Round 4 when I saw Super O for the first time the brads went away with the ties cut from lengths of pine run through my father’s table saw to emulate the shape of Lionel's plastic tie. However the center conductor continues to be a small diameter tube glued to the tie. Until epoxy longevity without maintenance continued to be a problem but the look especially when ballasted with Hartz Mountain bird gravel was acceptable. This has been the regimen pretty much ever since.

Bogie

Do you have any pictures Bogie? It all sounds very interesting. 

I'm happy with my K-Line Snap Track and 13 switches right now.  But when I have to downsize again to a carpet central I will probably go to MTH RealTrax.

Yes....BUT. I have invested way too much money in Fastrack to change now. It is operationally very good. But, I might have preferred the scale appearance of another choice.

I am running four mainlines with a total length of 84 to 93 feet of track in each loop.  The layout travels between two rooms.  Power distribution is tapped off of 16 gauge solid insulated copper wire ran under most all of the table areas.  I use 5 soldered power connections on each mainline.  I use Lionel O gauge tubular track laid down on 1/2" plywood covered with astroturf carpet.  The lack of roadbed, number of track ties, scale dimensions, etc hasn't bothered me so far.  I grew up with tubular track and for me it is easy to use.  I have a significant amount of track in reserve for those layouts that travel throughout the house on the carpet and linoleum.  Having a 2 year grandson totally in love with trains usually gets me final approval on just about any carpet layouts, train purchases or train room modifications now days.

Yes I am so happy with my track I have been using it for over fifty years,,,,,,,,,,,    (gar graves )          Paul

I have tubular on my tinplate and Gargraves/Ross on what will be a hi-rail layout.  I enjoy them both.  

I use the same with K line switches.

I am still finding out, my layout will be a combined Gargraves stainless and fastrack combination, all my switches and yards will be Fastrack with 80% of the layout, just over 500 feet of track with 3 main loops on lower layout and 2 loops on an upper shelf around loft.

That should have read with 80% of the layout being Gargraves.

My current layout, I am using Fast Track. Ive worked out the noise issue, but I wish the rails were flat. That being said new layout will be Atlas which will allow the use of 2R wheels.

"suzukovich" - how have you worked out the noise? ? ?

thanks - rdeal

of all the tracks discussed in this thread - which works best with tinplate?

thanks- rdeal

Tinplate will run on all of them. However I love K-Line shadow rail or K-Line snap. Mates with Lionel tubular perfectly,rugged,looks good, available in a lot of curve diameters. Can be mated with Ross Tinplate switches. If using snap,add pins. I have used GGs,Atlas NS, I like the K-Line the best by far.

 Here is some O 120,click on photo to enlarge

Dale H

Paul,

   Having used Lionel conventional tubular for years, I switched to FasTrack using my old 072 tubular switches for many years.  Now I have upgraded to the new FasTrack Command Control switches with my FT track, controlling the FT CC switches with the Legacy Cab2.  I am totally satisfied with FasTrack for the running of all my different Tin Plate, Post War and modern Legacy/ P2 Trains.  I do have an inner circle of 036 MTH RealTrax, which I intend to run with the new 036 FT CC Switches, this coming Christmas season.  

PCRR/Dave

I was wondering who made those switches thanks Kurtds.

 I don't own k-line shadow, or super snap, but I sure wouldn't mind it much.

A buddy has had both. Great looking stuff.

  It has a "Super-O look" to it, but black instead of brown. "Normal shaped" center rail too, not a thin strip of metal.

I don't remember the track profile though, just how clean and smooth it seemed.

  I initial reaction is tin car wheels would do better in the long run on tubular.

   Mine likes the O gauge, & puts up with 0-27. Old Super-O likes roller pickups.

    Track code (rail height) might be an issue for tin flanges on some track switches too.    

You see them on eBay every now and then. I had a lot of 027 track saw the switches at a train show about 15 years ago and got 4 switches. Wish I would have got more. They were 42 and I changed all my curves to 42. To have the layout I wanted changed it from 4 x 8 to 5 x 8.

There have been a few threads dedicated to this subject. In my case its a combination of a few things.  Wood base on carpet, Then the bathroom mats I have used to simulate snow cover. Bathroom mats as you know have a rubber backing and are thick and plush which has a tendency to fill the gaps under the fast track. Also in certain sections in addition to the wood base, I also have carpet padding on top of the wood and under the mats. Two of the pics show a section of Atlas track I am playing with to see if it will give me more of the desired look of deep snow.

 The next two are with the Atlas track. 

Atlas O for track & switches on the permanent layout, regular O-27 profile tubular track for carpet central layouts for the kids.

Satisfied with both.

Yes I am.

Jeff

Totally tubular!  Well, almost.  I have to have a loop of Fastrack to run my Hogwarts Express until I pick up some larger radius curves.  I'm no expert, but I don't like Fastrack.  Its noisy and expensive.

My layout is 23x11, all Fastrack except for a tubular street car section. I get transferred every three years on average and have to take it apart and redo it, so I appreciate the flexibility of Fastrack. The construction consists of various sizes of tables made of 1x4 frames supporting plywood covered with 1/2" foam insulation sheets painted white for a Christmas snow look. I can just play around with Fastrack and manage to get some nice designs to fit my current space. I know it's noisy (especially when I have 5 trains and the street car all running) and the plastic ballast is at least twice as high as prototypical but it is very easy to work with; I do suggest to watch Mike Reagan's vid on how to fix continuity issues with the center rail. I never could master RR Track software and for me Fastrack is easy to experiment with; just have lots of the short pieces at hand. And since my layout basically looks like the Polar Express (both scale and toy models) running through Bedford Falls in It's a Wonderful Life" it's all a willing suspension of disbelief anyway. To each his poison.

This thread is almost a month old and I am still happy with my O-27 tubular track!