"And last but not least, And it took many, many, hours of run times, but that thin center rail, did carve a near "slot like divot" into the "soft" rollers some engines had. Slide shoes too
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Well, that's no good.
I have engines that have run on Super O since the late 1950's....and no unusual wear. You might as well condemn Scaletrax, as it has a thin center rail. Also, I HAVE seen rollers that were only run on tubular track that were extremely worn.
I stick by my guns John, though maybe not common, it happened. I ran mine hard for twenty years before they really got much of a break. When the grove in a copper shoe gets to the curve, and doesn't ride up, it binds, and the drivers just spin away.
Tubular does wear a rounder groove, and after thinking a bit, tubular running may have thinned that shoe enough the S.O. didn't have to work hard to break through, but the slots were there. The rollers weren't affected as badly except two cracked at the score, tender and caboose I think. I always had enough of each track for about a 70 foot of bedroom to front door carpet dog bone.
