Shriker1, I had really wanted to do a 3 rail layout outdoors but all my research showed weather really hard on anything other than stainless rails (even nickel silver will rust) also the sun beating on the Atlas plastic ties renders them brittle after a couple years here in Las Vegas, probably similar in Utah. I ended up switching to G Scale outdoors. I have about 475ft of Sunset Valley Railroad code 250 Stainless Rail track with their UV plastic ties. They make excellent all stainless switches to match, little pricey though, figure about $6.25 per foot for the rail/track combo. They even make a combo G Scale/O scale (2 rail) track if you want to run both. You must bend each rail by hand but the rails come in 6ft lengths and are easy to bend with their inexpensive bender, stagger the joints and you can make some really cool sweeping curves. If I had it to do over again I would have went with much cheaper aluminum track and battery power on board with RC control. Power supply for Track Powered G Scale can be simple $ 55.00 24v DC computer power supply. (by the way 12-24v DC Power is really easy and safe outdoors)
Ping me if you want more info, have fun.
Chris Sheldon
