Dave,
I'm building my first "real" layout in 40+ years and decided on Scale Trax, based on Rich Battista's fantastic layout and videos. The track is beautiful and the description of the re-design is impressive, proving that MTH is committed to our hobby!
One small problem was revealed when I was about to place my first switch (per Rich's video) and discovered that the re-design did away with the holes in the throw bar to accommodate Atlas O under-table switch machines. The throw bar is .150 inches wide and operating shaft is .086 inches in diameter. That leaves only .032 inches of material on either side of a hole drilled to fit the operating shaft, precisely - if you get the hole in the middle of the throw bar. I didn't even try.
I sacrificed several ties to experiment with setting the throw bar into a channel and then CA gluing it in place and it works. It took some filing and scraping to fit the throw bar and keep the edges of the channel from hitting the 3rd rail, plus digging a shallow trough in the roadbed to clear the additional material on the bottom of the throw bar but that's prototype - I know.
The change from snaps to screws attaching the points to the throw bar is a good one, perhaps the next iteration can give us a heavier throw bar and holes to accommodate the Atlas switch machines. Thanks, again, for your efforts!
