Never got your photo. I would love to see it. By the way, I think that zip ties, properly used are just about as tight as screws. Here's what I do. I drill a hole in the railroad tie and then down through the roadbed and sub-roadbed (in my case I use cork over insulation foam over plywood) just large enough to accept a thin zip tie. Then I stick the zip tie (#1) down through with the nob (or whatever it's called) stopped by the railroad tie. Then from underneath the sub-roadbed I slide another zip-tie (#2) onto the one (#1) that is protruding from the sub-roadbed. Then with a pair of pliers I hold onto the nob of Zip tie #2, while pulling zip-tie #1 as tight as I can with another pair of pliers. Of course the pliers are optional, but they make the tightening much easier for me anyway. One point that I learned from trial-and -error is to make sure that the hole you drill in the tie is not too close to the outside rail. Otherwise, the nob will interfere with the flange on some of the freight cars. I'm sure all of the above is fairly obvious, but it took me awhile to figure it all out, so I thought I'd share it. Doing it this way has proven to work well and provide a very tight fitting track bed. By the way, doing it this way I have never even glued my cork roadbed down, since the zip-ties also hold it.
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