Under no circumstances use MTH RealTrax. I have regretted the day I decided to use it on my 7 x 9 layout. Here are some of the problems:
There are no guide pins in the rails and the alignment of the rails is not adequate leaving edges for the rims of the wheels to clunk into. The trains do not run smoothly.
The switches are poorly design and poorly made. The anti-derailment feature on all seven of mine were disabled at manufacture. The points of the switches are poorly designed with guide rails for the frog that allow the rim of the wheels to bump into the edges of the frog again making the running not smooth. In fact every one had to be disassembled to fix the internals to assure complete travel of the points. Several of my engines short out when passing through the some switch's points because of a combination of center roller pickup placement on the engine and the way the points are electrified. Note that all my engines and track are MTH.
My latest track/engine fiasco is my new MTH Allegheny 2-6-6-6 made for O-31 curves will not run on MTH O-31 curves. Turns out MTH O-31 is 31 inches from the outside of the plastic ballast to the opposite outside of the ballast or really O-29 not O31. The Allegheny binds on the RealTrax O-31 enough to stall the front set of drivers.
As an aside, I made the mistake of using lots of O-31 curves to maximize the amount of track on the layout. That was a mistake too. I would have been better served with less track and bigger curves. For me it is too late as my layout is pretty much complete and my $1000 investment in RealTrax track and switches would be lost if I re-tracked the layout now. I reworked the track and switches so it is adequate and useful but not anywhere close to perfect.
Bottom line: don't use RealTrax. I have two 3 ft section of Atlas flex track on the layout and the trains run great on it.
LDBennett
