Gargraves Wood or Plastic Ties? "Survey says"

Wood   We do have a few plastic in hidden spots   You can spot the plastic a mile away and looks cheap

Wood

My GarGraves has wood ties, as do all of my Ross switches. I have a mix of stainless steel and tinplate track (all have blackened center rail), but have no real preference for one over the other. If using outdoors or if you have a humidity control issue indoors, I guess stainless steel would be the "safer" choice.

IF you solder wire to your rails,

the tinplate can be soldered fairly easily, and the stainless solders with a bit more difficulty and higher heat - you'll need silver solder

EDIT: i have tinplate and stainless AND plastic and wood on my layout

Thanks for the replies.  Sounds like wood.

Shoot.  I didn't know GarGraves still made plastic tie track.  When I refer to GarGraves, I mean 3-rail phantom, wood tie, 37" long track.  That would be product #WT-101-37.  Or the various curved wood tie phantom section pieces.

That's what I'm talkin' about. 

George

@bluelinec4 posted:

Wood... 

...You can spot the plastic a mile away and looks cheap

I'll have to agree here. The plastic ties are smooth and shiny, whereas the wood ties look like...well, wood.

As far as performance goes, I have a bit of both in use and it all works well.

Mark in Oregon

Thanks to all for your posts.

I called Gargraves and talked to Mike.  He told me the Wood is way more popular, however recently they have sold quite a bit of the plastic tie track.

The plastic ties are smooth & shiny but they are black & match the black wood ties of Ross switches. I think the black ties also help camouflage the black center rail.

The brown wood ties look nicer but they don't match the center rail or the Ross switches. I thought about staining the ties black but not sure if that would affect their electrical conductivity.

It would be nice if Gargraves offered an option to have black wood ties.

@Mike C posted:

The plastic ties are smooth & shiny but they are black & match the black wood ties of Ross switches. I think the black ties also help camouflage the black center rail.

The brown wood ties look nicer but they don't match the center rail or the Ross switches. I thought about staining the ties black but not sure if that would affect their electrical conductivity.

It would be nice if Gargraves offered an option to have black wood ties.

Funny, I have wondered why Ross doesn't use Brown ties?  Real Railroad wood ties are brown.

Atlas 3R Track originally had Black Plastic ties and they changed to Brown.

@MainLine Steam posted:

Atlas 3R Track originally had Black Plastic ties and they changed to Brown.

...as did their 2 rail. 

70s vintage Austrian left: (price on tag: 75 cents)

Current Chinese built right: (price on tag: $7.75; perhaps higher now)

Mark in Oregon

Staining a wood tie will not affect/increase its conductivity (i.e. lower its resistance).

@MainLine Steam posted:

Funny, I have wondered why Ross doesn't use Brown ties?  Real Railroad wood ties are brown.

Atlas 3R Track originally had Black Plastic ties and they changed to Brown.

Having Ross use brown ties would also be OK.

@B Smith posted:

Staining a wood tie will not affect/increase its conductivity (i.e. lower its resistance).

I was curious if the oil or pigment from a stain would create a high resistance path in the wood. Not enough to affect anything with only one tie in the circuit but would it with thousands of high resistance paths in parallel?

Not mentioned in this thread, Gargraves did a stainless steel track, purpose was exterior use, weather resistant. Acceptable track, somewhat difficult to solder wire leads to the track.

@Mike CT posted:

Not mentioned in this thread, Gargraves did a stainless steel track, purpose was exterior use, weather resistant. Acceptable track, somewhat difficult to solder wire leads to the track.

@Allan Miller posted:

If using outdoors or if you have a humidity control issue indoors, I guess stainless steel would be the "safer" choice.

@Mike C posted:

I was curious if the oil or pigment from a stain would create a high resistance path in the wood. Not enough to affect anything with only one tie in the circuit but would it with thousands of high resistance paths in parallel?

No problem here with 500+ feet of Gargraves with Ross switches.  I think if leakage through the ties was an issue, we'd have discovered it long ago given how long Gargraves has been around.

I honestly didn’t know Gargraves made plastic ties.  My biggest issue with Gargraves (and Ross) is the wood ties are not scale looking.  Are the plastic ties closer to scale?  

Now please understand that I don’t want to divert the discussion here to what looks better.  I am just looking for clarity on the Gargraves plastic for my own information, and to get a better idea of what people are comparing to the Gargraves wood ties.

I have both on my layout. Too late to do anything about it now. If I was to ever start over I’d paint all my track before installing it.

@Carl Peduzzi posted:

I honestly didn’t know Gargraves made plastic ties.  

1. My biggest issue with Gargraves (and Ross) is the wood ties are not scale looking.  

2. Are the plastic ties closer to scale?  

Now please understand that I don’t want to divert the discussion here to what looks better.  I am just looking for clarity on the Gargraves plastic for my own information, and to get a better idea of what people are comparing to the Gargraves wood ties.

1. Well...that and the code 215(?) rail!   

2. No; I think they are pretty much the same size...the plastic is, of course, more shiny.

Mark in Oregon

PS: Please don't misunderstand the above comments; I think GarGraves is great stuff... 

Greetings,

After using both Gargraves, Wood "S"  and plastic "O" as well as Ross switches,

I pick plastic.

The wood on the Gargraves S can be brittle in my experance, I used sectional as well as flex. Plastic seems more sturdy.

I use the Gargraves sectional in O also. They look fine with the Ross switches.

Starting over, Ross all the way, sectional and switches.

Ray

Regarding the creation of a high-resistance path in the wood by staining the ties: the wood ties already have high resistance, which is what you want, so even if stain added a tiny bit of resistance to the tie (or to thousands of them) so much the better. What you don't want is reduced resistance, because the ties are also electrical insulators in addition to their role as physical supports for the rails.

@Carl Peduzzi posted:

I honestly didn’t know Gargraves made plastic ties.  My biggest issue with Gargraves (and Ross) is the wood ties are not scale looking.  Are the plastic ties closer to scale?  

Now please understand that I don’t want to divert the discussion here to what looks better.  I am just looking for clarity on the Gargraves plastic for my own information, and to get a better idea of what people are comparing to the Gargraves wood ties.

Since I started this topic, I want to answer your question directly, after obtaining more information.

As strummer stated GG brown wood and black plastic ties are the same size.  I am attaching a photo.  Note that the last tie on the wood section, and the last tie on the plastic section have been "Swapped".  This was as simple as sliding the ties off and then sliding back on.  The photo shows the appearance difference.

Since I started this thread, I will mention the overall appearance.  I started a seperate thread on that topic, here is the link;

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...-there-be-any-takers

The attached picture shows old Lionel Super O (left) verses GG, look closely to see difference between GG Plastic and Wood ties.

Hope this helps others looking at this thread, who had my original question.

@MainLine Steam posted:

Funny, I have wondered why Ross doesn't use Brown ties?  Real Railroad wood ties are brown.

Atlas 3R Track originally had Black Plastic ties and they changed to Brown.

Where I live new railroad ties are black because of the creosote.  It is only after several years that they begin to brown as the creosote is leached out.  I think color is purely a matter of preference.

Wood.  Ross and Gargraves.

While I said I prefer wood, I do have some track with plastic ties around.  And when it fitted the occasion, I have used it.  As I plan to ballast all the track, it doesn't really matter all that much.

George

I have gg with plastic ties its fine and looks good  but if I were to do again I think I would go with wood ties its more readily available. I used gg switches also but had to tweak everyone of them because of derailments.