Blacken the center rail on Fastrack - good idea or bad idea?

I would say it is a bad idea, because blackening is a black oxide or (black rust) which can reduce conductivity. If you blacken the sides of the center rail and leave the top flat part of the rail clean and free of black I would think that is fine. This is why some people lightly sand the top part of a black rail to get even better conductivity. In my opinion the silver center rail on Fastrack for example looks fine to me, so why bother blackening it.

That is in fact the way Lionel originally made Fasttrack. It looked awful! I wish I would have bought a piece for historical purposes.

The shiny center rail actually mirrors the ties in such a way it creates an optical illusion that the ties extend right through the center rail, the rail seems to disappear.

Take a 10-inch piece and blacken the center rail with a permanent black marker then compare.

I agree with the above leave the top shiny, darkening the side rail will do no harm. True it actually looks ok the way Lionel made it.

Bad. I think it looks better without the center rail blackened. The roadbed is so light, the black rail stands out like a sore thumb. Plus, the ceter rail as is reflects the ties, which sort of camouflages it a bit. Aesthetics purely, so just my opinion.

Never could understand why companies couldn't make a multicolored black and brown center rail.
There should be a white center rail available for snow scenes also.

I am painting mine lime green. - lol only kidding.

Take a look at some of the recent weekend photo posts. Some people are doing very very nice work with Fastrack layouts. Christopher is one - his looks fabulous. I am leaving my center rail alone.

Please don't do it. You can keep the center as a "mirror" and paint and ballast the rest. Here is what worked for me.









I used Brennan's ballast

Ray Marion

I am doing my layout with Fastrack, because I already own a lot of it and do not want to invest in another track.

Maybe one day I will switch it all out to Atlas O or another track without a molded in balast but a blackened center rail. I was thinking I would ballst with a dark colored ballest. It would help hide the 3rd rail. Fastracks's molded in color is just too light and the dark rail stands out more then it hides it.

Bad idea, for all of the reasons already noted above.

I even remove the black from the top of center rails on Atlas track, RealTrax, and any other track that has a black center rail (although I leave the rail sides alone).

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hokkanen:
OK, so the suggestion was recently made in the other magazine as a tip to make Fastrack more realistic in appearance that the center rail could be blackened with a cold gun blue.

An article in OGR printed many months ago on weathering Fastrack made no such suggestion. It did have several other good ones. I have applied some of the techniques from that article to a small portion of my trackage.

I have used cold gun blue to touch up nicks in, well - guns, and it is easy enought to use.

My tracks and swiches are operating great now and I don't want to foul things up.

What is your personal opinion? Is blackening the center rail on Fastrack a good or bad idea?

I wrote the article for OGR, and purposely left the middle rail as it was. The gun blue produces an oxide that many have found to increase roller sparking. I also believe that by not blackening the center rail's sides, they reflect the molded in ties, giving the illusion the they go all the way to the outer rails. In short, I think the middle rail is less noticeable left plated as opposed to blackened.

I have Fast track and there are no plans to darken the center rail. Mark

quote:

Jumijo

And a great article it was. Thank you.

I use fastrack on my Christmas layout. It looks good as is. The center rail mirrors the ties and doesn't look bad at all.

One note, the guy in the article also painted the roadbed a dark color and painted the ties a different color, so the middle rail wouldn't stand out from the roadbed as if he left it the stock color.

I would agree about blackening the center rail, I would make sure to sand the top, the oxidation the blackening does I would assume is going to interfere with conductivity.

Oh wow! Now that you mention it, there's a CENTER rail...

I decided, Jan. 2005, to build a year-'round layout. I looked at both versions at N.Smith trains, and even though my Christmas layout had black center rail Gargraves, the silver-center FasTrack won (good thing, since the black rail was discontinued). Against the light balast, the black rail, literally, was the center of attention.
IMO, the ideal FasTrack would be 2 rails rust colored, and the center rail remain silver. The silver reflects the ties, and helps the center rail disappear.

While I do wish that Lionel had made the center rail smaller than the two outer rails, I don't think that blackening it is going to improve its looks in any way. I never cared much for GarGraves for that very reason.

Yes, from certain angles the center rail has a mirror effect -- but only from certain angles. From all other viewpoints it looks just like what it is: a center rail.

I run Lionel postwar, and I'm fairly indifferent to strict realism, so it's not a problem for me. When I have an uncontrollable urge for prototypical appearance, I turn to my O scale, 2-rail trains for a while. Afterward, I go back to the toy trains again.

I have an excellent cold blue, way better than Birchwood Casey, but the Brand name escapes me , like most things do since my heart op. It's the absolute best cold blue i've seen in 40 yrs, it really works and lasts: 8 yrs now on a reblue of a receiver for my 30-06. If the bees that seem to have invaded my barn will let me in tomorrow, I'll get you the brand name of this bluing product, before I kill the bees.

Bad idea. The shiny middle rail reflects the ties and under certain angles and lighting makes it nearly invisible.

quote:

Originally posted by Balshis:
While I do wish that Lionel had made the center rail smaller than the two outer rails

As an experiment I removed my FasTrack center rail and using CVA glued down a piece of copper wire to the plastic tabs that act as supports for the hollow rail. It looks good, very unobtrusive and isn't that hard to do and has held up well to being assembled and disassembled on my floor layouts. I haven't tried to do a curve yet or a turnout but one of these days I will. Another idea I want to try is to try gluing down a piece of nickel silver as the center rail hoping its reflective surface will aid in making it even more unobtrusive.

Bad idea Michael, the beauty of Fast Track is that the center rail is not noticed due to the way the ties reflect in the shiney rail. The ties look as if they are solid accross the two outer rails.

I never could understand why people would wont to High-Rail a toy train track system, it makes absolutely no sense to me. If you wont a real looking track go with something that is scale.

To me it looks dumb to put makeup on a pig because you hope people will think it is a fox. The ruse is blown when your big fat fox is found wallowing in a mud puddel.

You have one of the best toy train track systems on the market, so enjoy it for what it is. You never know you may wont to sell it someday, how much do you think it will go for with gun bluing on it's center rail?

quote:

Originally posted by Ray Marion:
Please don't do it. You can keep the center as a "mirror" and paint and ballast the rest. Here is what worked for me.









I used Brennan's ballast

Ray Marion

Great Fastrack pictures. I'd like to share my photo's to.....how do you attention them to a post? Also, what color did you use to paint the sides of your rails? They look very realistic.

Mark

When it first came out as black and then quickly changed to silver I thought they made a mistake,

Then I saw a darkened piece next to a shiny piece, huge improvement, the blackened rail stands out like a sore thumb

Check out the current issue of CTT and judge for yourself.

Ron What fun would that be, It's more fun to speculate

Mark

Thanks for the comment. The instructions for attachments are at the beginning of the list. I used a rail brown paint pen from testors. It takes two coats as the first just smears. There is some Bragdons powders also to dull the finish.

Ray Marion

I use fastrack on my hirail layout and it looks great. It is used as is no painting or ballasting. I just use ground foam and other scenery materials to hide the harsh edges of the molded ballast. I also use the command switches, my scale engines have no trouble at all with them and they work flawless. It's a great track system, not for everybody but it works for me and it looks good.

Dave

Never have responses been so clear. Thanks all. No painting of Fastrack center rails for me!

quote:

Originally posted by Ray Marion:
Mark

Thanks for the comment. The instructions for attachments are at the beginning of the list. I used a rail brown paint pen from testors. It takes two coats as the first just smears. There is some Bragdons powders also to dull the finish.

Ray Marion

Thanks Ray for the tips. I have 'customized' my Fastrack to ait lloks preety cool, here is a shot or two. I also went to your clubs website and checked out the photo's. Great layout and space for a club. Mark B.

quote:

Originally posted by gg1man:
I never could understand why people would wont to High-Rail a toy train track system, it makes absolutely no sense to me. If you wont a real looking track go with something that is scale.

To me it looks dumb to put makeup on a pig because you hope people will think it is a fox. The ruse is blown when your big fat fox is found wallowing in a mud puddel.

You never know you may wont to sell it someday, how much do you think it will go for with gun bluing on it's center rail?

I like whatever makes someone happy. My personal opinion is a bit different, though. I really like looking at the pictures of what some people have done to make their FasTrack more realistic. I plan to do it myself, at least to darken the roadbed and add ballast on the sides. That makes a significant improvement in my eyes.

I have used FasTrack on my layout (as much as I like the look of Ross/Gargraves track and Ross switches) for the cost and because of bulletproof operation, the switch lighting and accessories like signalled grade crossings, etc., that are available. So if I can easily make the track more realistic, why not?

As far as resale, I don't care about that much at all anymore, particularly as I've gotten older. There's much less of a point having this stuff if I can't use it the way I want to, regardless of whether it affects resale value. What I would be able to sell used track for is certainly not on my radar screen.

On the subject of putting makeup on a pig, well, that depends on the pig. I see no reason not to try to make things look better, particularly if the subject is something solid and worthwhile. I wax my 10-year-old car, and it looks much better when I do. Women wear makeup because they feel it makes them look better (never mind the pig thing!).

Pretty good stuff there mark B....

Mark B

Looks good. Did you do the individual ties also? Lots of work! My layout will sit for weeks on end and I never have had an electrical issue when it gets turned on. This reliability more than makes up the loss of true scale realism.

Ray Marion

quote:

Originally posted by beertrain:
If the bees that seem to have invaded my barn will let me in tomorrow, I'll get you the brand name of this bluing product, before I kill the bees.

That'd be a shame, given the well-known and serious problems affecting the bee population. You should call a bee-keeper; we did on one occasion, and he came out and got the bees.

quote:

Originally posted by Ray Marion:
Mark B

Looks good. Did you do the individual ties also? Lots of work! My layout will sit for weeks on end and I never have had an electrical issue when it gets turned on. This reliability more than makes up the loss of true scale realism.

Ray Marion

HI Ray, yep...i painted the ties to! Lot's of work. By the time I was 80% doen I discuoverd GarGraves Track. Since I purchase 7 Fastrack switches I figured I would just carry on and change on my next layout. This is my first layout since a kid...which was 40+ years ago! Here is another shot that I think looks really good as far as Fastrack goes.

Mark B.

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hokkanen:
Pretty good stuff there mark B....

Thanks Michael. I just posted a pretty cool shot of the Fastrack going into my tunnel in a conversation with I Ray. Next layout will be GarGArves or similar. I've had a lot of fun getting the Fastrack to look more prototypical. Not sure I can go any further!

Mark B.

Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this article that everyone is talking about?

Does anyone know where I can get a copy of this article that everyone is talking about?

Some of the layouts with Fastrack don't look anything like Fastrack anymore, that's great work!  It gives you an idea of what can be done with some work.

 

One other interesting thing I've noticed is that I have some that has a darker gray base.  Now, since I bought it used, it could have been done by the previous owner, but it's so uniform and the ties are perfectly painted on, that I think it's original.  Could it have turned that way due to environmental issues?

 

I would also like to know where the article is.