Well, I may switch from Fastrack to Ross switches and Gargraves track. I don't know witch one too choose, wood ties or plastic, stainless or tin rails. I guess stainless is for outside and it conduct less electricity. So witch one we use on a regular inside layout ?
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Personally, I went with regular GarGraves track with the wooden ties and Ross turnouts.
I would use regular Gargraves with 3 shiny rails. If you need real tight curves,such as 31 or 42 buy some sectional pieces.
Dale H
Make sure you get the tinplate version, otherwise engines with magnatraction will not pull as well as the stainless is not magnetic.
Black center rail, wood, tinplate. Never had a problem after three layouts and building the fourth. Ross switches of course. Don
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As long as you're spending money on new track, you may want to consider using the Ross sectional track and Ross switches as well as the Ross brand of roadbed. The wooden ties countersink about one-half their thickness into the roadbed which provides a very prototypical look.
As you'll see in the photo above, I spraypainted the Ross roadbed with Krylon's textured "stone" paint to kill the yellow color of the roadbed material. As I took my time with track installation and wiring, it was about 18 months before I got around to ballasting, so the spraypainted roadbed looked "good enough" for that transitional period.
The roadbed also elevates the track above the surface of the layout as you'll see in the photo below. In the missile railcar base scene below, you can see where I was able to create a sentry's walkway between the angled ballast of the yard tracks.
The photo above really shows the "counter-sunk" tie effect. In the case of our layout, the track is screwed into the roadbed and the Homasote, but not through to the plywood. We do not have the "rolling thunder" or "drum roll" problem so many O-gaugers encounter.
We even got a tad bit of super-elevation on the O-54 and O-64 curves as shown below. I was able to increase the super-elevation a bit more at the other end of the layout by inserting a single folded strip of "shirt cardboard" under the outer edge of curves' roadbed.
BTW -- We haven't had a derailment since we set up the layout in 2007 other than one boxcar and one dumpcar, both with "operating shoes", splitting a switch with one truck staying straight and one going on the divergent route of the switch. Does the roadbed help in preventing derailments? I don't know for sure, but that record of no derailments makes me think it helps with keeping both the train and the track stable and in place. (Someone else can break out their slide rule to see if my thinking is correct from an engineering perspective.)
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Is it Halloween, already? <g>
I guess stainless is for outside and it conduct less electricity.
Where did you get the erroneous assumption that stainless conducts less electricity? I always wonder where ideas like this come from, who could have possibly thought that, and how they could have convinced someone else to believe their error.
Where did you get the erroneous assumption that stainless conducts less electricity? I always wonder where ideas like this come from, who could have possibly thought that, and how they could have convinced someone else to believe their error.
I get this idea from the facts, Stainless is a poor conductor even iron conduct 10x more.
Regular Gargraves with Ross switches, mounted on cork roadbed, that on top of Homosote on plywood. Nailed down with 1" black, paneling nails, (not screws) has been the best track for my uses. My layout has some 750' of t rack, 66 switches and is on four, connected levels. Quietest operation, fewest derailments, ready for signal wiring using the unused outside rail.
Most of the yard and siding tracks are made up of re-used Gargraves from and old layout. A little WD40 spray on the ties frees them up to re-bend to their new contours.
Keeps your costs down as Gargraves is, to my knowledge, the most reasonably priced track around. Much less than "snap-track" from the big manufacturers.
Paul Fischer
Going solely from the chart, and ignoring real world experience, maybe aluminum rails would be your choice.
Gargraves Phantom 37" flextrack sections with wooden ties used since 1991, Ross and Curtis turnouts used over the same period. Ballasted with granite and track retaining screws removed afterwards.
I have been using Gargraves stainless steel track, as humidity is a bit of a problem even with indoor layouts here in south Florida. Currently have Gargraves 042 switches but have been thinking about replacing them with Ross Custom switches of the same size.
For me Gargraves works well with Williams engines.
Lee F.