Gargraves Track Pins

You can buy them directly from Ross.

.....

Dennis

How many are you needing?

Gene

wheeler359@gmail.com

Dennis - thanks! Gene, just shot you an e-mail. 

I've gone through thousands of them and still haven't found a good source. Not everyone sells the 1 oz pack (80 pins), and the ones that do charge more than the cost of the pins to ship them. All they need to do is stick them in a padded envelope and put a buck postage on it.

I've tried direct from Gargraves, no problem, but no bargain. I tried Train World when I ordered a case of track... out of stock. I've gotten them off Amazon, I forget the actual vendor.

My advice, order more than you think you'll ever need, so you don't have to do it ever again.

After doing lots of long straight lightweight industrial instillations, I have to wonder what the thermal expansion rate of GG track is. On 20ft+, Are gaps like that on dead cold track going to bind once warmed by current?

Do you screw down your straights, and let the curves float? 

A quick look finds the coefficient of linear expansion of steel to be 6.7 X 10(-6) in/in-deg. F  Correction noted, I read the wrong column, thank you KD.

Your 20 ft length of track.

 20ft X 12inches/ft X (6.7 X 10 (-6)) X (lets say a 100 deg temp. change)=1,608 X 10 (-4) in   .1608 inches.   from a really bad winter day to a really hot summer day. 

Good grief! 

What kind of temperature extremes will your layout encounter???

Depending on which genre you have, the rails are either tinplated CRS (steel), or stainless steel (not sure whether austenitic or ferritic).

Anyhow....

Steel:  6.7 (x0.000001 in/in-F)

Stainless Steel: 5.5-9.6 (x0.000001 in/in-F) depending on composition

Ergo, for worst case, in a 3' section of flex track, with a temperature variation of, oh say, 20 degrees F (pretty extreme for a basement, I'd say) you could expect that piece of track to expand about 0.006912 inches.  That's for austenitic stainless (pots&pans grade...no rust/oxidation).  For CRS, the 3' piece would travel about 0.004".

Frankly, I'd be more concerned about the national debt, if I were you....and no one seems to care about that.  No one.  Nada.  Zip & Zed.

Sleep well, my friend.

KD

Well, I was thinking outdoors as well, but that's nothing for inside with 3' joints.

I was also thinking of laying the old rolls of straight track from the 70's(was that GG?)

Edison tv special put me to sleep for four hours last night. Been active enough to be exhausted physically, that helps 

 I just had the same problem with GG pins. Usually I can save shipping by ordering several small items at once, or using a substitute item, but those pins are necessary and hard to keep up with.

  I keep a list of things I need to order and combine orders to save shipping.

Douglas

American Flyer track uses the same pins.  There are a couple members currently getting out of S-gauge and posting on the For Sale board.  Why not contact them and see if they have any extras to get rid of?  Or you could post your own Wanted thread.