MTH RealTrax Question

Hello Mr. Paul greetings and salutations

There is but two choices you have, cut the fillers or redesign your layout to avoid them.

I personally lead towards the redesign.

Back in the day when RealTrax was solid nickle silver rail it was easier, the hollow rail is trickier because you can smash the rails.  If you decide to cut it I would recommend you tape it to the edge of your work area instead of trying to hold it in a vise.  Use a dremel tool or a fine tooth hank saw blade.

I use RealTrax myself because I like the lower profile then the competitions and it is cheaper and a whole lot quieter.  And so you know it will require some tweaking once you get it put together, as in aligning the rails where two pieces connect. (terrible QC)  But once that's done your good to go.  Use a wide flat pair of pliers and bend the whatever rail you need where your train shows a bump over.  Bending it back and forth until it feels smooth enough so the train goes over it without that bump.  And you'll have to test it going in reverse as well and possibly tweak it some more.

Once you run your train on it you'll know what I'm talking about.

Hope that helps some.

Perhaps some others will chime in with their experiences.

Good luck and may the force be with you.

The "redesign" part is the problem.  I can initially design a nice clean loop for my around the room layout, but as I add building, features, etc. I have to see how they look prior to actually adding the remaining track to fit how the buildings are laid out.  This pretty much guarantees that I'll be doing a lot of tweaking in the final stages.  That's one of the big reasons I'm still considering ScaleTrax.  Well, I'm going to have to decide on RealTrax or ScaleTrax fairly quickly or nothing is going to get done.  Besides, maybe tweaking constantly is half the fun of having a layout!  Anyway, Thanks for your reply and opinions!

Hello  Paul

 If you decide to use Realtrax either solid or hollow, make the custom pieces out of hollow track. If the gap is shorter than a piece of track cut one in half , cut the extra out of one half use Gargraves pins( you will need to squeeze the web slightly for a snug fit) or Lionel 0-27 pins( you will need to tap them in with a small hammer). If the gap is longer use two pieces cut the end off one ,cut the other to fit. If a custom curve is needed it is easiest to cut the ends off a curve and insert a piece of Gargraves flex track bent to fit in between. 

Galon Tonell  

When I built my first Realtrax layout in 1998 there was not a lot to choose from.

The 072 pieces had just hit the market so that was the basis for my then 6x12 table.

The switches available at that time were 031 only and fitter pieces were just on the drawing board.

There was all kinds of choices for fitter pieces by the time I got around to building my layout in 2004. I was lucky at the time in 1998 because I had a variable speed mill in my garage and with some practice I could cut the solid brass rail at one speed and the plastic roadbed at another speed with a fairly sharp end mill after a few tries the specialized pieces had a perfect finish....much more cleaner than a hacksaw or bandsaw.

if you look in the back of a MTH catalog you will see there are all kinds of make up pieces of varying lengths for Realtrax >

Depending upon the location, you might be able to use the R/T to tinplate transition pieces so that you can cut/flex a tinplate section to meet your needs.  If you can place these "transition" pieces in out of the way or hidden (tunnel) areas, you will not have to worry about the difference in appearance.

I initially chose Real-Trax (R/T) because of the solid nickle-silver rail and that it was locally available which made it easy to get extra pieces when needed.  Times change and the rail is longer solid and the local shop no longer carries R/T stock, except for a couple of set break up leftovers.  R/T is obviously still available from online dealers and eBay (used), but if I had to do it all over, I would give a longer look to Gargraves w/ Ross switches.  The local shop carries Gargraves and Lionel Fastrack.

I like the look of Scale-Trax and Atlas, but as w/ R/T, they too would likely be online purchases if my local shop would not be able to get the items needed due to minimum order quantity requirements.

My layout has over 300 feet of Real Trax, and the only custom pieces I needed were made by cutting custom lengths of straight and curve pieces. Lay all of track and align it before you screw the tracks down.

RealTrax comes in 3.5", 4.25", 5" and 5.5" sections as well as one-half curves.  When I built my layout with realtrax (I have since switched to Atlas), I would back off a 10" section or two (if necessary) and calculate how I could fill the gap using the shorter pieces.  It worked out pretty well.  If one cuts the track then you have the problem of electrical connection to the cut end.  If you are not a perfectionist, there is probably 1/8" to 3/16" wiggle room for innovative engineering.

Lots of good info and tips!  Thanks to everyone for responding.

When i built our realtrax layout they offered many sizes   We found different ways to compensate for additional length or take up that inch or two.  Although, did find I couldn't use that all to practical 30" straight because I needed to use two 10" and one 5" and one 3.5".  Thank goodness for the track planning software, I was surprised how many different scenarios of lengths could be achieved to get it to fit.  After spending money on some sections of track I couldn't use I got real good at finding track divisible by offered lengths.  

Well I did it.  Was a pain but it works.  I now want to sand it down some more and probably will color it in so it doesn't stand out.  Glad that worked!  Thanks for all your help.