Just re-visiting my deleted Train Loft thread, and wanted to answer the question about the type of track I use in my layout that was raised by DWGater.
My entire layout is three rail O gauge Buco sectional track, manufactured by Bucherer in Switzerland in the late 1940's, and up to the mid 1950's, when they eventually went bankrupt. There were basically two radius curves - 75cm (0-30) and 122cm (0-48), and the switches incorporated these curves. Below is a photo of the "track" page from the 1952 Buco catalogue for 3 rail sections as well as 2 rail sections.
The original rails (1948) were made from aluminum, in the profile of real train rails (bull-head), with real timber ties (sleepers), and were mainly for their clockwork trains.
The aluminum rails proved to be too soft for the three rail system, so they introduced brass rails, in the same profile, on the same timber ties, then they introduced nickel-plated brass rails, and finally solid steel rails. The best part about the Buco rail system was that you could make your own track sections in what ever lengths you wanted, using all the parts provided by Buco.
I have, up until recently, been able to purchase all of this equipment, and the brass rails from a hobby shop in Switzerland (Amiba Lokschupen at Wetzikon), who carried most of the original Buco spare parts.
I have used steel rail sections on my outer mainline, with 0-48 curves, so that my MTH RailKing "Big Boy" and other RailKing articulated steam loco's can navigate the curves, then the same 0-48 curves and straights, but in brass, on the second parallel mainline, and 0-30 curves and straights in brass on the third loop around the layout. The layout is still a "work in progress", and far from complete at this stage, but I can run three different trains all at the same time now.
Above you will see various types of Buco track used in my freight/fiddle yard - some brass, some steel, and some aluminum. The interesting thing is that the Atlas track system is almost the same profile as the Buco rails, and I was able to use the Atlas un-coupling track sections in my freight yard very successfully.
I have even gone as far as making my own Buco track un-couplers, using the old Lionel un-couplers from their tinplate track sections.
Well, that's it for my tutorial on the Buco track system DWGater. I love the track, and could add more ties to take away the "toy train" look, but I don't really want to. The turn-outs (switches) are all remote electro-magnetic operated, and work faultlessly after 70 years.
All of my MTH loco's and cars run through them effortlessly, even at crawl speed. The only loco that had trouble was my RMT beep - the pick-up rollers would get caught between the center rail, after the frog - so I fixed the problem by just replacing the rollers with two Buco pick-up spoons....runs perfect now!!!
Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed reading about my Buco track system used in "the land down under".
Peter.....Buco Australia.
