There’s Just Something About Three-Rail Tinplate Track

I agree......it's timeless, extremely durable, easy to cut, and just about everything runs on it.

All I use.

My entire layout is 3rail super snap shadow rail track by Kline and RMT. Really like the 40 inch RMT straights. At every track joint I use metal pins to just about guarantee great conductivity. I also do power drops every 6 feet. all tank cars are by RMT but oil refinery trackage not ballasted and scenery not finished yet rocks by Mark and ballast is polymeric sand... black and sand color...just add water to solidify. Happy Thanksgiving to all the train guys and their families. Walter

When we moved to CA from PA about 9 years ago, I had the thought to use Atlas track for the new layout. After adding up the cost of the new track and looking at the boxes of Lionel tinplate I already had, the decision was easy - the extra money for buying new (not really needed) track could go to buy new trains!! I did use all Ross switch tracks for the layout.

I also agree. 25 years ago I graduated from 3 rail tinplate 027 to 3 rail tinplate 0 Gauge with 022 switches and love it.

The ballast is ground up asphalt I got from the sides of local roads. Arnold

The initial concept for my layout was to see how realistic tubular track could be made. I bent it to large custom radii, and sawed off 022 switches to eliminate sharp curves. The first close-up photo I took showed how huge Lionel O-gauge track is. I still used it in many places on the layout for cost reasons. I bought hundreds of used 0-27 straights for my terminal yard for $.0.25 each when I could not afford better. If I had had the money, I would have used much more GarGraves. Can't say I want to replace any of my tubular track on the permanent layout, though. It works, and the appearance doesn't bother me that much.

Of course, around the Christmas tree, nothing but tubular track would be appropriate. I do an outer loop with O-42 curves an inside loop with O-31. This is where the 1940 vintage Lionel trains run--one my dad got as a child, the other given to my Scoutmaster as a child. A degree of reverence is needed when these are operating. I hope I work as well when I am 83.

Will never run any track but 'tube'! That's what I always had, have. will have, not because of cost, just that's the way it was? As I posted before, it's NOT Christmas without the E10 under the tree, running in a circle, AND after ALL these years, it still runs! Looks like crap, but it's as given to me, and I WILL NOT change it, paint it, or anything else????????

I agree, the look never gets old.  No matter the gauge.  When I built my standard gauge layout, I just had to use tubular (I could have used Real Trax with the roadbed).    Something about that look just screams Lionel Trains!

Well, honestly, I only use it because I don't have the skills nor room for a 2-rail O-scale empire. The best-looking modern RTR track system I've seen was some brand of S-scale, not sure if it was Lionel brand, but it was neat!

I agree that there is something special about traditional tin-plated track.

There is also magic to be had with it. Check out: The Magic of Three Rail Track! (warrenvillerailroad.com) and the links at the end of that blog post

@galley_proof posted:

This year, I decided to stop fussing with a sheet on the floor over the rug, and built a simple oval on plywood with the track fastened down. I splurged and purchased some Menard’s 36 inch diameter track too....

As I was finishing up the project in the garage, perhaps it was nostalgia and remembering Christmases long passed, but I couldn’t help thinking how good that track looked.....

But . . . there’s just something about three-rail tinplate track.....

What did you use for the extra ties? The track looks good with those. I agree, there's just something about the traditional track. I really enjoy seeing layouts that use it. For me, the nostalgia of it is a very strong draw, from seeing Lionel layouts I never had at stores and a friend's house when I was young.

Agreed. When recently starting my new layout, I knew I’d only use O tube track, as I only have postwar locomotives and they all run great on it. I love the cost, ease of use, and the way the locomotives and rolling stock run on it, including through the numerous 042 manual switches I installed. Now I just have to wire the blocks up and gradually do scenery over time.

Breezinup . . . I cut pieces of craft foam to make the additional track ties. I found a video on YouTube. This stuff is inexpensive and available at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc. The O gauge track ties are 2 1/4" long and about one inch wide. (The Menard's track ties are slightly heftier than the ones on the Lionel track, but it's not noticeable.)

I glued three pieces together to give me a height just slightly taller that the track ties. This way, I am hoping to foam will provide some sound deadening.

I like the look of vintage 027 track, it has a lower profile  versus the O-gauge track. THe older track has a patina that cannot be replicated with paint, it only comes with age. 

Yep, same here about cost, nostalgia, and experimenting to see how close one could come to disguising the third rail and out-of-scale ties. On the last point, my outcomes has been modest at best, but it's been fun to play around with (though I've found it does tend to require a little fiddlin' to avoid connectivity issues!).

Just Lionel track.

If they only had a size between O72 and O54

Brendan

@Brendan posted:

If they only had a size between O72 and O54

Brendan

If you mix them you can get O63. To make a 90 degree turn use these: O72, O54, O54, O72.

Great layout JohnsGG1

Thanks for sharing

@galley_proof posted:

My father’s Lionel pre-war set has been running around under our Christmas tree for as long as I can remember – first, when I was a kid, and then for the past 25 or so years, with me.

This year, I decided to stop fussing with a sheet on the floor over the rug, and built a simple oval on plywood with the track fastened down. I splurged and purchased some Menard’s 36 inch diameter track too.

As I was finishing up the project in the garage, perhaps it was nostalgia and remembering Christmases long passed, but I couldn’t help thinking how good that track looked.

Lots of O gauge track systems have come and gone, with many striving to look more realistic. And lots of modelers have gone to great lengths to make their track look like the real thing.

Those aren’t bad things. But . . . there’s just something about three-rail tinplate track.

I’ll post more photos when the tree is up and the 224E is running around it.

It harkens back to simpler and more youthful time…….

by the way this settled something for me this year. Normally I set up an extensive TMCC/legacy layout for the grandkids under the tree. I have been thinking to go old school with my ZW and my fathers engine his brothers tinplate set and a friends set along with my first set, that is……….old school all the way this year.

Regarding the O72-O54-O54-O72 option--I did this. For most engines, it works and looks great. It will not take a loco that requires O72 minimum radius. This became the governing minimum radius curve on my layout. It was not in between O72 and O54 loops, so, had I done O72 for all four sections, I'd have an O72 minimum radius layout (although O72 locos would have been limited to the main, not sidings)

I never considered any other kind of track than tubular for my NYC subway layout. Some people don't like the look, but I think it works for the greatest subway system in the world. 😁

@West Side Joe posted:

I never considered any other kind of track than tubular for my NYC subway layout. Some people don't like the look, but I think it works for the greatest subway system in the world. 😁

Looks real but for one problem……no garbage…..lol

well done

@West Side Joe posted:

I never considered any other kind of track than tubular for my NYC subway layout. Some people don't like the look, but I think it works for the greatest subway system in the world. 😁

Looks fine to me West Side Joe

I love the last pic with the light reflecting off the rails!

@ThatGuy posted:

Looks real but for one problem……no garbage…..lol

well done

I made one concession to real life: there's a pizza rat out there on the track. 😅

@West Side Joe posted:

I made one concession to real life: there's a pizza rat out there on the track. 😅

Than it’s 100 percent real……again just fantastic beyond words. As someone who grew up riding the NYCTA I say this ………………AMAZING !

@Texas Eagle 77 posted:

If you mix them you can get O63. To make a 90 degree turn use these: O72, O54, O54, O72.

That works but it just doesn't have that smooth parallel look when inside of an O72 curve.

Brendan

The charm of Tinplate track for me is that my older 1st cousin Jimmy and Uncle Mario had a beautiful O Gauge layout with 022 switches  and O Gauge trains and accessories in the basement of my paternal grandmother's house, and the layout literally extended with ramps off the large main section of the layout and meandered throughout the basement.

That's what I wanted, and that's what I now have, and much more. Total Victory!

I had very nice 027 trains on a beautifully trestled 4 by 8 foot layout under the staircase in the basement of my parents house, but I wanted Jimmy's and Mario's sprawling O Gauge layout and magnificent Lionel 773 and 736 like trains.

Arnold

@West Side Joe posted:

I made one concession to real life: there's a pizza rat out there on the track. 😅

Joe, I literally have that pizza rat. In fact, I have 2 of them!

LOL, Arnold

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

The charm of Tinplate track for me is that my older 1st cousin Jimmy and Uncle Mario had a beautiful O Gauge layout with 022 switches  and O Gauge trains and accessories in the basement of my paternal grandmother's house, and the layout literally extended with ramps off the large main section of the layout and meandered throughout the basement.

That's what I wanted, and that's what I now have, and much more. Total Victory!

Your comment reminded me that my cousin always had the latest and greatest, including a roomful of Lionel trains and tubular track. I wonder if some of that is partly motivating my current project. 🤔

I'm not a huge fan of three rail track in general in O gauge.  I see it as a necessary evil to operate about 2/3 of my O scale collection.  Call it the HO and N modeler of my youth in me?

However, when it comes to standard gauge, I love the look of it.  It just seems fitting for tinplate trains and does speak to Christmas in ways two rail track does not.  This is Christmas of 2022.  I've got a few more options to operate for 2023 but the tree goes up next weekend.

For 44 years, it was used three rail tinplate track for me' but 027 three rail to get more of it on the layout.  If one goes with Marx 1590 remote operated O27 switches, 31 of them are in the budget as below

Charlie

It's almost a month since I first started this thread, and I promised a shot of the finished product. The trains have been up for while, but I'm just getting around to fulfilling my promise.

One modification I made was the addition of four handles, two on each end of the platform. Hopefully, this will make it easy for my wife and I to carry it downstairs to the basement for storage once the holidays are over.