Track work!

I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated thinking about all the track work that I have to do. Something I haven't touched in ... oh 12 years ! There's been all sorts of progress in the MR world. There's new track that looks really realistic now. After much research and reading it seemed that I should buy something called Code 55 flex track. The stuff that I was used to is now (or probably always was, I was just completely unaware) called Code 80. What the hell does that mean you ask. Its the height of the track... 55 is more realistic and is much lower. Here's a pic. 55 is on the left, 80 is on the right. If you look enough you'll notice it. It's more in your face if you actually see the two. Maybe I'll take my own picture, but until then here's one that kind of shows what the heck I'm going on about.


Hard to tell from the picture but 55 is all that to MR's in N scale. The stuff pictured above is KATO uni track that has a grey plastic base. Its all the rage too. Naturally, I choose differently. I'm a trend setter not a follower! Anyway, I decided to go with Atlas track - at least I did until I discovered that there isn't any to be found and they experienced a manufacturing problem in their Chinese plant. Its been about 8 months since anyone has been able to purchase it. Sucky. Its the cheapest and apparently decent. So I looked at PECO, an English brand that is based on English tie widths (ties are the thingies between the rails keeping them apart), so they don't look quite right. Then I found a lot of references to Micro Engineering and their quality product. They also made it 'weathered', meaning it looked realistic and beat up. The cost wasn't too much higher, so I got it. The switches/turnouts are from Atlas though, as they were still available and fit the ol' budget.

Anyway it really was exciting when everything showed up in the mail, totally felt like a kid at Christmas again!! Sure my visa bill was scary but heck ! that's another month away. Anyway here's a shot of me getting some track down.






You can see that I used a printout of my layout plan. I used a free (of course) program called Xtrackcad that has the ability to print 1:1, so the track was life sized. This really makes the transfer of my ideas to the actual table really easy.