Folks:

After about 8 years out of the hobby I’m getting back in. I used to post under this moniker over on the “other site” which now seems to be pretty dead. (maybe someone can pm me with the story of what happened there, I don’t want to start anything).

Anyway, as I posted over on the “other” site, I’ve been making my own track out of mild steel flat bar stock. It’s going well.

Trying to attach a few photos of that. Here’s a link to a short video:

http://www.vintage-art-and-posters.com/RR/run_short.mkv

EDIT: looks like my attempt at attaching the photos failed, can I not attach more than one photo?

Mild Steel track:

http://www.vintage-art-and-posters.com/RR/12.5_dia_curve1_sm.jpg

http://www.vintage-art-and-posters.com/RR/10ft_straight_sm.jpg

http://www.vintage-art-and-posters.com/RR/points_detail_sm.jpg

Don’t want to upset the cart here with my first post on this site, but I’ve got some leftover code 332 aristo brass track & tie strips I need to sell off. I sold off all my track a few years back, this is just the odds & ends I have left. My questions are: a) am I better off selling this stuff as a lot or in various batches? b) Where? I’m not really looking to maximize my return on it so much as to 1) get rid of it fairly painlessly & 2) see it go to where it will get used. That being said I don’t want to just give it away. I’ve got some track pieces, a bunch of loose rail of varying lengths & a bunch of tie strips.

Attaching photo

I notice the “other site” doesn’t do the classified any more? Should I just put this stuff up on ebay or is there a better way?

John I posted the three pics. There is something wrong with the other two files. Your files have to be hosted somewhere on line. You can use the freight shed here on LSC or Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook etc and U-tube for videos.

Boomer K. MOGWAI said:

John I posted the three pics. There is something wrong with the other two files. Your files have to be hosted somewhere on line. You can use the freight shed here on LSC or Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook etc and U-tube for videos.

Hi Boomer:

thanks for the effort. There is only one other photo… & that’s the one I used the “attach” feature of the forum on. Can you not download it by clicking on it.?

The video is at the same web-server the photos are at, anyone should be able to view by clicking on it too… didn’t really think it was worth embedding.

John,

My train club initially did a G gauge RR with bar stock track. At first it seemed OK but soon rusted. Since we were using battery power and live steam, it was no big deal (or so we thought). After running on it for several weekends, we started to notice the grooves that were being worn into all the drive wheels. They were deeper on the smaller wheels and heavier locos. We tore up that track and replaced it with 332 code brass rail track. YMMV but remember this heads up!

We kept one small section (about 3 feet) to remind us of our folly! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif)

The problem gets exacerbated by our wheel profiles that don’t truly compensate for our curves.

edit for a word exchange …(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

You think about that club in California with all the steel bar stock rails, but their thrust is mostly steam and broad curves. I would wager many of the steam locs have stainless tires.

Greg

Regarding wheel wear:

I read about this problem before I ever started. I’ve been running the little switcher loco on the test track a bit & haven’t noticed any unusual wheel wear yet.

But, I also made sure & get hot-rolled “flat bar-stock” which has rounded edges. It differs quite a bit from cold rolled “regular” bar stock in that a) it’s cheaper, & b) the “regular” bar stock I’ve seen others use has sharp edges. After fabricating the pieces, when I’m prepping them for paint & filing off any weld splatter, I’ve made sure & go over the inside edge of every piece with a file to knock of any edge. I’m pretty sure this will help a lot, but only time will tell. & for the ~40 CENTS per foot, I should be able to afford to replace wheels should it prove an issue.

No one interested in all that loose brass rail, or the small curves & straights? Bunch of tie-strips.?

EDIT: forgot to add, re: wheel wear. I was also thinking of building a home made rail-grinder, similar to the LGB track cleaner, which would help maintain a good rounded rail-head.

Having been in this Large Scale part of the hobby, since way back in the 1980’s; I’ve been able to observe all sorts of rail, and track combinations.

Each person trying something new, and less expensive, adds experience to the information available to everyone, for future reference, for this I thank them. Without their experimenting, nothing new or better would be found…

Having made that statement; I have to add, that failures must be included, but seldom are reported…

As far as replacements for the basic rail profile, modelled after the prototype; there are reasons for the shapes of the head and base, which “Plain” bar stock, fails to address.

A flat head on the rail with slightly rounded edges, increases the life of wheels, be they plastic, or metal. The shape of a wheel is part of the design of the wheel/rail engineering design. I advise anyone trying to suggest improvements, to do research on that part of railroad technology, before thinking they have found a better mouse trap.

Anyone who has experienced the old “Gargraves” track, with wooden ties, will be familiar with the weakness of the “Slot in tie” track design, over a rather short lifetime, in an average wet/dry environment. Also the round head of the rail…

Yes, rail can be rather expensive, but if you are not “Held back”, dedicated to, or dependant on wheel to rail electrical contact, the options for less expensive rail material, expands.

Aluminium is less expensive than Brass or Stainless Steel…but in the long term, you get what you paid for, good or bad.

I won’t get into the debate on the care and maintenance of the various tie material options, as each has its following, successes and failures. Anyone in the hobby, keeping well informed, can relate good and bad experiences observed or experienced, mostly dependant on where the OUTDOOR railroad is located, all around the World.

This latest “Barstock” rail suggestion, and experience, no-mater how well it is explained and planned, will end up like so many, over the years…never heard from again, after a year or less…going by past offerings of the same ideas…

I do wish, young Mr.Thomas, success, and good wishes. Along with years of enjoyment in OUR hobby. I do hope he can find interest in reporting back in a year’s time, so that we can enjoy with him, his hoped for long term success.

Fred Mills

Some great comments on the subject.

I would like to add that wear is not just a result of rail shape and wheel to rail interface but also the materials involved. Brass is going to be more ablative than steel. Thus the rail wears down while the wheels suffer to a much less extent. Example: a lot of bushings in all manner of devices are made of brass or similar soft material for this reason. I am sure the various manufacturers did not take this into consideration when they began production, they probably chose brass because it was cheap and easily extruded (especially in smaller codes). And of course it was the standard in HO for decades thus a familiarity and inherit working knowledge was a natural starting point for developing a new product.

I would be interested to know if any of those using stainless steel are seeing a measurable increase in wheel wear over what they had with brass track.

John,

I sincerely hope your project works well for you. I believe my club used flat bar stock. Your product may be a lot better. We never got to a point with that track to address switches as you have. Good luck and please keep us posted. This is quite an interesting post.

Fred,

I respect your insight and objectivity. With all your time in this hobby I know you’ve seen it all. Let’s give John a chance to prove us wrong.

I use SS, and it will strip off crappy platings, like found on Aristo motive power. That plating will come off in large chunks and flakes. Better quality plating, such as USAT motive power will take longer.

Also, it becomes quite apparent that there are different “toughnesses” of brass, where some cheap brass will wear quickly and others, like usat freight wheels, last a long time.

I firmly believe that metal bar stock with “sharper edges” causes more concentrated wear on loco wheels.

Of course, all this depends on how much you run, I tend to leave my trains circulating for hours, whereas people like Fred, who just do point to point and low speeds, all of this might not matter a bit.

Greg

I have been running trains at Fred’s since 1991. The brass and aluminum track has held up very well over the decades, despite being buried in ice and snow 6 months of the year. If we have problems, it is usually the Pressure Treated 2x6 roadbed at ground level that gets soft. The raised portions of the railway (yards) are solid. They also make switching a lot more comfortable for us mature railroaders.

During our Saturday mornings operations there might be 8 trains operating on the railway. We used to make 2 turns during each of the morning operations. But we got so good at solving the switching puzzles, we now make 3 turns to fill the morning.

Because we only run battery power, we do not have arcing motive power wheels. So the locomotive wheels hold their plating, and there is no carbon residue on the rails.

Our moderate climate also lets us use plastic wheels on our freight cars. Most of the cars are now more that a quarter century old, and the wheels and flanges are still in good shape.

Joe; with due respect;

I think if you read my response to this thread fully, you will clearly see that I VERY much, wished John Thomas well. I do hope his experience is successful for him.

Anyone wishing to try something to improve his experience, and share with others, should be very much complimented…

Fred Mills

I agree that Fred did not try to cut him down, but ALSO has many years of experience and there are many people who try “iffy” things and the failures are, sure, embarrassing, but to underscore Fred’s point, often not reported for that reason.

The point of this is that someone searching for methods might not see an accurate reporting of the failures, the ideas that sounded good and crapped out later.

I get the saving money part, but like I said, don’t run a lot and nothing to worry about, but run a lot, and I cannot see that the square edges and the hardness of the material is anything but accelerated wear.

Greg

Fred,

I did not mean to imply that you were cutting John down. You have a lot more experience than I and we both want John to continue his effort. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-innocent.gif)

Greg Elmassian said:

I agree that Fred did not try to cut him down, but ALSO has many years of experience and there are many people who try “iffy” things and the failures are, sure, embarrassing, but to underscore Fred’s point, often not reported for that reason.

The point of this is that someone searching for methods might not see an accurate reporting of the failures, the ideas that sounded good and crapped out later.

I get the saving money part, but like I said, don’t run a lot and nothing to worry about, but run a lot, and I cannot see that the square edges and the hardness of the material is anything but accelerated wear.

Greg

But Greg, John said;

…I also made sure & get hot-rolled “flat bar-stock” which has rounded edges. It differs quite a bit from cold rolled “regular” bar stock in that a) it’s cheaper, & b) the “regular” bar stock I’ve seen others use has sharp edges. After fabricating the pieces, when I’m prepping them for paint & filing off any weld splatter, I’ve made sure & go over the inside edge of every piece with a file to knock of any edge. I’m pretty sure this will help a lot, but only time will tell…

Yep, I get rounded vs. sharp square corners, but the contour is still nothing like the contour of a railhead.

Look at this and look at the radii and curvature of the top. A flat bar with rounded corners is a far cry from this.