My thoughts

There are two camps that I see regarding track work, one being laying factory turnouts and track, the other hand laid. You really have to ask yourself what you want to get out of laying the track yourself. Self satisfaction in knowing you did it yourself or perhaps performance? In today's model railroad market, the quality, performance and look of flextrack and turnouts from makers such as micro-engineering and others rivals hand laid and many argue exceeds.

With that said, I prefer hand laid track (in areas that are visable) the look and performance is completlely up to you and your skills.  You will find the more you do the easier it gets. Granted it takes much more time to lay hand laid track as you well can imagine, but the payoff is great. Is it cheaper, probably not, if your lucky you will break even. But handlaid track has been a mainstay since the beginning of model railroad time and if done right it is unmistakable on your layout.

My advice is this, if you are not in a hurry to get trains running, give it a try. Buy enough spikes, rail, and ties to put together a 3 foot section of straight track (probably 10 bucks), simple enough but will give you a taste of this part of the hobby and you will know if it is your cup of tea or not.  I recommend micro-engineering products hands down.

If you want to tackle turnouts, they are of course the most difficult skill to accomplish. For this consider Fast Tracks jigs and tools (I have listed thier website below). They are a bit expensive up front, but if your doing a medium to large layout, it makes life easier and the results are extrordinary. These folks are really great to work with and their product is impeccable.

http://www.handlaidtrack.com

I am sure others here will share their experiences but all and all it is not rocket science, it does however require some skill which you will obtain with practice, practice practice. I like it to playing a musical instrument, the more you do it the better the results. Try it out I think you will enjoy it.

My opinion only...

Mike

Your thoughts...

Thanks Mike for your advice!  Iam encouraged by what you have written.  I think you are right that I should try handlaying track before thinking I can handlay turnouts.  Thanks again for the reply!

The only thing about handlaid

The only thing about handlaid track that doesn't look right, especially in photos where the detail shows up more, is the lack of tie plates and one spike every 5 ties or so.  As I mentioned on another thread, I think,Central Valley tie stips and Micro Engineering rail is the best of both worlds.

Paul Mack

Yep!

Paul:

I agree with you completely ... that's why I developed the hybrid poor man's jig method using CV turnout ties that I show on my Siskiyou web site. The resulting turnout is spot on NMRA specs and looks excellent even in close up photos:

  Photo of a turnout made using Central Valley turnout ties

I used a Fast Tracks-like method of PC ties to fasten down the rails, and I used some Fast Tracks filing and soldering jigs (their smaller frog and point assist jigs, not the big full-turnout jigs) to build this turnout in record time.

I'm using this state-of-the-art method to slowly replace the worst of my commercial turnouts on my layout. If these methods had been available 17 years ago when I started my layout, this is how I would be building turnouts today. It beats using commercial turnouts all over the place, IMO.