And I bet as you say, it looks even better in person.......Maybe one day, I'll try these techniques....Right now, I am focusing on making the track work reliably (looks like I might even have to rip some out and replay it) before I spend the time and effort to make it "pretty!".

RAH

I feel your pain Ralph! 

This experiement was done with just a scrap piece of track I ahd laying around, I'm not going anywhere near the layout with this at this point!  I'm having a heckuva time trying to get my trackwork bulletproof Ii've dropped more feeders than I ever thought possible) but I'm still getting herky-jerky locomotives at times.

For whatever reason I have track that LOVES to keep getting dirty (I need to clean it once at week at minimum to maintain good operations) so I'm frightened about adding all of this paint to the sides of my already finicky track...it just sounds like a recipe for distaster. 

I'm toying with the idea of trying the track polishing route but it seems like a major step and my thinking is that it would be better to do AFTER weathering/balalsting my track so that I'm cleaning all of the gunk off my rails after weathering the track but I'm open to other opinions based on experience out there.

~rb

I like to also take a time-consuming but rewarding step I first saw in a Bill Darnaby article on laying flextrack in the November 1997 Model Railroader. This involves snipping the connections between ties on the underside of the track, cutting away and removing some ties, and then re-spacing the remaining ties with some slight variation. (Remove more ties for more lightly-used tracks where the real railroads used fewer ties per mile).

The result is very appealing and realistic to my eye. This also allows me to angle some ties slightly versus the others. I also take the time at this step to slightly reshape some tie ends by snipping them. I use a cheap side cutter for this, not my Xuron track cutters.

This does take a lot of time. I haven't yet tried it on any huge sections of layout, so I'm not sure if I'll have the patience to carry it through.
 

some branch or siding track on another part of my layout.  For now, I'm coloring the visible sides of my track with a Floquil pen, and tonight I plan to try coloring the ties.  SHould be a vast improvement fo rthe Atlas Code 80 I have for my "main."

Rich - Trust me, I know all about herky-jerky power, but mine doesn't seem to spawn from dirty track, but rather the 1001 track joints (not all are soldered yet) and the multitude of crossing diamonds (10 in just one 2ft x 2ft area) that keep the small power (SW-1's and S-2's) from getting enough "juice", even with feeders every 2 inches. What I made the mistake of doing was using Atlas crossings (50% plastic) and not Walthers/Shinohara crossings (75% metal). Once I rip everything out, (ugggh!) and redo it, I know I will have better electrical continuity. For cleaning track (if you find that it's a constant battle for you), I suggest what Dave Ramos and I use, which is a combination of Centerline's track cleaning roller car, and one of the Walther's Train line old-school pad-under-boxcar cars. Works good for us, but there are so many other cars out there that work as well, or maybe even better.

Byron - I have tried the old "space the ME track ties" trick, and yes, it does get old....But yes, it does look good!

RAH

Interesting point Ralph-

I'm at a point now that I have power fed to every single piece of flex track (in other words, there is no place that a rail joiner needs to provide power to another rail) and every turnout has power fed to each continuous rail in the turnout.

that has improved things drastically, but performance is still a little inconsistent at times.  I don't think it helps that I'm in an unfinished basement that isn't climate controlled and is humid.  That is the cross I bear I guess...

Thanks Milt-

That's a great piece of information! I snip off the ends of a few ties to simulate rotting ties towards the end of little used spurs but this is a great idea to create a little more variety in my foreground.  I'll have to try this out on the real layout.

~rb

As I was reading this thread, I had forgotten that this kind of detail on track will only be visible in the front of the layout!  I would guess that just putting a little color on the sides of the rails on track in the background to keep the track from looking "chrome plated" is probably sufficient.  Then you can dedicate more time to really making the forground track pop with detail.  It occurs to me as well that this may also solve a dilemma for potential Proto 87 modelers.  The track work needs to be to proto 87 standards to function correctly, but the extra detail on the track might be best left to just the front of the layout where the track work can be viewed close up.

Fellows.

A friend and I have the same conclusion . Visitors do a nano second examination of the layout . In their defense , how can it be more without a sit down and look for awhile visit.The method of my modelling  stems from a lack of patience and part from the knowing that the details will be missed most of the time anyway. I always seek the  impression , the overall feel .The level of detail is less important than having a  consistant level of detail . Nothing should be "out of place" , a bright differing color which catches the eye.