Looks like a worthwhile look see. In my opinion looks like it maybe easier and more flexible than there last system. Nice video coverage of the topic as well. Thanks for sharing

As an HO Scale modeller, I am very pleased with the Fast Tracks line of products.  It has help me enormously with my track laying and turnout building.  These are the perfect products for the beginner/average/advance modeller.

Paul

Paul. I agree, my Fastracks turnouts work flawlessly.

Jules

I'm a huge fan of Fast Tracks products. While they are not cheap, I have to ask - how much is ultra-reliable trackwork worth? Even if your turnouts cost you a bit more using the Fast Tracks jigs, I think the extra quality is worth it. If you need more than a few turnouts of a given size, the Fast Tracks jigs can be amortized over many turnouts and the per turnout cost can approach or even be cheaper than the better commercial turnouts.

One of the huge revelations for me is NO commercial turnouts follow the NMRA specs precisely. They all "compromise" on the specs, apparently thinking the extra "slop" makes the turnout more forgiving.

In fact, the extra slop only makes the turnout performace more variable and thus less predicatable. Putting that in plain english: expect more derailments on commercial turnouts.

I started out in the early 90s handlaying the turnouts on my HO Siskiyou Line, but it was taking too long to do cut-and-fit handlaying so I held my nose and started using commercial turnouts. Now I'm sorry - I have more derailments on my layout during an op session than I would like. Had something like the Fast Tracks jigs been available in the early 90s, I would have been using that approach in a heartbeat.

So these days, I'm using some Fast Tracks tools plus the Central Valley tie kits to slowly replace the offending turnouts with rapid "jig built" turnouts that precisely follow the NMRA specs. I explain the details of my approach here in a thread on my layout web site.

If you want trouble free operation on your layout, the secret is to use ultra-reliable turnouts. Most of your derailments will be at turnouts. Most of your layout trackwork cost is turnouts, most of your wiring headaches will be turnouts and most shorts during operation will be at turnouts.

If there's any part of the hobby is pays to nail, it's turnouts. The Fast Tracks jigs allow even average modelers to become expert turnout builders with every turnout being perfectly in spec. And with some practice, the jig-built approach allows you to scratchbuild turnouts in record time.

I think the Fast Tracks guys are dead on with their product line - and they supply jigs for all the major scales! Sweet! There's no better investment you can make in the hobby than to use Fast Tracks tools to build your turnouts.

The other half of reliable operation is correctly gauged wheelsets. I'm think the 'slop' in many commercial turnouts is so they can accomodate out of gauge wheelsets in some brands of locos and cars. Precision trackwork needs precision wheels. If you have both your operation will be flawless. Anything else and you may have problems.

Regards,

Charlie Comstock

Of course, Charlie's right. The other half of reliable is wheelsets that are in gage according to the NMRA specs. If the two (trackwork and wheelsets) follow the specs, your operation will be flawless as Charlie says.

It's worth noting here that wheelsets do get knocked out of gage occassionally on an operating model railroad. That's not real frequent, but if your trackwork is all to spec and a derailment happens, you can bet it's a wheelset issue.

It will either be a wheel gage problem, or something more esoteric like a wheelset torquing issue where the wheels are not rolling down the track in perfect parallel alignment with the railhead. If the wheels get canted out of parallel in any way as they're rolling down the track, the wheels will pick at rail joints or any other track imperfection and quickly climb the rails, causing a derailment.

On freight cars I habitually replace the plastic wheels that come with cars with all metal wheels, usually either Kadee or Intermount semi-scale (code 88). These manufacturers both produce high quality wheel sets that I've yet to find out of gauge (once I did find an Intermountain wheelset with a short but that was one in about 600 axles...). Other brands of metal wheels may also do well.

However, in particular the plastic wheel on steel axles are subject to changing gauge if they get bopped on something. This can happen (well slightly) if you get a little rambunctions when re-railing a car.

Another problem that plastic wheels can suffer from is a build up of grunge on the tread. Plastic wheels have two unfortunate properties: 1) being plastic that can have a static charge that can attract dust, 2) they exude a bit of oil. Mix dust with oil and you can get a layer of grunge building up over time unless you keep your rails spotless. Eventually if the grunge layer gets thicker than the depth of the flanges the wheel will no longer stay on the track! (in very extreme cases).

The other problem Joe mentioned happens when wheels, although in-gauge, are offset on the axles from each other. If the offsets are opposite - that is the front axle has the wheels shifted a teensy bit to the left, while the rear axle in the truck has the wheels shifted a teensy bit to the right, this will cause that truck to move down the track diagonally. This diagonal movement will have the flanges scrubbing the insides of the rails and if they find any burrs or other irregularities they may climb over the railhead and derail. But before you start freaking out about this the wheels would need to be waay offset before this is likely to happen (or you have lots of irregularities in your trackwork - but if that's the case you'll have derailments anyway...). If you can't see the different wheel offsets looking carefully with some kind of maginifier, you probably won't have this problem.

FWIW although I've been handlaying tunouts since 2000 I've ordered a #8 fast tracks jig and am anxiously looking forward to its arrival. There's gonna be a plethora and a half of code 83 #8 turnouts in staging on on the mainline in the now-under-construction-peninsula of my layout.

Cheers,

Charlie (I hate derailments) Comstock