Working on staging yard number two, which has some very long tracks. That means I have lots of ties to replace at joints. I counted 40 on the first track. I have been taking the ties that I remove, using my dremel to remove the inner spikes and thin them down a bit for the joiners. The thing is, this is very tedious and I am beginning to lose my mind. Is there a better way to do this? Does anyone make ties that are a little thinner than the Code 100 ties that I could just buy a big bag and slip into these spots?

I am in the process of getting ready to start planning to think about maybe converting my as yet unbuilt nay unstarted layout to DCC! I tend to procrastinate sometimes, no most of the time, actually all of the time!

For this reason I have been doing a lot of research and reading on DCC and collecting supplies that I might need. One of the things I see a need for is fine wire to wire locos. Being cheap I like to use a lot of salvaged electrical equipment and I have been looking for a source of small flexible wires with several different colours. No luck so far.

Has anyone used the new ANEmodel decoders?  They are very inexpensive & I would be interested in your experiences.

Steve

ok so im stuck in a bind i use life-like power loc track for my layout because thats what came with the train set it was an xmas gift. any how here the problem as u can see from the picture the terminal track uses wire attached to metal clips that slide onto the terminals prongs to power said layout but the metal clips broke off and all im left with is the wires since its impossible to find power loc track is it possible for me to solder the wires onto the terminal tracks prongs so the track can be powered or am i better off trying to source out a replacement terminal track?