Mike1083 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Alright well now that i have chosen an area for the railroad i have to start slowly buying track. My biggest concern is debris from the tree above and the insect poo (a lot of people call it sap unknowingly) and the amount of moisture in the air all the time. Im in the mountains and actually on the side of one and well it is pretty much a moist fest. I have been reading about brass and stainless and the positive and negatives and I am trying to figure out which is the best direction to head. I did look at the svrr track but it appears i have to do a lot of bending on my own, and i think to start out i want to just buy it and lay it out. Im guessing there will be a couple hundred feet of track involved and will involve a lot of trestles being on the side of a terrace( i have been eyeballing the bridge masters redwood trestles and such). From the looks of things i will be running piko mth and usa on this track so i need something that will work for all 3. Any advice or recommendations for my type of environment would be great. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayman4449 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 I'm a proponent of Stainless in any environment. In a moist environment you will have even more issue with brass track oxidizing. The other issue with brass track is the carbon dust that is created by the very small sparks between the rail and the power pickups on the engines. It's one factor and why wheels will get 'dirty' with stuff caked on them. With SS you don't have any of that. Even now Stainless is probably more expensive but it's well worth the investment. I would never go back for any reason. With the sap, my guess is that is mostly an issue in areas where people have pine trees as I remember a time washing a car, parking it under a pine tree and in a few hours have drops of sap all over it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike1083 Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 Sounding like stainless is the way to go. As far as not having to use flex track goes is the polk stuff gonna be my only choice? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayman4449 Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 To the best of my knowledge yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry B44 Posted October 4, 2014 Share Posted October 4, 2014 It's not that hard to bend rail and the SVRR track is readily available. There single rail bender works great, that's what I used for most of my track. I do have a Train Li dual rail bender, but it seems to take more work. I'd advise the code 250, looks more real, plus being smaller it is easier to bend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseldude Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 AML also offers stainless steel track. They have an ad for their stainless in the current edition of Garden Railways Magazine. Hope this helps. -Kevin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayman4449 Posted October 10, 2014 Share Posted October 10, 2014 Thanks Kevin. In this case Mike is asking about pre-curved sectional track so he wouldn't have to do the bending himself. From what I have seen so far AML offers only the straight/flex sections. Here is a link to the AML site for reference: http://www.americanmainline.com/modelc/AT-TRACK.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseldude Posted October 11, 2014 Share Posted October 11, 2014 Gotcha, Ray. I didn't realize that the AML stuff was only offered in straights, not curves. With the unfortunate demise of Aristocraft, I wonder how difficult it will be to find Aristo stainless track? If worse comes to worse, maybe Mike can find enough Aristo stainless curves and fill in the straights with AML. Just an idea. -Kevin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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