I was snooping around eBay this evening and ran across this picture:
Although not an inexpensive solution using newly bought track, it’s not a bad way to use some different code flex-track that you don’t know what to do with. I thought it was kinda clever.
Tom
A good way to use up the old brass track![;)]
Being I use N scale track for my HO bridge guard rails, Im saving the plastic ties for fencing later on. Its surprising what we can use if we want too…John
Very interesting! Could very well keep a loco or cars on the layout in the event of derailment and not have them crash to the floor.
Hmm…Flex track-$4/3’ section. 1/8" masonite-$8/ 4’x8’ sheet. Hmmm…
It looks like ancient fibre-tie brass to me. I think the track with a train on it is brass, too.
I’ve got some old brass track around. I’m gonna cut it into sections, rust it up and use it for scenery.
[#ditto]
That’s the same thing I use N scale flex-track ties for. Sand 'em down, paint 'em white and it’s hard to tell the difference when they’re in place.
Loathar,
I agree. That’s why I suggested that I might be an alternative for some old, unusual (brass) flex-track that you just have lying around:
Tom
I think you use to be able to buy just the fiber tie strips in a roll from Atlas with no rail…Cox 47
Sweet!!! I think I will use that for my staging yard! I used some scrap ties for a fence on my layout; it looks pretty good, but I will only use it once or twice.
Interesting use for that ancient fiber tie strip, but I wouldn’t care to wager that there was ever any rail on it. (I, personally, get the same result with strip styrene salvaged from old signs.)
My own alternative use for old flex is to treat it the way the prototype handles re-lay rail - trim off the bad ends, cut out and replace the broken ties and use it to lay (to be) hidden track. The brass rail flex (including some stapled to fiber tie strip) got laid at the stub ends of back-in staging sidings.
I once considered chopping up unused black plastic tie material and using it to simulate lump coal. After a little experimentation, wisdom set in. These days I use the charcoal from used pool filters.
I’ll have to think about saving the odd ties trimmed from flex for possible use as fence posts. Until now, I’ve been trashing them.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I did this on my staging yard. Here’s some more pix.
I held them in place with nails and leingths of scrap rail, too short to be used.
So that’s where all the brass track is going, it’s becoming harder to find all the time, give us poor schlubs a break and quit throwing it out or using it for fencing, there are still lots of us out here that haven’t bought into the “nickel” syndrome, brass works just fine, just maintain it, like you plutocrats have to do with nickel track.