how has your switches worked for you? any common problems with the automatic switches? i am new to the bachman track and looking to head off any problems.
My only experience is with the HO scale stuff, and straight out of the box their switches are pretty bad, bordering on junk. Personally, I wish I had had the patience to wait to use better track components.
However, that being said, there are several modellers here that have found modifying them with some small improvements can yield satisfying results – Jeff Wemberly (sp?) comes to mind. He uses Bachman ez-track (ho) and has a very nice pike that runs quite smoothly.
I haven’t put any of Jeff’s ideas into practice yet, but I have discovered two simple things that have improved my operations with them:
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File down the space between the rails and the frogs. Even some of my cars with RP25 flanges would derail in the frogs, being pushed up and out of the rails by excess plastic.
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Add weight to your cars. Aside from more realistic operation, this helps them negotiate bad trackwork better.
Just my [2c]
If you are talking about EZ Track turnouts, there are two issues. The first is getting the turnouts reliable which for me took about 45 minutes of fling as described by Varnet.
The second issue is that eventually the switch machines eventually fail. They are easy enough to fix, you just turn them over, take them apart and put them back together. However, if you have ballasted them in place and have your scenery built up, it can be a real pain, especially if the turnout is in a yard ladder or throat.
I eventually tore out my EZ Track as a bad investment. I now use Fast Tracks turnouts.
Turnouts are the source of most derailments. Hand laid kits, or making your own, are the BEST insurance.
IT SEEMS out-of-the-box Bachmamm EZ turnouts leave something to be desired, wheras KATO and SHINOHARA/WALTHERS or PECO (with cork) gets straight 'A’s
Remember KATO’s price includes a switch machine.(Atlas $8.75, Rix $11, Tortoise $18).
The main thing I found with the EZ-Track turnouts is that they have to be absolutely flat! If they’re bowed even a little the end of the point rail will stick up and cause derailments. As mentioned above, carefully file out the excess material in the frog, otherwise, the cars will visible ‘bounce’ when they go through over the frog. Another problem I observed is that the point rail sometimes won’t stay against the rail. I solved this by adding a low tension spring to the mechanism. A Kadee coupler spring could be used for this. It doesn’t provide much tension but it’s enough to keep the point rail in place without derailing a train coming from the oppisite direction. These fixes are rather easy. As mentioned above, bringing your rolling stock up to NMRA specs helps a great deal. All my rolling stock has a base weight of 4.5 ounces (forty foot car, six inches in length) with an additional half ounce added for each additional inch of car length. I use anything I can find for weight. Steel nuts, lead weights, metal floor plates from old rolling stock, etc.
Thanks for the advice guys. Can one use HO easy track combined with say atlas switch track?
You can, but the joints must be as smooth as possible. You can make a piece of track to join the two by cutting a piece of EZ-Track short and clearing the space under the rail ends to mount joiners.
Rs2mike, I’m your guy. Proudly using E-Z track with Atlas switches, fitters, and a piece of flextrack. Even with my skill (I’m 13, not much skill), I have no derailments on my turnouts, the only derailments occur with bad rollingstock, the only breakaways from some athearns with old McHenry couplers. I didn’t saw the track, it still has the weird connector, which just goes under the atlas tracks, you just need to cut the roadbed to fit it, later on, just add plaster or a tiny thickness of styrene to cover it.
It’s weird, but so far, the majority of derailments come from Bachmann leading trucks without weight… They’ll derail on ANYTHING.
Thank you jeffery and hoople. I have not started a layout yet but I was concerned with these couple of points. I have always wondered if I could attach other types of track to the ez track. Now I can’t wait to start that layout.
I think I forgot to mention- I used homasote, not cork roadbed.
Wait you used the homosote under the non bachman piece instead of cork. Is that correct?
Yes, it is. I got it for free, so I used it instead.