Casadio & other track questions

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Someone gave me a box of old track today along with other tyco things, but it looks like old flex track ( brass?) and some of the turnouts were made by a company called Casadio

here is what I am wondering
I am going DCC will the brass & the silver nickel play well together?

I am doing alot of under the table switches, with these Casadio can I kit ba***hem to work with under the table switches and would it be worth it even attempt this?

thanks

Mike

2

Gosh Mike, I have to say that it might not be a good idea to use it. In general DCC systems need good clean track to run well. Brass is far more difficult to keep clean than NS track. You may be just getting yourself into a great deal of frustration. Why not use some of it in an overgrown spur or siding? If you do go ahead and try to use it, I would allow ample time to test and run on the track before ballasting and integrating into the scenery. Be very sure that you are getting the performance that you want before getting in too deep.

3

I don’t know? Why bother with brass if you don’t have to. The old turnouts were toy track at best. Everything can be made to work with enough effort and mantainance, but those items are the hard way.

4

Personally, I’d scrap the brass and go all Nickle Silver. It will eventually save you a LOT of grief. Just my [2c]

Brad

5

The best use of brass rail on a present-day layout, DC or DCC, is as scenery. Keeping it clean enough for reliable locomotive operation is more of a nuisance than the minor cost saving is worth.

Here is where I, personally, have used and am using brass rail (including some flex track made in Italy.)

  1. The last two or three car lengths of a little-used industrial spur. Rail that has been rained on has a rather brassy color, which this simulates nicely.
  2. Cut into panels 39 scale feet long and stacked on a flat car in MW service. Prototype lines use this kind of ‘full scale snap-track’ for emergency repairs at derailment sites.
  3. Without tie strip, colored as new rail and laid out along the right-of-way (along with new ties, tie plates and kegs of spikes) where rail renewal will start tomorrow.
  4. As 39 foot (and random shorter) lengths on a rail rack next to the MW shed in the yard.
  5. As fence posts and for other similar applications. (My prototype built pedestrian overbridges with trusses cobbled up from old rail.)
  6. For the far end of hidden staging tracks on a transfer plate where locomotives will never, ever, run. (Back-in storage for freights.)

For any application where reliable wheel-to-rail contact is essential, nickel silver is the only way to fly.

Chuck

6

I recently saw one of those Casadio 3-way turnouts – really cheap junk unworthy of installation on a layout, especially not for DCC operation. Don’t use brass rail for anything except rarely used sidings, and throw the Casadio turnout into the trash can.

7

cacole,

Here it is almost seven tears ago…

Cheers,

Frank