After a life at sea I am ready to start with model railroads.
Over the years I have been given, or purchased, a large selection of O27 locomotives, rolling stock, and accessories.
I have built a large room for my first layout since the figure 8 in 1952.
The problem, and question, is…where can I find O27 Lionel track pins in bulk?
I have over 900 pieces of track and can not afford all the pins at current retail pricing. Or, as a second opition, is there another soloution to attaching the track.
I doubt you will find much answer here vs. posting on the MR or Classic Toy Trains forums.
If you are reasonably handy with a lathe, or are willing to risk holding abrasives against pieces of wire chucked in an electric drill, you could make these out of appropriate gauge wire (I don’t know the size or best material)
It can be very difficult to remove trackwork for modifications or repairs when the track pins force you to rip up much more than you wanted to change. I use O27 track with the pins removed. I solder the rail ends together, usually with a little piece of 14 AWG alongside the rail. That way, I don’t have to pull up any track but the pieces I’m dealing with.
While I don’t have a direct answer to your cheap bulk pin question, I gotta ask - since I’m up around the 800+ total piece count as well - how are you missing so many pins? Pins have been the least of my problems. I picked up a few packets of new pins to have on hand just in case, but there’s always been enough trashed/rusted sections floating around to salvage pins from.
You can use finishing nails as track pins.
I don’t remember the size. Take a piece of track to a hardware store and find a size that fits snugly.
You will have to cut the heads off.
Use a pair of diagonal cutters, inserted between the web and the round part of the rails to nip the round part from underneath to crimp it.
Most, or rather much, of the track was sent to me by people whose family members had either quit the hobby or had just wanted to get rid of boxes of track.
I doubt that 20% of all the track has pins and usually only one pin.
I have, of course, salvaged all the pins I can.
There was a suggestion about finishing nails and that might be a way to overcome the lack of pin.
There are 1248 pieces of track, not including the switches, special unloader track and the uncoulping track.
About the only part I disagree slightly with from the article is their pad choice - don’t bother with the green pads, go directly to the maroon ones I mentioned earlier. I also give the sorted track a quick crud wash/scrub before any adjustment, repair, or final rail top cleaning - I don’t like having any oily crud or excessive rust gumming up the scotchbrite -it’ll last longer and clean faster, and the pad residue wipes/falls off off easily from dry track. It’s still a consumable though - don’t expect a single piece of a pad to last a hundred sections.
Good luck with it, I, hope to one day have a railroad empire that uses that much track too.