Flash Back!!


Rybcon

Rybcon

Member
Anyone else old enough? I remember helping my Dad putting down track. The road bed was wood with the ties "carved" in. You then took the rail and laid it on the ties and anchored it with very small railroad spikes using a tap hammer and a punch. To lay the other rail you had a rail gauge to make sure the width was correct for the gauge you were working in. The ends of the rails had to be cut and filed square and clean so it could be soldered with the next rail.
 
The one's I have were given to me about 5 yrs. ago. I used them for awhile. they are directional. had a lot of problems w/the rails sliding back & forth causing a short. Finally had enough & removed them. You can have these. LOL
 
I think our club had about six actual miles of Tru-Scale roadbed. They were the most realistic thing available at the time (mid-60's), but ME track and WS roadbed looks much better and doesn't take months to complete. I'd rather poke my eyes out with forks than go through that whole experience again. :)
 
Most all of the main line at our local club is all true scale roadbed, The curved seconds were made before Truescale offered the pre-notched roadbed you could bend. The president notched them all by hand on his bandsaw. This was back in the early 70's, none of the closing frog turnouts on our layout, all the turnouts and the diamonds are all hand built from scratch on TS roadbed. Track is very easy to work with and regauge when we have a gauge problem. Most folks dont have the time or desire to lay track in this fashion, thus we have stuff like Kato Unitrack and other track/roadbed combos. Cheers Mike
 
Cjcrescent said:
Its the old Tru-Scale roadbed. Larry's description is of their "closing frog" hi-speed turnouts.
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A bit of a further note here. On the hi-speed turnouts the entire point to inside guard rail pivoted so that the guard rail pressed against the frog so that the opposite direction did not have a break (gap) in the rail. The rail was "solid" from the tip of the point. I actually saw a real turnout that was made like this on the old Rock Island main line between Wichita Kansas and Kansas City. I had never seen such a thing and at the time wondered how the trains ever took the diverging track. When I saw the Tru-Scale it was much more obvious how it worked.

UP2CSX said:
I...doesn't take months to complete. I'd rather poke my eyes out with forks than go through that whole experience again.
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You must not have had a Kadee spiker. With one of those one could rip through about three feet of track a minute.
 
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I still have a couple of turnouts my ol' man must have bought in the late 40's or very early 50's. They're laid on wood roadbed, but have fibre ties. I also have a couple that we (ol' man & myself) made in the mid 60's from kits that were sold by Atlas back then. They too are on wood roadbed. Unfortunately I couldn't integrate these into my current layout as they are brass, and are really showing their age....
 
Kadee spiker???:D :D :D Like we could afford about 10 of those back then to get enough guys working at once. Nope, all hand spiked. :eek: I always managed to get the section that had the little tiny knots, so I had to drill pilot holes for half the spikes on top of it. Plus, it was summer...in LA..., and we were inside a big fairgrounds hall with no a/c. There are many things I look back on fondly when it comes to model railroading. That summer isn't one of them. :)
 
Western Star said:
You must not have had a Kadee spiker. With one of those one could rip through about three feet of track a minute.
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Only after praying to the great track gods and having a human sacrifice at dawn.

I've owned two of those things, one that could be adjusted and one that couldn't and neither one had ever worked consistently for any length of time before the "cutter" started going bad.

Still keep one for old times sake.
 
Ever since I got into this hobby in the late 80's. I never understood the lure of handlaid track. Well, actually, maybe thats not entirely true. I do understnad that it was about the only way to get realistic looking scale track back then. But the patience factor I just dont get. There is no way I could see donating a years time on a basement empire just laying track just to get your 1st train running. I would have lost intrest in the hobby real quick. I was personally impressed with the commercial flex track thats been around since the 80s and that suits me just fine. I just wish it wasnt so expensive, but it sure beats hours and hours of the repetitive task of laying track.

Turnouts on the other hand, I think I would enjoy. I havent tried it yet, but I have seen demos on how its done and once you get pretty good and doing this. You can get quite a few done without spending a lifetime and its much cheaper on the pocketbook.
 
Have you ever seen an old time box car kit? The whole thing had to be put together. And the body was metal. No such thing as "RTR" in the good ol' days.
 
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