What is the Fastrack debate

[Anonymous]

I'm new here (not according to my registration date [:)] though) Can someone please point me to the Fastrack debate, that I've read mentioned a few times. I did a search on Fastrack, and came up with a lot of different posts, but none that looked like a debate.

Al Fickensher III

[Anonymous]

Bumping this. I'd really like to know what was all the debate about. I'm interested (sort of) in fastrack, and I'd like to read this debate. Can anyone point me to the correct thread?

[Anonymous]

I am not sure if there is a debate. Newbie's to the hobby, like myself, seem to like it because ease of putting it together and look. Now your more experienced folks in this forum do not seem to like it that much for several reasons and it seems to me noise being the main one, just ask Amtrack Jack. He dedicated, what seemed to be a lot of time, trying to make the track a little less noisy but was unsuccessful. I myself do not have anything to compare it to, but I thought it was loud in my basement, and considering changing to a differant style track. Also, since it is new (fastrack) not a lot of track options are out with it yet and this I am sure is frustrating to your experienced railroader. Glad to see you here. A lot of great information is available in this forum from people like Amtrack.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Please search before posting a new topic, with all of the new people posting topics, important topics get buried quickly on this style of forum.

This will take you where you want to go.

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13312

[Anonymous]

Big_boy_4005, if you will notice, I stated that I did do a search, and came up with a lot of referances to fastrack. None of them looked like a debate that I had read about that happened a few weeks ago (as stated by Brian in another topic about the OGR forum). That is why I posted my question. I wanted a link to the topic that had been mentioned. I thank you for providing me the link, but you could very well have just typed in normal font, instead of bold.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Sorry for making that so large and seeming to shout, actually there is no single fastrack debate, it is scattered all over the place,and in the past I have gathered all of the topics and put all of the links in one post .[:)]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cooker

I am not sure if there is a debate. Newbie's to the hobby, like myself, seem to like it because ease of putting it together and look. Now your more experienced folks in this forum do not seem to like it that much for several reasons and it seems to me noise being the main one, just ask Amtrack Jack. He dedicated, what seemed to be a lot of time, trying to make the track a little less noisy but was unsuccessful. I myself do not have anything to compare it to, but I thought it was loud in my basement, and considering changing to a differant style track. Also, since it is new (fastrack) not a lot of track options are out with it yet and this I am sure is frustrating to your experienced railroader. Glad to see you here. A lot of great information is available in this forum from people like Amtrack.

Thank you Cooker. You guys can always email me directly. Always glad to help. The THRUST of the matter is that the plastic and the hollow rails make for a loud ride for your trains. Nothing short of thick toweling like a beach towel underneath can quiet it because of that. Someone asked me the other day if I tried foam. Yes, and it did nothing. Welcome to the boards fellas!

[Anonymous]

I don't know if this will work with fast track but for tubular or gargraves it seems to work pretty good. Instead of screwing the track into the plywood or whatever you are using as a base, I tried using plastic zip ties. Since I know a little bit about noise and the transferance it seemed like if there wasn't a hard link (the screw) it wouldn't transfer the noise as much. I can't give you any scientific data to support this but it did seem to work. It is a little more work to do and it may not look good with the fasttrack but I thought I'd throw it out and see if anyone else has done this before.

[pennsy_fan]

Ive seen the fasttrac & it seems to be a much improved "realtracks" type of system.
I'm just disappointed that lionel didnt just improve & market "SUPER O" again.
Im sure there would've been a market for it........oh well, I'll stick w/gargraves.

[Anonymous]

Gomez
I am not sure your suggestion with zip ties will work. I cannot find anything to wrap them around on. The track is one molded piece.

[pennsy_fan]

Hi cooker,
I think what gomez meant was taking two zip ties, threading one through the pre-drilled screw hole in the track all the way, through the hole in the table top, until the "lip" on the top of the tie stops the tie @ the roadbed.Then taking the second tie and threading it up from the underside of the table on the first tie. thus securing the track to the table.

This is a better arrangement than traditional screws because the vibration from trains rumbling down the track doesnt travel through the track via metal screws to the plywood. This results in quieter operation. I do this w/gargrves track and it works like a charm, nice quiet track on the cork roadbed.

[Anonymous]

ah I see. Thank you pennsy. Seems like a lot of work and zip ties.

[FJ and G]

There's really nothing to debate about Fasttrack. This new track system gives carpet runners another choice of track, where previously, MTH held a monopoly on track designed for carpets with its Realtrax.

I kinda wished Lionel would have either improved their own line of tubular; making a greater variety of switches and making them more reliable and less pricy, or, as some were led to believe, make a new kind of Super O track. but that didn't happen.

[Anonymous]

Right, Dave. I'll take it one step further. I have no real hangup about tubular track. The trains aren't real, and I'm not heavily into scale, so, as far as I'm concerned, the track doesn' t have to look real. There's always the problem of the third rail anyway. If Lionel, however, would take their tubular track and add evenly spaces crossties, I think it would be big improvement on the old standby.