Realtrax assembly,, uuggghhh!!!! and noise.

[Boyd]

Looking for a Lionel transition piece from Fastrak to O gauge one of the employees at the hobby shop suggested the Reatrax. I never had a real good look at it before. Solid rails and a better look than Fastrak. But I think the engineers at MTH were not thinking of 8 year old little Johnny and the new set his parents gave him. Uhhhh DAAAAAADDDDDD, I want to change the track again! Sorry son I'm putting a tranny in the suburban by myself and I can't stop right now. Did MTH think about a tool to help cram this track together? I bought 4 straight pieces of Realtrax to do a side by side noise test. Got the first 2 together. Then stupid me tried to stand them up on the floor and put the 3rd one on without supporting the joint between the bottom 2 and snap the bottom 2 bent and broke 2 clips on one piece of track. My fault. But holy cow assembling track on the Minnesota Zephyr behind my house might be easier than this.

And for the sound test. No layout together right now, so on the kitchen floor I go. Shallow tight carpet on the floor. Side by side I have 4 pieces of Lionel 027 tubular straights, Realtrax straights and Fastrak straight. The 027 is much quieter than the others. The sound from the Realtrax is a slightly lower tone than the Fastrak, but barely quieter. I had 3 cars, the boxcar and gondola from the Wisconsin Central set and an Atlas Rio Grande box car. I tried the cars each on different tracks and the Atlas car was quieter. All 3 cars had metal wheels. I kept the reciept for the track and unless you guys come up with some real good suggestions I will return the 3 unbroken Realtrax sections for Fastrak. And then sell all my tubular 027 and use the money to buy Fastrak.

A million dollar idea: someone make a good looking track that snaps together easily and is as quiet or quieter than old tubular track. Surely the technology is out there. The young couple in the apt above me have a newborn that cries a lot. I don't hear it but I don't want to wake it at 2pm when I have 2 trains running.

[Jumijo]

I have enough experience with FasTrack to tell you it's very, very easy to assemble and take apart. The noise really doesn't bother me either. Trains are supposed to be loud, right? Seriously, the noise, or alleged noise is subjective. All you can do is pick the track system that best fits your needs, wants, and budget. FasTrack isn't silent, but it is a very nice track system. It stays together well, it looks great, and the switches are rapidly getting a great reputation for reliability.

Jim

Jim

[Frank53]

tubular track lets you "cheat" a bit however. If you haven't cut something to teh exact length, or you need to cheat a curve a bit, you can do it with tubular track.

From looking at FasTrack, it seems to me that getting teh curve a half inch tighter or cheating a fill in section that is too long or short is not possible.