When I painted the rail and ties, the objective was not preservation. It was weathering! The bright silver aluminum rails stuck out like a sore thumb next to a previously laid section of very well aged LGB brass track.
I guess I may have gotten lucky, having painted the UV resistant paint on my ties and rails. Perhaps in another ten years, we can make a comparison to see if the paint helped or not [assuming I'm still around that long].
Dave, thanks for the heads up on the potential problem. I have three boxes of ME ties I plan on trying with the new Train-Li plastic track. Maybe I should prepaint them with UV retardant paint before install, too.
Jim Carter
Like I said, and carefully so, this stuff is going on 18 years old.
And, I have no idea of current production.
I have a problem with having to paint my track to get it to hold up to the elements, but maybe that is the trick.
If you get to the Seattle Convention this year, you can see this first-hand.
The saving grace is that the pre-bent secions I used (6'8" radius) and straights are bonded to the ties with some kind of glue, helping to hold it all together.
You can scrape the ties down and almost get to the original dark brown.
Almost, not quite.
I have about 70 ft. of ME aluminum track on the back outside straight, under the HedgeApple trees along the cedar fence [in shade most of the time]. The track and ties were painted with Krylon camo brown at the time it was placed on the roadbed. To date, I have seen no obvious deterioration of the ties after 7 yrs.
JimC.
Current production unknown.
I purchased mine about 18 years ago.
The ties turned a light brown and sparkly in the sun, and became brittle.
I have been removing these sections as track re-alignment occurs, and replacing with Llagas.
We had one section where I needed more straight early on, and added ME I had stored in the box to existing ME, and the appearance of the ties was more than obvious.
Like I said, no idea on current production ME stuff.
In his article in the Aug 2009 issue, Dave Goodman indicated that he was switching from Microengineering to Illagas creek rail. Are there problems being experienced with the Microengineering product?
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