Tie Width and Spacing on Various HO Flex Track & Turnouts

[Anonymous]

As I am nearing the time to select a brand of code 83 HO flex track and turnouts for the layout that I will be building. I have closely examined Atlas, Micro Engineering, and Walthers. Each has different tie widths and spacing from the other. What's more, Atlas flex track seems to differ from their custom line switches. Perhaps, I saw wrong. I would appreciate confirmation or correction on this.

Which brand is most like the prototype? While I have not seen Peco's code 83 track, I also am open to that.

The other day during my lunch hour, I took a look at a CSX line. Using just my hand as a measuring device, it appeared that tie spacing ranged from 1 to 1.6 times the width of the ties. Of course, without a ruler, a cannot say how that compares with widths found on models.

[cwclark]

Atlas is the least of the turnouts with a "Prototype look"...it has huge frogs and the point rails are held to the ties with two big grommets that stick out like a sore thumb...peco's are ok but they are hard on tortoise and atlas machines..you'll have to remove the spring clip on the points to get them to work with turnout machines..(they work best if you are into hand thrown turnouts but they are very prototype....I like the walther's and the shinohara brands..(shinohara make's the walther's turnouts)..for the money these are the one's i use..I believe that if it's shinohara then it's code 100 and if it's the walther's brand it's walther's code 83 brand...atlas makes a good flex track...it's easier to bend into curves than the other brands of flextrack...I've never used micro engineering stuff so can't help you there ...chuck

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the helpful feedback.

As for flex track, which do you think has the most prototypical look in terms of tie width and average distance of tie spacing?