I'm interested in hearing how the Aristo stainless lasts. A year is not really long enough to make judgement.
Some of my Peco has been down 23 years in 3 different gardens. So I can recommend it.
To see how it wears look no further than the front page of the current issue of Garden Railways. The H10 is on one of my original pieces bought in 1988. I put older track in less used places like the mine siding. Photo 5 in this article shows the K4 on the Aristo where it spreads the track. Its a heavy Accucraft loco. As you can see from the article the Peco track looks ok as mainline track . That is until it is seen next to the Peco gauge one track in photo 9. The point has had to have a slight amount of plastic removed from the chairs to allow large 1:29 flanges to clear it.
Whilst I live further north than our friend in South Devon I live on the east and drier side of the UK, perhaps this could explain why the track spreads. Admittedly it only happens when the temp reaches 35C. But I would be interested to see whether I have just got one piece of bad track.
My Aristo SS is about 9 years old, no rotting ties or other problems.
I saw a bunch of stuff recently about rails spreading under heavy locos, but then was told later that people removed the screws from the rail. Dumb, because the rails on Aristo are not held by the "spikes" but by screws through the ties underneath.
You remove the screws, you remove the items holding the gauge.
It's not the best track in the world, but in SS, it's the most cost effective. (for now)
Greg
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
You really should look at code 250 track. I can't believe no one brought that up here, Greg usually does! The smaller rail makes your trains look real, not like toys as they do on code 332(Aristo/LGB/USA) Several companies make it, mine is Sunset Valley. AML has it as does Micro Engineering. Just get a section and set your train on it, then set it on a section of 332 and you will see what I mean. Sunset Valley switches are known as the best you can get also.
Jerry
web site:
http://thescrr.com/
I did bring it up.
PECO G scale is code 250. Their Gauge 1 is even better at code 200 but as I said my garden railway is at 1:29 which is about 10% bigger than the 1:32 that Peco is aimed at.
Also you have to bear in mind how much your track is walked on , Peco Gauge 1 is a little fragile but the G scale is OK.
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