A friend of mine just gave me some boxes of train stuff he found in a attic he was cleaning out all of the stuff he found was HO scale in one of the boxes there was woo road bed stright and curved pices never seen this before should i keep it or toss it?
If they have the ties milled into them they are very expensive road bed and well worth keeping. I forget the name of the company but it is a great hand laying start.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Believe you are referring to TruScale roadbed. Nice stuff, at least for it's time. However, it was replaced over time by the more flexible type of roadbed.
Bob
Believe you are referring to TruScale roadbed. Nice stuff for its time but not flexible as the cork and other products of course.
TruScale made three types of wood roadbed. Plain, Milled with ties and a slot for the rail, and roadbed with the rail installed. Also made turnouts and plain turnout blocks. Good in its time but sound is a factor if compared with cork.
With older TruScale roadbed you would want to make sure the wood has not warped over the years. I passed up a large supply a few years ago because it had obviously gotten wet in storage.
As is so often the case the invaluable HO Seeker website has old catalog info on TruScale track roadbed
http://hoseeker.net/truscale/truscaletrackbedpg02.jpg
http://hoseeker.net/truscale/truscaletrackbedpg03.jpg
http://hoseeker.net/truscale/truscaletrackbedpg04.jpg
http://hoseeker.net/truscale/truscaletrackbedpg05.jpg
More recently -- up to maybe a decade ago -- one of the scale lumber outfits, maybe Northeastern?, had a line of wood roadbed in different radius curves. it fit together using a sort of male/female interlocking shape at the ends, rather in the manner of Brio track. I do not recall if they also had straight track roadbed. What was interesting was that in a crude sense you could mate different curves to create approximations of easements
*** EDIT TO POST: by the way the Tru Scale roadbed with the ties and simulated tie plates milled into the roadbed was a very easy way to learn how to spike down rail. Maybe it did not qualify as "hand laid" track, but it was the next best thing and, again, a good learning method. If you come across a supply of that particular version of their roadbed it would almost be worth using it if nothing else as a good tutorial on spiking rail. I myself do not enjoy hand laying track but there are some in the hobby who find it (or claim to) relaxing and fun.
Dave Nelson
Tru-Scale plain roadbed is still available from Trout Creek Engineering (http://www.troutcreekeng.com/bkho.html) in O, On3, S, Sn3, HO, and HOn3 sizes. Along with many other supplies for track.
Fred W
My first layout used Truscale. I have a brass track laying tool some where. It was the best at the time. I have a friend who still has a lot on his opperating layout. As long as it doesn't get damaged it is wonderful. However, I do not have any on my current layout.
Wish I had a buck for every foot of that stuff I put down on a couple of club layouts I belonged to in the '60s and '70s. Looked terrific but, as was said, it did tend to be just a mite noisy!
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Truescale was quite popular many decads ago. Quite a bit of it was actually used in many areas of my club's first layout. To match this 1/4" pine was used in conjunction w/ it for all that hand laid track.
My club uses 1/4" clear pine roadbed exclusively. This method of construction basically is derived from the years of handlaid track. The wood base is easily cut, fit and sanded to accept glued ties. further sanding of the tie tops prior to staining then laying the track. We use a combination of production turnouts and handlaid as well as Walther's/ Shinihara mixed w/ weathered code 83 handlaid. This allows us so much flexability in the overall construction of specialty areas of the layout.
This is definately not for everyone and can be quite costly and labor intensive. We, however, have a full woodshop and can fabricate the material as needed.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org