[lownote]

I'm looking for a cheap way to do yard which will be use to store cars. I've been considering using wooden "rails" or usng aluminim bar stock or bending old R! curves straight with the Train Li track bender. While I'm considering my options, I'm wondering--who makes code 332 aluminum rail? It might be the best combination of cost/ease of installation, but it's hard to find

 

[Jerry Barnes]

You can use code 250 and get a adaptor to blend the two rail sizes together. Sunset Valley carries the adaptor. http://www.svrronline.com/index.htm

 

[Curmudgeon]

Micro Engineering.

 

[Richard Smith]

Aluminum angle stock might work for you. Easy to drill holes in one surface and secure in gauge with screws. I've seen it in some hardware stores.

 

[fsfazekas]

I use aluminum rail, code 332 which I purchase from California & Oregon Coast Railway (http://www.cocry.com/)...though I believe that is a micro engineering product. If this is a storage/fiddle yard, I'd encourage you to be creative as even aluminum rail will be an expense for any considerable size. In my train storage cabinets I went from sectional track cut to fit to aluminum rail spiked to the shelves to wooden rails made from quarter round molding to two grooves cut into the shelves. For any additional storage I construct, I will be using the method that Ray Heckman devised in the Feb. 2008 Garden Railways (page 52) where rather than rails, a flat (1/8" - 1/4" thick) strip of wood or other material who's width is slightly less than the back to back wheel spacing (1 5/8" is cited) is used to guide the cars. For a drive in storage yard, I can conceive that you could transition from "regular" track to wooden rails that tapered down to the shelf/substrate guiding the cars onto such a storage mechanism.

 

[fsfazekas]

*just FYI, in listing the various types of rails I used in my storage cabinets I was trying to show an evolution toward simpler, less costly methods of guiding the rolling stock as each subsequent cabinet was built...not a transition between those types within a single cabinet!!  /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/tongue.gif LOL

 

[lownote]

I was going to just use wood but I believe I remeber a post from richard smith saying that the greater friction with wooden rails causes derailments. I'm planning this yard as an active storage barn, where I can can just roll an assembled train right out onto the track