Fast Tracks

Received My first Fast Tracks Fixture Today! First I'd like to say YAHOO!!

Really what I wanted to say was WOW one of the most carefully Packed pieces of model railroad equipment I have ever received. I have bought many items on-line and on E-Bay for my newest HO-HOn3 Railroad and I
am very impressed with the quality of the FAST TRACKS Fixture. After 20
minutes of checking out the HO-HOn3 Left and Right hand Turn out fixtures
I had to come say thanks for such a carefully engineered & manufactured
Tool also to thank you for the great care taken to ship them.

For the past couple of weeks while waiting for them to arrive, I have viewed the Videos of how to use the turn out fixtures more than a dozen times. I'm now to the point I that have them pretty well memorized.

Now I'm off to to try my hand at the first of more than 30 HO #6 Duel gauge Fast Tracks Turnouts I have to build for my Railroad.

Shinohara eat your hearts out, I found a better switch.

_________________
NARROW Gauge MINDED
and Proud of it !!

Well it's Day 2 and 4 Duel Gauge Turnouts later.
Thank You Fast Tracks these fixtures are "FANTASTIC"!!
after first opening the package and reading the duel gauge instructions
I saw the sentence " WE suggest that you build a couple Narrow gauge
turnouts and a couple standard gauge fast tracks fixtures before
attempting to build a duel gauge turnout"
I sank in my chair, I didn't buy any standard or narrow gauge fixtures.
I thought about it for a minute and thought I'll just watch the duel gauge
video. except there is no duel gauge video there was mention of using
the fast tracks tie template as a guide. I printed a full set of the tie
templates and after viewing the video on building the #5 standard gauge
turnout for the 25th time & set the video on loop and let it run.
I figured duel gauge can't be that much harder! Just 3 more frogs than
normal, 4 times as many guard rails and 20 or 30 more solder joints.
The first turnout took about 4 hours and each one after that was much
easier and quicker #4 still took close to 3 hours but it was now 2:30 in
the morning and I was satisfied for day 1.

Today I am measuring the Durango yard area to see just how many
of these I'm going to need. I also pulled the three Shinohara duel gauge
turnouts off the yard mouth and will use them some place out of view.
The Fast Tracks Turnouts are so much more realistic looking and wish I
had found Fast Tracks a year ago before buying and mounting the other
50 plus Narrow and standard gauge turnouts on the layout. I figured I'll
need about 40 of the duel gauge turnouts in the 3 yards I'm building and
I'll have to make my own jigs for building the duel gauge crossovers.
I'll keep checking to see if Fast Tracks has built any jigs for them.

Once again, what a great group of tools you guys at Fast Tracks have
made available to the model Railroading world! Please keep up the great
work.

_________________
NARROW Gauge MINDED
and Proud of it !!

You do relize that you can build the standard and narrow seperate each from the dual gauge by leaving out the parts for the section not being built and adjusting tie width for the narrow guage only switches.

I have watched the videos many times and no just waiting on funds for the first purchase.

Kurt

_________________
Kurt Konrath

SP was king of the road, Cotten Belt will run forever! D&RGW will rule the hills!

Thanks! I believe your correct after checking a minute ago it does look
like I could but there are a few less Frog Points to make and the altering
of a couple rails.
To let you know that for now I'm having too much fun with the duel gauge
turnouts and I would like to try to build about 6 duel gauge crossovers if
I can figure it out using the fixtures. I did buy both the left side L/R duel
gauge and right side L/R duel gauge fixtures and as of yet have only built
3 L/left hand duel turnouts and 1 L/right hand duel gauge turnouts and
working on the 2nd L/right hand which will get the yard started.

I'll tell you one thing (Tim Warris) I believe made the videos of how to use
Fast Tracks & Makes building these turnouts look like a walk in the park.
Well I hope someday soon I get half as good at it as him. The very first
turnout I made was 100% functional but wouldn't win any beauty contest.
I also forgot to cut the copper on the PC Ties before I built my first turnout
being in a little to much of a hurry to get started so I spent a good 30 min
cutting them after completion and now have no short circuit problem. It's
always the simplest things that I screw up on LOL.

Like most things in the Model Railroaders Hobby The number 1 & 2 rules
are and have always been: Take your time and read the instructions as
you go and I failed rule 2 this time. Live & learn!!
Thanks again for your comments and alerting me to the fact I can build
other turnouts with my fixtures.

_________________
NARROW Gauge MINDED
and Proud of it !!

Hi Rio-Grande-Dan

You can build standard and narrow gauge turnouts in a dual-gauge fixture and complete the turnout using QuickSticks. For the standard turnout you can use the QuickStick for a #6 turnout by simply removing a few extra ties where the extra PC board ties are located for a dual-gauge turnout. We also make a narrow gauge QickStick for turnouts built in the dual-gauge fixture and these have a narrow-gauge tie profile with ties that are a bit skewed to represent typical narrow-gauge construction. You should also use narrow-gauge PC board ties that are a bit smaller than the standard gauge ties. They fit a bit loose in the fixture, which isn't a problem since the rail is held in gauge by the fixture. Call or e-mail me if you need more information.

_________________
- Terry -
Customer Service - Fast Tracks HobbyWorks Inc.
service@fast-tracks.net

I thought about dual gauge crossovers as well for my HO/HOn30 layout. Originally I wanted both narrow gauge tracks on the "outside" of the standard gauge tracks. If you can't visualise it, it meant having a standard gauge track centres of 2" and narrow gauge track centres of 2.3". Unfortunantly, this would mean having a transition track between the turnout and crossing. I don't believe there would be enough room, unless I went to a #10 or larger turnout. This would defeat the purpose of the space saving.

The other way would be to construct it so both narrow and standard gauge track centres were 2", which isn't what I want. I would then need to install a couple of transition tracks after the toes of two of the turnouts to get the 2" and 2.3" track centres I am after.

So at this point in time, I have thrown it into the "too hard" basket. Mind you, I wil have another look at it before I get to laying the section where the dual gauge crossovers would be put.

Hope this makes sense.

John.