Micro-Trains/Atlas Update - 1/20/26

[Ed Kapuscinski]

A great opportunity for the more-skilled members to teach and help that guy hone his skills.

I'm considering joining a FreeMo-N group, so I'd be one of the teachers.

But that's not the way it works at big events. If someone shows up with something that doesn't work, nobody's taking a break from setup to help that person redo their track. It's just simply not possible.

I guess my point is that those situations always have the potential to occur and Freemo, being less forgiving, makes them more challenging than something with larger tolerances.

[peteski]

Since we have totally gone OT here, I might as well continue. 
I believe Bob's main gripe is that the Atlas C55 flex track has large "spikes", which is a visual issue, and also happens to interfere with large flanges.  I doubt Bob is worried about the fact that large flange wheels ride on the "spikes". He mainly dislikes the appearance.

I also doubt that PECO was really considering North American N scale (MTL pizza-cuttter) wheels when they designed their 55 track system. We all know that European N scale (to this day) still uses very large flanges. PECO was designed with that mind, and if by chance this also works well with American large-flange pizza-cutter wheels that is just a happy coincident.  That's just my speculation.

As for Atlas flex track, I am well aware of the very loose rail in the C80 track.  It is definitely not a good design.  Since I don't remember last time I had a chance to deal with Atlas C55 flex track I don't remember its design. So does Atlas C55 flex also feature very loose rail (s), repeating the poor design of the C80 track?

[dem34]

Exactly. We forget about it because we hang around here, but go take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/modeltrains/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/nscalemodeltrains/. There are a lot of people who's skills haven't developed to the point we consider a "baseline" around here.

My only issue is with those places is that it gets to that weird point where they are too supportive to the point it pushes people into just bad decisions to "Clown on the Rivet counters" then the person on the other side decides N scale is unreliable because his track is a kink convention, grades are making their best impression of an incline railway, and ballast is representing a prolonged lock failure on a full ballast train all the while his roster is mostly stuff from the 70s because he needs a big collection to stick it to the robber barons at Scaletrains.

As for Atlas flex track, I am well aware of the very loose rail in the C80 track.  It is definitely not a good design.  Since I don't remember last time I had a chance to deal with Atlas C55 flex track I don't remember its design. So does Atlas C55 flex also feature very loose rail (s), repeating the poor design of the C80 track?

Yes. But in my case makes it easier to recycle the rails out of them. Just yank the rail and it slides shmoove out. 

[Dave V]

I also had issues with those large Atlas code 55 spikes still somehow being insufficient to hold rail in place during tracklaying. But my main issue was the unreliability of the turnouts. Floating point rails on the throwbar, Chinesium frogs that won't take solder, etc. Those feeder wire tabs for the frog were unreliable and would often fail after a few months of use. I didn't have that much trouble with the turnouts on the Enola Yard section of the Juniata Division v1.0, but I did struggle mightily with the code 55 on the Colorado Midland version 1.0...leading me to believe there was a batch-dependence issue.

All of which is too damn bad, because it looks fantastic. And gave you may more turnout choices than ME.

I know there are guys here who've used Atlas turnouts in code 55 with zero issue, and I envy you...but such was not my experience. Not by a long shot.

[JoeD]

  thread drift ahoy  LOL 

[peteski]

My only issue is with those places is that it gets to that weird point where they are too supportive to the point it pushes people into just bad decisions to "Clown on the Rivet counters" then the person on the other side decides N scale is unreliable because his track is a kink convention, grades are making their best impression of an incline railway, and ballast is representing a prolonged lock failure on a full ballast train all the while his roster is mostly stuff from the 70s because he needs a big collection to stick it to the robber barons at Scaletrains.

Yes. But in my case makes it easier to recycle the rails out of them. Just yank the rail and it slides shmoove out. 

Who in their right mind would use Atlas C80 track (for handlaying projects?), or are you talking about C55 track and thus confirming that C55 track also has loosely fitted rails?

[peteski]

  thread drift ahoy  LOL

 
HUGE DRIFT!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

My only issue is with those places is that it gets to that weird point where they are too supportive to the point it pushes people into just bad decisions to "Clown on the Rivet counters" then the person on the other side decides N scale is unreliable because his track is a kink convention, grades are making their best impression of an incline railway, and ballast is representing a prolonged lock failure on a full ballast train all the while his roster is mostly stuff from the 70s because he needs a big collection to stick it to the robber barons at Scaletrains.

Lol, yep. Well, Redditors gonna Redditor. And they're often morons. But they're also representative of the big tent of model railroading.

[robert3985]

Since we have totally gone OT here, I might as well continue. 
I believe Bob's main gripe is that the Atlas C55 flex track has large "spikes", which is a visual issue, and also happens to interfere with large flanges.  I doubt Bob is worried about the fact that large flange wheels ride on the "spikes". He mainly dislikes the appearance.

I also doubt that PECO was really considering North American N scale (MTL pizza-cuttter) wheels when they designed their 55 track system. We all know that European N scale (to this day) still uses very large flanges. PECO was designed with that mind, and if by chance this also works well with American large-flange pizza-cutter wheels that is just a happy coincident.  That's just my speculation.

As for Atlas flex track, I am well aware of the very loose rail in the C80 track.  It is definitely not a good design.  Since I don't remember last time I had a chance to deal with Atlas C55 flex track I don't remember its design. So does Atlas C55 flex also feature very loose rail (s), repeating the poor design of the C80 track?

@peteski - Peter, yup you're correct that my main gripe with Atlas55 is the huge blobs holding the rails to the tie strip.  I am also not defending Kadee's original pizza-cutter wheels since I started machining them into a pretty good resemblance of a scaled-down HO RP25 profile before I had built my first NTRAK module, because I hated their appearance (I still do).

As for Atlas55 flex...yes, it is "floppy" flex, the propaganda being that it forms "natural" curves, which it does, but, it also doesn't stay in place unless securely glued down. 

It is advertised as "Atlas Code 55 track is the choice of discriminating modelers, featuring simulated brown wood ties and fine nickel silver rail and offering unparalleled prototypical looks and performance that has garnered praise and acclaim throughout the industry. Designed with precision and sophisticated technology, Atlas' N scale Code 55 track has the same reliability and durability as our popular Code 80 track, but with some slight differences that make it more prototypical. Code 55 track is characterized by having finer brown ties and smaller rail than Atlas' traditional Code 80 track."

Also "Atlas Code 55 track is the choice of discriminating modelers, featuring simulated brown wood ties and fine nickel silver rail and offering unparalleled prototypical looks and performance that has garnered praise and acclaim throughout the industry."

The comparison to Atlas' "traditional Code 80 track" also includes the loose rail on one side, which has been a problem for Atlas80 track since it was introduced a looong time ago, but mitigated by the commonly used, wide wheel treads on most N-gauge wheelsets in the early days.  However, with the fairly recent introduction of more prototypical appearing metal lo-profile N-scale wheelsets with narrower wheel treads, the widening gauge problem of both Atlas80 and Atlas55's gauge because of the loose tolerances of the loose rail that allows it to slide easily in the tie strip has become more evident and is causing random derailment problems much more frequently.

Atlas' claim that their flex offers "...unparalleled prototypical looks and performance and has garnered praise and acclaim through the industry." is patently overly optimistic as the pizza-cutter incompatibility was because of the definitely un-prototypical appearing blobs which don't look anything like any type of prototype rail attachment hardware on wooden-tied North American trackage, which was not what I would consider "unparalleled" since Rail Craft/Micro Engineering flex in Code55...far outclasses Atlas55 in both looks and performance, with no compatibility problems with legacy pizza-cutter wheelsets.

As for "natural curves" Atlas80 and Atlas55 both offer this feature because of the loose rail design and is generally easier to lay as opposed to the stiffness in both Peco55 and ME Code55 flex.  However, both Peco and ME flex stay put after bending them to your chosen curvature, the stiffness easily allowing more sophisticated and prototypical curvature techniques such as spiral easements, which greatly improve operational reliability and appearance of long cars and engines on typically small N-scale track radii.

As to whether Peco considered Kadee/MTL pizza-cutters when designing their Code55 trackage is questionable.  Which emphasizes the fact that much of the N-gauge/N-scale world's manufacturer's "standard" flange size was LARGE, with Micro-Engineering being one of the first (if not the first) manufacturers to mass-produce injection-molded low-profile wheelsets 20+ years before Atlas55 was introduced while giving modelers a choice between their own "standard" pizza cutter flange size or their low-profile flange size just for appearance's sake since pizza cutters from any manufacturer could run without problems on any N-gauge track that was being produced at the time...which included Code80, Shinohara Code70 and Rail Craft Code55.

Isn't code 80 track compatible with pizza cutters?  Atlas code 55 track was an important step forward in looks IMO and operates reasonably well.  If someone has reason to continue to use pizza cutters, well, they have options. 

@Scottl - All N-gauge and N-scale flex track is compatible with pizza cutters.  ONLY Atlas55 isn't.  The two other manufacturers' Code55 offerings (Peco55 & ME Code55) don't have interference problems with pizza cutters...only Atlas55.

Rail Craft/Micro Engineering Code55 flex was introduced in the "early 1990's" ten or so years before Atlas55 and looks more prototypical because of its small spikehead/tieplate details as opposed to Atlas55's huge blobs.  It was Rail Craft/Micro Engineering who took the first important step forward with the introduction of their Code70, Code55 and yes, Code40 flex track, nearly a decade before Atlas55.  ME's problem was that they only produced their #6 turnouts and didn't expand the line, which Atlas, with its deeper financial pockets, did shortly after they introduced their C55 flex to the market.

As for operating "reasonably well" I remember well the clamor when it was discovered that pizza cutter wheelsets wouldn't run on Atlas55 flex.  Modelers didn't question that their trains, most of which at the time weren't equipped with low-profile flanges, would have problems with the new, good-looking Atlas55 trackage, so...it was a huge negative surprise and let-down for a majority of N-scale modelers who wanted better-looking trackage and weren't willing to convert their entire roster of pizza cutter flanged cars and engines to low-profile wheels.  Nowadays, it isn't nearly as big of a problem as it was 25 years ago since most manufacturers are supplying their cars and engines with non-pizza cutter flanges, and for those cars that still have pizza cutters, it's not a problem to convert them to readily available, easily installed metal, low-profile excellent-running wheelsets. 

Atlas55 turnouts also have the flange-clearance problem, but due to poor production choices and poor materials and build techniques, Atlas55 turnouts often have quality control problems such as jumpers de-soldering, plating wearing off of point rails and frogs, point rail toes needing cleaning up when they catch flanges...and not forgetting that every Atlas55 turnout is out of proportion, the distance from the frog to the point rail toes being much too short so that their #7 turnout is actually very close to being a #6, their #10 is very close to being a #9 and their #5 is very close to being a #4...resulting in curvatures that may be too small to run longer cars and engines, particularly with their #5. 

So, what is "reasonably well"??  I want my track to operate as near perfectly as I can make it, so, just about any commercially manufactured turnout isn't good enough, but Atlas' are well-known to have problems..both cosmetically and functionally.

Which is why I build my own turnouts, much sturdier, correctly proportioned, much more reliable, more versatile and much less expensive...and, always available.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

EDITED to correct grammar and typos





 

[MK]

  thread drift ahoy  LOL

Tsunami coming!  Run for the hills!!!

[peteski]

To add to the MTL pizza-cutter wheel design discussion, I doubt MTL came up with it by themselves. Since back in the late '60s there was no NMRA wheel standard for N, they likely based their wheel flange dimensions on other existing (mostly European) models.  If you look early N scale models from those days, they all shared the deep flange (toy train) characteristics. Early Arnold rapido, Minitrix, Roco, Rivarossi and others had deep flanges.  Kato, even from the early years, did not have flanges as deep as the other brands (but they came onto the market later on). I believe Bachmann also didn't have flanges as deep as European models, and IIRC, the first wheelsets getting close to NMRA specs were Con-Cor. I remember buying bunch of those to retrofit some of my cars.  They looked much more prototypical than other wheels. Of course Northwest Short Line eventually also produced wheels with low flanges and narrower tread.  But deep flanges are still widely used in European model.

[learmoia]

This thread drift discussion is dumb.. 
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[dem34]

Well sorry to rain on your...
6in gauge..
pizza cutter?
parade ig.

Like I am going to add to my soapbox venting
Do you guys like... look at the AI images before you post them places?

[peteski]

This was a rather informative thread  . . .

[Iain]

i like ducks