Newbie needs help

dave2004

New Member
Hi,
I'm new to the forum, but I've beed reading it for about a month now. Great forum!
I got a Life-Like double express train set for Christmas. It came with a 4 by 8 figure eight track and a 38" circle track. Both are power-loc tracks. It has 2 seperate trains and 2 power packs. My brother and I are interested in doing a layout. I have some questions I could use some help with,

1> Does Power-loc track have size limitations when doing a layout? What about two trains running in the layout? I don't see how you could solder any more power leads to it.
2> We were thinking of leaving the circle track in the middle of one end of the figure eight track. Then buying swiches or turnouts (I'm not sure which is the proper term) to attach the figure eight to the circle track so we could switch the train off on it. Is this possible?
3> If question number 2 is possible I would have to by power-loc switches. I really don't want to spend money on this track if it's expansion is limited, any ideas?
4> Is it possible to ballast power-loc track to make it look realistic enough for a layout?
I hope these questions make sense and thx in advance for your advice.
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
Power Lock track has the advantage of allowing you to put down the track to operate and pick it up again afterwards like Lionel O scale or LGB. It also has a couple of disadvantages. Virtually every manufacturer offers track similar to Power Lock, but none are compatible with the other brands. The second problem is that you are dealing with fixed radius curves, so you don't have as much flexibility as with flex track. I would reccomend that you and your brother enjoy the trains as they are, learn more about model railroading form the Gauge, magazines, etc., and then plan a layout with flex track permanately mounted to bench work. As far as running more than one train on the same track, you need to either have dcc or insulate sections of the layout known as "blocks."
 

shaygetz

Active Member
Welcome to The Gauge, Dave. Russ has you about covered. The only thing I would add is on adding power leads. My Chrismas garden uses this type of track (Bachmann's E-Z Lock). Rather than use the ugly terminal track (the piece the wires run to), I simply drilled a small hole next to each rail and soldered wire that had been fed up thru the bottom.
 
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