ME Flex

[peteski]

Looks like the rail is weathered *BEFORE* being placed in the tie mold.    Soldering should no be a problem if one cleans the weathering first. The metal needs to be bright and shiny before any soldering is attempted.

[Scottl]

Hmm, the reality seems to be different than the perception, the pre-weathered is an advantage in my mind if there are not unweathered parts exposed during flexing.  That is good looking track up close but I am still pretty put out by the tie alignment issues Gary posted.

[mmagliaro]

I have used the ME preweathered rail  because I once ordered some that way quite by accident.
First, it does not expose unweathered rail when you flex it.    In fact, I have a few stretches of it
in my current layout and am looking at it as we speak.

Second, it is harder to flex because that rough weathered surface is harder to slide through the ties,
but not much harder than shaping ordinary ME flex.  Folks just need to get used to working with this type
of track.  You start at one end of a bend and gradually work your way around a curve.  Then you go back
over it and bend it along some more.  Eventually you get the radius you want and work out and
sharp spots.  If you use a track radius gauge like a Tracksetta, RibbonRail or SweepSticks, it makes this process
very very easy.

I used it on my curved trestle and it sure did make that easier to build.  I could bend the track to the exact path
it was supposed to follow, and then fit the trestle bents in under it.

If there hadn't been such a lack of choices of turnouts and crossings, I would have stayed with ME track.

And now, ironically, there is a lack of turnouts and crossings in Atlas track, but hopefully, that will only be true for
a few more months.

[rochsub]

I did not read this entire thread.  But, I just wanted to add that I use ME non weathered code 55 flex on my Union Pacific Railroad Geneva Subdivision.  I highly recommend it.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1YYYRVs0TkSNNpRipMeyQw

Daryl

[GaryHinshaw]

Agreed, the weathering is pre-applied; it doesn't have bare spots.  DKS, does your sample have the offset problem noted upthread?

One other odd thing I noticed about wood tie vs. concrete tie (both pre-weathered): I've had to polish the railheads on the wood tie track to get good conductivity, whereas I can just lightly wipe the rails of the concrete tie track and I have no conductivity problems at all.   (I prefer to keep the weathering on the rail head if I can - and with the concrete, I can.)   I wonder if they have different weathering solutions for the two lines?  I wouldn't think so, but I'm puzzled by the difference.

-gfh

[Denver Road Doug]

Well, I don't often have a ton of good experience when it comes to questions such as these, but in this case I do so I'll throw out my comments...

I suffered for literally decades when I was in HO trying to lay flextrack because (a) I was very young and ignorant, (b) I was trying to use a dremel instead of Xuron's, (c) I was (over)spiking large track nails through the holes in the ties...all on Atlas flex that I did not "get" how to work.

When I returned to the hobby and this time in N, I used Peco C55 track for small switching layout started in ~'01 time frame.  Peco flex has a similar stiffness to the ME flex, and it was then that I started developing a technique.   I improved this technique working on a club layout for a few years.  The beautiful BENEFIT of Peco and ME that's been overlooked is that you can basically form/fit it into place without securing it, then *weather* it on the workbench.  So really the "unweathered spots showing up" problem really isn't a problem for the most part, although it does rear its ugly head on occasion.  (and I agree that buying the weathered rail is still the way to go when speaking ME, simply as a bit of a timesaver for wooden ties...but IMPERATIVE when talking concrete ties unless you like masking track 3 or 4 times to get where you want to be.

Later on, I was working on another layout that was a mix of concrete ME55, Atlas C55, some wood ME55, and some wood ME40.  I spent (too much) time futzing around with more technique, and was having particular trouble with Atlas at first, then kinda figured it out, and then struggled with ME even though it was similar to the Peco I had used.   While it has some of the same characteristics, curving the ME is very much an art form and it requires a lot of patience.   At first, it feels like you are really screwing it up, but if you keep working it, eventually it all comes together and flows like you expect.   And there are some frustrating times where the flash and malignments just bring things to a halt until you work past the flaw...definitely nothing like the process with Atlas which is very "obedient".

Anyway, my point in all this is that, IMHO none of these products are bad, or any worse than any others...but they are indeed VERY different in how you approach it.   (For example, it's nearly impossible to "bench weather" a curve of Atlas flex...)

Couple more things...
1. I haven't tried this trick but I've seen it posted a couple of time and thought it had merit...take a piece of HO code100 Atlas flex and use it, upside down, to form ME curves.  It effectively keeps you from trying to form the curve like you would with Atlas C55, to avoid the point I mentioned above where you feel like you've really screwed up.   It supposedly lines up the C100 rails perfectly on the outside of the ties.  Again, this might need a snopes investigation but I thought I would throw it out there.
2. One thing I like to do is paint the concrete ties a whiter color.  Just personal preference but it looked better to me than naked plastic. (I bet that drives the ads wild)  And, I paint the "pandrol clips" too...maybe not practical on a huge layout, but it's something I do.   I laid a section of doubletrack that was probably 15ft long on a friends' old layout and it looked really nice.  I'll see if I can find pics.

[mark.hinds]

I know this is an old thread, but I figured someone might search for "ME flex" and read this, so ...

I just received some ME code 55, non-weathered, wood tie flex track directly from them, so presumably it's recent production.  Each 36" piece of flex seems to have four 9" plastic tie strips threaded on it.  Each tie strip has a slight degree of randomness in tie length and positioning, and it just so happens that the last tie is slightly offset to the right.  However, this offset is barely noticeable, and nowhere near as noticeable as in Gary Hinshaw's image, so they seem to have corrected this problem since he bought his. 

Mark H. 

[daniel_leavitt2000]

How is the flash on the new run? I like the look of ME track better than Atlas, but the thought of de-flashing 1000 of track. No. Just no.

[Chris333]

You guys need to talk with this guy:

[Scottl]

I always assumed that a machine churned these out.  Crazy to see how much human intervention is needed. 

[ednadolski]

So what can he make, like maybe 50 pieces per hour?

From this is is not hard to see where the tie misalignments like the one in Gary's pic would come from.

Ed

[mark.hinds]

How is the flash on the new run? I like the look of ME track better than Atlas, but the thought of de-flashing 1000 of track. No. Just no.

My ME code 55 flex has little more flash perhaps than in the samples I bought from a LHS 5+ years ago.  I will have to do some cleanup, but it's still acceptable.  It's not as clean as Atlas code 55.    I may post an image to show typical (minimal) flash. 



WRT the other recent comments above, I think that the issue with Gary's samples was systematic (such as a mis-adjusted tool or jig), and that the "fix" (whatever it was) is systematic as well.  I bought 12 x 3' pieces, checked all of them, and they are all the same.

MH

[GaryHinshaw]

WRT the other recent comments above, I think that the issue with Gary's samples was systematic (such as a mis-adjusted tool or jig), and that the "fix" (whatever it was) is systematic as well.

I would think so too, as I had several sticks with the same issue.  FWIW, they were purchased quite a while ago.

[OldEastRR]

I also bought some recent ME and the ties look fine. I also have old ME track from decades ago, but not much flash problems on that. And then I have some ancient RailCraft flex (25+ YO) I'm using as spur/siding tracks since the ties are somewhat ragged and are thinner than the ME so the rail sits a bit lower. The recent ME plastic "wood" is darker than the 20-yr old stuff, making the old ties look weathered.
As for which track is better of all available I think this is the same as a "Do you like Fords or Chevys (or Honda vs Toyotas) better?" type of thing.  How easily you can get the product to do what you want has the most effect on personal preference.

[robert3985]

I also bought some recent ME and the ties look fine. I also have old ME track from decades ago, but not much flash problems on that. And then I have some ancient RailCraft flex (25+ YO) I'm using as spur/siding tracks since the ties are somewhat ragged and are thinner than the ME so the rail sits a bit lower. The recent ME plastic "wood" is darker than the 20-yr old stuff, making the old ties look weathered.
As for which track is better of all available I think this is the same as a "Do you like Fords or Chevys (or Honda vs Toyotas) better?" type of thing.  How easily you can get the product to do what you want has the most effect on personal preference.

I beg to disagree with you.  The best looking, presently available flextrack is ME track, if your definition of "best looking" answers the question "Which N-scale track looks most prototypical?"

I have a substantial cache of "ancient" Rail Craft code 55 and code 40 flex and it looks even better with its more random and much smaller spikehead details.

Since a photo is worth a thousand words, here's a direct comparison between Atlas 55 and "ancient" Rail Craft 55.

Photo (1) - Atlas 55 vs Rail Craft 55:


I am always open to purchasing anybody's stock of unused Rail Craft track when I happen upon it.

As the photos in previous posts in this thread show, the difference between Atlas 55 and Micro Engineering 55 is less than the difference between Atlas 55 and Rail Craft 55, which is unfortunate, but is why I use Rail Craft 55 and 40 for foreground scenes. 

Photo (2) - Rail Craft 55, Painted, Weathered and Ballasted at Echo Curve...Try to match this flextrack with any presently manufactured N-scale track product:


As far as the color of the plastic ties are concerned, I paint mine for much more added realism, to get rid of that plasticky sheen, and also weather them both before and after I ballast.  On sidings, I also snip away the between-tie-spacers and spread the ties out a bit to represent the tie spacing used on medium and lightly trafficked track vs heavily trafficked mainlines. I also take a sanding block to the ends of the ties to square them up before laying...doesn't take long.

This is definitely not a "Ford vs Chevy" question as far as appearance is concerned.  Maybe it is as far as whether you like floppy Atlas or stiff ME flex, but the Looks Award goes to ME flex because of its smaller (narrower, shorter) and non-centered spikehead detailing...with Atlas 55 coming in a distant second place.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore