The S Scale SIG
S Scale Track Products
Narrow Gauge

By Dave Heine

Sn3

I currently am hand-laying track on my "new" layout, but my previous layout used commercial track, including over fifty turnouts. I essentially used commercial track wherever possible, sometimes with modifications to turnouts to make them fit. This meant that there was some special trackwork on that layout that I had to hand-lay, including some dual gauge, special turnouts, and crossings.

There are two primary manufacturers of 3-foot gauge track and turnouts for the Sn3 modeler: P-B-L and Shinohara. You may hear the name Tomalco mentioned, but P-B-L now owns the narrow gauge portion of the former Tomalco track line. "Tomalco Track" is a different company today, offering standard-gauge products only.

Shinohara

Shinohara (available exclusively through "S"cenery Unlimited) makes nickel-silver Code 70 flextrack and Code 70 turnouts in the No. 6 size. The Shinohara flextrack has molded plastic ties with wood grain. The ties are 6'-6" long and have molded tie plates and almost scale spikes. It is the more flexible of the two brands of flextrack and its spikes are slightly larger than the P-B-L track. The flextrack comes in meter (39") lengths. On the turnouts, the head block ties are the ties on either side of the turnout throwbar. The head block ties are only a standard tie length, so you will have to add an extension to these ties for a switch stand. In the past, I used some excess flextrack ties for this purpose after sanding off the spike detail.

P-B-L

P-B-L (whose track products are made by Micro Engineering exclusively for them) offers Code 70 and Code 55 flextrack, with both plain nickel-silver and weathered nickel-silver rail. Their flextrack is 36" long. The ties are 6'-6" long molded plastic with wood grain and scale-sized spikes. They do not have tie-plate detail. This is not a negative, because many narrow gauge railroads did not use tie plates. P-B-L also has Code 70 turnouts in the #6 size. These are only available with plain (unweathered) nickel-silver rail. The P-B-L turnouts have standard-size ties for the headblock ties, but they include two extensions that have a pin that can plug into slots on either side of the headblock ties to extend them for a switchstand.

P-B-L also offers Code 55 stub switches in the #6 size, but only with weathered rail. Stub switches, which require bending the lead rails to select the path rather than using points, cannot be made in one assembly to be laid on your own roadbed. Thus, there is a modest amount of work needed in addition to the normal wiring, and an instruction sheet is included with the turnout. There are left and right hand versions of the special headblock tie which includes a molded casting to hold the ends of the stock and closure rails. You must select which one to use based on which side your switchstand will be located. The lead rail portion includes four molded standard ties at one end with a throwbar at the other end and two bridle bars to keep the track in gauge in between. There are six standard ties to place under the lead rail portion between the fixed ties and the throwbar. Since the rails need to slide over these ties, they have wood grain detail only. It has been made about as simple as it could be for a stub switch, and to my knowledge, this type of product is unique to Sn3. Other scales only have the custom kit-type of stub turnouts.

All the Sn3 commercial trackage products available require drilling the ties if you want to spike the track. There are no track spike holes like the track in some other scales/gauges. The commercial offerings are limited to Code 70 and 55 rail sizes and No. 6 turnouts.

Other Options

There are some custom trackwork manufacturers that will do work in Sn3, including Railway Engineering and BK Enterprises. These are more of a kit, although Railway Engineering will provide wooden ties between their standard PC board ties as an option. Another option is Fast Tracks, which manufactures jigs and other Sn3 track products. (See descriptions in the Standard Gauge section)

There are no commercial dual gauge S/Sn3 products. The custom track manufacturers will make dual gauge turnouts and other special trackwork, but you will have to hand-lay your plain three-rail track. That said, on my former layout, I did successfully glue a third rail on some standard gauge flextrack when I dual-gauged a former standard-gauge-only siding.

Sn2

There are no commercial Sn2 ready-to-run track products. But Sn2 uses the same track gauge and track standards as HOn3. So if you are totally averse to hand-laying track, you can use the HOn3 turnouts available from Micro-Engineering and Shinohara. You could also use their flextrack by spreading the ties farther apart, which greatly improves its appearance. To do this, you must cut all the webs between the ties that are under the rails, then slide the ties further apart. But there is a much better option. Portland Locomotive Works sells Sn2 plastic tie strip. All you have to do is slide code 55 rail into it and you have Sn2 flextrack!

Unfortunately, if you want ready-to-lay turnouts, you're stuck with the HOn3 ties on the turnouts unless you want to discard the ties entirely and re-lay (spike) the turnout to the proper-sized Sn2 switch ties.

There are some custom trackwork manufacturers that do work in Sn2. These include BK Enterprises, Light Iron Turnout Company, and Railway Engineering. These are essentially kits, similar to the descriptions of BK and Railway Engineering products described in the "standard gauge" section above. Another option is Fast Tracks, which manufactures jigs and other Sn2 products. Sn2 ties are available from Kappler as a standard item, and on an occasional batch basis from Mr. Albert. Light Iron Turnout Company uses using Fast Tracks jigs to fabricate their turnouts.