# Rodent damage!



## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Long story folks. Many years ago when I worked at Niagara Hobby & Craft Mart near Buffalo NY I had the opportunity to buy some A-Line or TDV brand stainless steel track. MRC from NJ had imported it long before H&R trains had started to import it. At that time when we were selling LGB brass for $4 a foot and Aristo for $3.50 it was truly a tough sell to be selling SS track at $8 or more a foot. We never carried it at Niagara Hobby. Fast forward sevral years and MRC is clearing it out at a fraction of it's original price. I start buying 10 of their R3 switches at a time putting them on layaway and paying them off. I did that twice and there was one other employee at Niagara at the time that was doing it too. Since Niagara was the only one buying this stuff they offered the balanceor the track in stock to the owner at a huge discount. He spoke to the two of us and if we agreed to split it up he'd get it for us. We ended up splitting quite a bit of track but a lot of it was short pieces and small radius pieces. Keep in mind a LOT of this is when R3 was the largest you could find commercially built in the US at the time. Before big modern cars & locos and really even before 1:20.3 stuff was truly available. Anyhow origianlly they were going to store it for me but told me to come get it. It's been moved from a damp basement to a dry storage unit to another basement to another storage unit to a damp garage and now this past weekend with my In-laws preparring to retire and move back to W NY from CT it was moved from that garage to my garage. This track has not been moved for about 8 years now and the rural nature of the property and the wet location has not been kind to the things we ahd stored down there. Hopefully my in-laws living there will have better luck keepign it clean and dry and rodent free. I had some long rough cut planks that I'd stored down there that the carpenter ants had gotten to. and we know there were mice all over. Running the DR trimmer I chased several across the freshly cut weeds from time to time. Saturday night as I was unloading the trailer with all teh track in it I noted that many of the boxes were damaged. Some simply water or dampness damaged some were from the ants who ate the cardboard cases and into the inner boxes in some instances. Other and these were few the mice obviously had gotten into. It's these that will require some more work. as I re-staked these boxes as best I could and re-packed the ones that were toof ar gone I noted that many of the ties were brittle and many were chewed up or even off the rails. A good share of what I recieved in this deal were concrete ties of a style that showed separate sleepers on each rail joined by a simulated piece of angle iron which would be under the ballast in our application. 

I'm truly hoping that Aristocraft tie strips will fit to replace there or that Train-Li's will? You can see here from several years ago the style of tie strips I'm talking about.


















Overall I've been very disappointed in myself for the amount of damage my "train stuff" has undergone while it awaits me to set up soemthing in the yard! It's not just the track unfortunately.

Chas


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Train-Li American and European tie strips are the same as the LGB code 332 tie strips. 

One small difference on the European strips is when track is joined, the ties are evenly spaced (no tie gap shows) and this requires a shorter joiner but clamps fit nicely. 

Most users clamp flex rail so no problem. 

PS American ties come in various colors, check the train-li-usa.com website for colors and pricing.


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

One of the interesting "quirks" of A line track is that the slip on rail joiners are factory installed opposite the standard of everyone else AND they are spot welded on. Not a big deal to remove them but a destructive process to the joiners. As you noted Dan most folks use clamps and I plan to BUT with all the short pieces I have its an expensive proposition. Of course everything in this hobby is anymore. 
It iIS good to know that Train LI is the same as LGB in terms of fitting the rails. I've got a bunch of Aristo tie strips extra though too. Someplace. Actually i know where they are. Buried in the workshop in the basement currently. 

Didn't Axel advertise Red White and blue Tie strip recently? LOL! 

Chas


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