# Bachmann EZ Track for British OO Applications



## Chops (Dec 6, 2018)

I don't know if this something broadly available in the UK, but in the US it comes in both O and HO, the latter being my interest. It comes in two varieties: steel rail in a black plastic roadbed, or nickel silver in a gray plastic roadbed. Sturdy clips fasten the roadbed sections tightly together and the plastic roadbed allows the track to be set upon carpet or baseboard whilst providing an exceptionally even rail surface and no kinks in the geometry. 

North American modellers tend to turn their collective noses up at it, although for the determined sort one can ballast it over as well as any other foam or cork roadbed. As my experimentation with abundant and cheap surplus Atlas Code 100 sectional track revealed that OO flanges, tended to ride upon the miniature rail crampons, ride up and over flangeways in diamonds and turnouts, and even when using 1/87 British range stock. All in all, incompatabilities were rife between British model trains and North American range sectional track. 

Years before, I don't know about now, Fleischmann made a beautiful sectional track embedded into a weather ballast roadbed- and it cost at least four times as much as any other sectional track, at the time, so scrub that idea whilst trying to feed a family of five plus assorted pet butterflies, rabbits, dogs, and cats. 

To the point, I recently assisted a friend with building his HO layout, and owing to medical issues, he relies upon the relative reliability and simplicity of Bachmann EZ track. We banged out a rather nice pair of mainlines and one inner branch line within about five hours time, using no track plan, just applying what we had in inventory and along the lines he envisioned. 

Testing it with a couple of North American range pieces, it was soon evident that even on such a large space- 8 x 12 feet (1.4 x 3.7 metres) the stuff was remarkably derailment free and reliable. It was surprising to see something of this size work right straight out of the box. No bus wires were used, either. That sort of voltage drop appears to be mostly an AC thing. 

As I had tried, years before, using North American Atlas track for British rail without success, it was assumed that this EZ track would be no better. Yet, curiosity got the better of me, and I ran a Mallard with a rake of five, and then a vintage Electra with its pizza cutter flanges. To my astonishment, not only did these pieces run, they functioned superbly better in every aspect of speed control and trackability than they ever did on British OO track, and did not complain whatsoever when run through diamonds and #4 turnouts. 

Here is a mercifully brief video of that test, in this case I had graduated to trying out a Hornby Peckett with three axle coaches, a Rapido Tram, and a Dapol DMU. After this video was shot, a set of face to face #4 turnouts were placed to communicate from the outer to inner tracks. Anyone who has tried this knows that face to face #4's is an invitation for stalling and derailments. Again, the tiny Peckett pushed right through and the three axle coaches right behind without any trouble at all. 






I had been planning for a smallish expansion of Henley, using only British code 100 sectional track, and having discovered that _everything functions better on EZ track, all the plans for expansion have been scrapped and we will move forward using exclusively Bachmann EZ track._


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## vette-kid (May 2, 2020)

Interestingly, that stuff is generally considered garbage here. While the regular track sections are ok, the turnouts are horrible. Perhaps the British equipment just handles them better. Kato unitrack is by far a superior product (looks better too). 

By the way, it also comes in N scale. 

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk


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## CHRlSTIAN (12 mo ago)

Looks great ! It seems that the elevated loop is going nowhere. Am I right ? I successfully use Trix C track code 83 for all my Hornby stuff.


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## Chops (Dec 6, 2018)

Silly rabbit, don't you know Trix is for kids? Well, seriously, it does look very nice, especially the ballast. I had no idea that existed. Anyways, the order is in, this is $800 worth of EZ track, so Bachmann should be happy, especially all the grief I've given them, over the years. My summer project. Hopefully, can start this week. 










It's going to feature *eight* of these bad boys in a series of crossovers. If that doesn't keep the engineer awake, nothing will.


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## Chops (Dec 6, 2018)

*Working Out the Bugs in Ye Olde Henley*

Most of the time this EZ tracks works super.


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