CRAFTS

Aluminium Tracks for Garden Railways

Children have been playing with miniature trains for generations, with the history of toy trains going all the way back to the 1860s and the first electric train produced by Lionel in 1901. Built out of thin metal or plastic parts, these trains were known as "tinplate."
31 May, 2016
Toy trains, however, are not just for children. Many adults prize elaborate model layouts in their spare room or loft, and quite a few have a garden large enough for an even more elaborate layout.
As far as hobbies and crafts go, building a model train and its tracks can be an expensive and time-consuming project. The cost of the track in particular is a major factor that keeps model train enthusiasts from investing in large-scale layouts. These tracks are often built out of nickel silver or stainless steel, and purchasing a large quantity of rail made out of either can be prohibitively expensive. Steel (which is also used in full-scale railroad track), brass, and aluminium are also widely used.
Aluminium garden rail tracks offer a far less expensive alternative to its more expensive counterparts and still works well for many enthusiasts. As with any other aluminium products, there are a number of different alloys available that offer different properties for users. One company producing aluminium tracks is Polk's GenerationNeXt, which bills its G gauge aluminium track as "a low cost alternative to stainless steel."

According to Polk's, this particular aluminium track offers less conductivity that brass and users are advised to compensate with more leads incorporated into their model train layouts. Live steam or battery-powered trains, however, should run on it fairly well, as they do not require electrically powered tracks.
When discussing model train tracks, "gauges" (which are identified by letters) communicate the distance between the track's primary rails. The G gauge offered by Polk's, for example, implies a distances of 1.772 inches (45 mm). Scale, meanwhile, indicates the ratio between the model and a full-sized train: in the G scale, for example, a real train is 22.5 times larger than the model.

Polk's is far from the only company to recognize the benefits of aluminium railway track, and a growing number of independent modellers have been learning how to fashion aluminium and create their own track for their garden railways for at least the past ten years. In spite of its reputation as a poor conductor of electricity, many of these modellers have been happy to employ aluminium for their powered track.

Image from G Scale Society.
Modeller Tony Nightingale explains the benefits of aluminium track like so:
It's cheap, no problem with conductivity, and it does not need all the extra cleaning (once every 3 months a very light sand). Now, with part of a wire brush under a cleaner wagon, I don't even have to sand it anymore.
Aluminium can be used for more than just model railways. Track manufacturers have started to market aluminium for ride-on railways in 5 inch (12.7 cm) and 7.25 inch (17.8 cm) gauges. In addition to the value of aluminium track, there are other advantages that encourage the use of aluminium in these gauges: the ease with which aluminium can be bent to the desired shape makes it especially easy to lay new track, and the metal can be formed more quickly than working with either brass or stainless steel.
Railways of these gauges are frequently used to produce portable layouts at shows and exhibitions. The low weight of aluminium makes it ideal for portable track that can be quickly picked up and moved to a new location as required. Aluminium tracks also do not rust.

Since the aluminium alloys used in many of these layouts are not hard metals, they are not necessarily suitable for heavy locomotives over a ton in weight. The advantage they offer, however, is that they do not wear out the wheels of the railway stock. Less wear on the wheels means lower maintenance costs, something small-scale locomotive owners have learned to appreciate. Considering that locomotives can be highly expensive, dealing with wear and tear is something ideally done sparingly.
Banner image by Wikipedia.