Depending on how heavy a rail one uses, anyone interested might check out Andy
Reichert's fine-scale spikes, which come etchedin a strip. His website is
something like proto87.
Jace Kahn
General Manager
Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co.
I don’t know what happened to ME, but their current spikes are
nowhere near as good as they were 25
years ago, and that was verified recently when I scrapped out a
piece of hand lay track from the old SLE&P. The Walthers
spikes are even better than the old ME spikes, though.
I had a couple of places (over under-track magnets, trestles) where I
thought I could use the ME micro spikes, but I don’t have a tool that can
reliably hold them. I shoot more of them off into space than into
the ties... They make an interesting bit of scenery if left piled near
some track supplies, even if they are just a tad too large for true
scale. I am not sure that one could even see truly scale spikes as
more than just a bit of fine wire fuzz. And speaking of such
things, I salvage the ties from the scrapped track as much as
possible. They have very realistic looking marks left over from the
rails -- and spike holes, of course -- more scenery items for around the track
maintenance area (rails, frogs, spikes, tie plates and ties)... And
I actually do reuse some of the old ties now and then.
Have fun!
Bill Winans
---------------------------------
Bill,
You’re right: the Walthers “Code 83/100” spikes are very
nice. I bought some to play with because when I opened a new bag of Micro
Engineering “Small Spikes”, I discovered that they have changed from the ones
that I have been using. The heads are large, misshaped and ugly.
They are almost unusable.
In the more visible places, I still prefer the Micro
Engineering “Micro Spikes”. Not great holding power until the ballast glue
is applied, but they are close in size to the spikes on the Tomalco flex Track
that I use.
Roger Nulton
