Joining FastTrack to Gargraves or Atlas flex? (Also, magnetraction on Gargraves?)

[kageryu]

Hello all,

My wife re-opened a can of worms on a childhood obsession when she gave me a Lionel starter set for Christmas of '06 and prompted friends to give me an expansion set and accessories for '07. I've finally cleared out enough of the garage that I'm ready to start implementing some of the last year and change's schemes and dreams. But, I've already hit the point where my plans exceed the flexibility of off-the-shelf FastTrack.

I was wondering if anyone has had success joining FastTrack to Gargraves or Atlas? I have a two-door engine house I'd like to park my CC 762 Berkshire and the TMCC-upgraded 4-4-2 from my dear wife, but there's no way I can get FastTrack to line up with the doors, and it'll be way simpler to set up a reversing loop if I can use flex track to line things up too.

Do I need to use a Lionel Fasttrack to tubular conversion track, and then the Gargraves or Atlas to tubular connector pins? Or, can I pull out the FastTrack pins and use the aforementioned Gargraves/Atlas to tubular pins to connect to the FT directly?

Also, the Berkshire I've lusted after since I was a child and finally obtained last week is equipped with magnetraction. It's fairly clear to me that I'll lose that benefit on the Atlas rails. Gargraves' website describes their track as either stainless steel or tinplated steel, so I thought I'd be ok on their products... but then I saw another forum post mentioning magnetraction loss on Gargraves rails and was confused. I'm hoping someone can offer feedback about magnetraction engines on Gargraves rails.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Spawn of Chaos]

Perhaps what the person said about "loss of magnetraction" (wow what an idea lol) was that there was less traction on the tinplated steel Gargraves since there was a non-magnetic metal between the wheels and the steel. I think maybe stainless steel is less magnetic as well?

I don't do O scale, I'm just going by my understanding of those metals lol.

I kind of wish someone would do magnetraction in HO scale...haul that s***!

[Dave Farquhar]

Magnetraction works on Gargraves but not to the same extent as on Lionel track, the reason being that the metal is a lighter gauge. Less metal = less magnetism.

Using tubular adapters to connect Fastrack to dissimilar track is the only way that I know to do it. As popular as Fastrack is though, I'd almost suggest selling off the Fastrack and using the proceeds to buy Gargraves, as the Gargraves track is less expensive than even used Fastrack.

[Spawn of Chaos]

That too. Like I said, I know next to nothing about the actual track except what has alread been said in this thread, and what Dave said makes absolutely perfect sense.