Extruded 'flex' rail

[chrisroode]

Hello train people.  I was setting up my lego train under the Christmas tree, and I got to thinking about my own ideas for lego train track.  I always circle back to this idea of taking some sort of o scale gauge rail, or such, and rework it into L-gauge to allow for better model railroad track in the layout.

Then I had the idea of maybe a plastic extruded rail that would friction fit with lego bricks.  So essentially you could use 1x8 tiles as the ties, and then create whatever shape you wanted for the curves..etc.  I don't have any drawings of what I'm thinking...but maybe later I would post some pictures to help you visualize what I'm thinking.

As for me, I love legos, but I am not at a place financially where I could build a whole lego city using 100% lego.  However, I am very interested in the idea of making a 1:48 scale lego train, and build a whole model railroad where natural elements are made with traditional model railroad methods (mountains and rivers and trees), but the constructed elements (bridges, buildings) are made with legos.  more flexible track would be perfect for this.

[zephyr1934]

Plastruct (or something like that) makes ABS architectural elements for modelers (both RR and architects), including an I beam that makes a nice lego rail. But it is a major hassle to maintain the gauge on curves, etc. So can be done, but a lot harder than I would think it should be.

The cheapest track solution I've seen is one where someone took decking material, ripped it down to maybe 1/4" strips and glued it together with wooden spacers to get the right gauge. I think they filled their entire back yard with it. This might be it...

 

The cheapest "lego-like" solution are the Chinese clones, which can be found all over ebay, amazon, etc.