Brick Tracks free sample review

[Feuer Zug]

Recently, Brick Tracks did a little bit of advertising and putting their money where their mouth is by sending out free samples to 100 individuals. Upon receipt, I opened the envelope and checked the contents. I happened to get a segment of R104 track. The finish is excellent and nearly identical to LEGO tracks. The color is a virtual match and the finish isn't as glossy, but it's not easy to tell the difference at 10 feet. The track has fully compatible studs and tubes on the underside allowing for proper mounting and ballasting with real LEGO. The only difference is the studs have "BT" molded into the top and "Brick Tracks" and the curve size on the underside. While judging from Brick Tracks online catalog, each varying curve radius is designed slightly differently so one can tell by looking at the top the differences, the underside information ensure you can always figure out which piece is what.

The attachment to regular LEGO is the same setup and a breeze. The clutch ability is firm and I didn't have any problems connecting the segment of R104 to switches, straight track, curves, or flexi track. Once connected, the rail profile is the exact same. Running trains over it was a breeze and I didn't encounter any problems running regular LEGO PF trains or my diesel SD70ACe MOC over it with full rakes of well cars, coal hoppers, or passenger consists.

In summary, I am pleased with Brick Track's product and eagerly await their other geometry options. If they start to do switches and crossovers, I'd be even happier.

[icemorons]

On 1/27/2018 at 4:34 PM, Feuer Zug said:

Recently, Brick Tracks did a little bit of advertising and putting their money where their mouth is by sending out free samples to 100 individuals.

Is it still possible to get a free sample to review?

[Commander Wolf]

Someone in my LUG brought a full loop of BT R104 to a meeting last weekend, and it does seem to be pretty quality stuff. Track-to-track connection seems quite good, don't have a good feel on stud-to-stud connections though.

[coaster]

6 hours ago, icemorons said:

Is it still possible to get a free sample to review?

Sure, message me, I'll send you one.

5 hours ago, Commander Wolf said:

Track-to-track connection seems quite good, don't have a good feel on stud-to-stud connections though.

Oh, it's awesome.  :)

You too, shoot me a message and I'll send you one.

[zephyr1934]

The R120's are incredibly awesome. And as a bonus, a sequence of 2xR104 bending left, 5 16 long straights, and 2xR120 bending right jogs the track over 48 studs to the left while keeping the subsequent straight segments in line (under 1 stud offset) with where they would be had you gone straight (see the inside loop at the top of this layout for what I mean)

[Toxic43]

That's an awesome layout! I don't have the space like that but I do need some curves in a bigger radius like that though. The standard Lego curves send the Horizon express flying off the track at not even full speed! I want to have a high speed loop around the attic, but standard stuff just won't do. This track looks promising though. Any way to get it in the UK for a reasonable price?

[zephyr1934]

Yeah, that layout was a lot of fun and for now is my favorite for shows (I too do not have room for it at home), particularly having the inner loop pull away from the outer loop at the top of the diagram. The yard on the top is for freight and the one on the bottom for passengers.

But I digress, back on topic, I left out important bits from my last post. The R120 do not get you much that the R104's already provide but if you have the space, the wider the radius the better. Operationally I have several trains that will sort of run on R40's but are VERY testy, they run quite happily on the R104s and R120s at full throttle. It is great to see 3x 50 stud long cars in a 1/4 turn (instead of 1x on the standard curves), that is starting to look like a real train. I already have R88 and R104 from ME so I only went with the R120. It is neat to have 3 radii of curves to play with, something I did not appreciate when I first bought the ME track. So now the sidings can follow the curvature of the mainline.

In terms of quality, the BT curves are a league above ME. You could easily mistake BT for lego in terms of quality (though lego would never be so kind to us AFOLs as to produce such a large radius). The BT rail profile is identical to lego PF (whereas ME is similar to lego 4.5v). BT rails are plug and play with no problems (whereas ME is assemble, shatter, assemble, shatter, assemble + glue). If you are holding the BT track in your hand you could spot minor differences from lego, but those are imperceptible from more than a couple of feet. From a distance under very bright light the gray seems a hair lighter than that used by lego, but the difference in shade is probably smaller than the range you would see from pure lego in yellow or dark red.

Since I typically do not run on baseplates, a few years back with the ME curves I found out the hard way that after several hours of running that the tracks can slowly slide to the point where trains on adjacent tracks might collide if you failed to notice the creep. So I now use 2x10 plates as spacers every second joint on the curves and maybe every 3 ft on straights. This creep is not a function of the tracks, just the physics of trains being able to run over them at higher speeds. So it is a handy thing to know about. If you are ballasting or otherwise attaching the tracks to baseplates it should not be a problem. Also, if you are running lighter trains or paying attention every couple of hours it is easily fixed.

 

[Feuer Zug]

 

On 2/7/2018 at 4:27 PM, zephyr1934 said:

In terms of quality, the BT curves are a league above ME. You could easily mistake BT for lego in terms of quality (though lego would never be so kind to us AFOLs as to produce such a large radius). The BT rail profile is identical to lego PF (whereas ME is similar to lego 4.5v). BT rails are plug and play with no problems (whereas ME is assemble, shatter, assemble, shatter, assemble + glue). If you are holding the BT track in your hand you could spot minor differences from lego, but those are imperceptible from more than a couple of feet. From a distance under very bright light the gray seems a hair lighter than that used by lego, but the difference in shade is probably smaller than the range you would see from pure lego in yellow or dark red.

I will agree with Zephyr1934's statements. The profile on the tracks is spot on to the new stuff down to the little lip on the bottom of the rails. Brick Tracks has built an excellent product. While I've not used the ME rails, I've got the old blue 12V and can believe the problems with that stuff. BT is plug and play compatible.

[3797]

On 7.2.2018 at 4:27 PM, zephyr1934 said:

Removed

Edited February 12, 2018 by 3797
Will try and send a PM, tomorrow.

[coaster]

@3797 Did I miss something?  I'm doing quite a bit of marketing via Facebook, but Twitter, Pintrest, and Instagram are still new territory for me, and have only been dabbling in them.

If I missed a message, please send it again.  I get quite a few messages everyday across several platforms, so my apologies if something slipped through the cracks.

[legotownlinz]

When will R56 come out? I'll order a few of the other curves as well, just for fun, but R56 is the one I actually need.

[dylanfarrow]

15 minutes ago, legotownlinz said:

When will R56 come out? I'll order a few of the other curves as well, just for fun, but R56 is the one I actually need.

same q. Any idea Coaster?

[coaster]

Was hoping to have them done sooner rather than later, targeting a May/June release right now.  We've had good reason to delay them though: knowing how we want to do the 9V versions, we want to integrate that into the tooling, allowing us to produce either the PF or 9V version at will.  There are just some additional details that need to be worked out for that.  We are actively working on them though, so you will be seeing them soon.

[dylanfarrow]

8 hours ago, coaster said:

Was hoping to have them done sooner rather than later, targeting a May/June release right now.  We've had good reason to delay them though: knowing how we want to do the 9V versions, we want to integrate that into the tooling, allowing us to produce either the PF or 9V version at will.  There are just some additional details that need to be worked out for that.  We are actively working on them though, so you will be seeing them soon.

Many thanks!

[legotownlinz]

17 hours ago, coaster said:

We've had good reason to delay them though: knowing how we want to do the 9V versions, we want to integrate that into the tooling, allowing us to produce either the PF or 9V version at will.

I hope it has no side effects on the plastic-only version...

[coaster]

5 minutes ago, legotownlinz said:

I hope it has no side effects on the plastic-only version...

None at all.  The PF version will look exactly as you expect it to and be uniquely different from the 9V parts, just like what LEGO has produced.  Everything I've been talking about is behind the scenes stuff.

[davidmull]

Great quality. I received my piece and added it into my layout with a little flexy so it worked out. 

[Ragni Norgrimson]

Very nice to see and a good review! Would love to see it with 9v tracks too. I am only using the PF-System, but sometimews there is trouble with collaboratives if you only have PF tracks on hand and someone wants to run 9v on the layout.

It would be very interesting to show the tracks at a local lug-meating. I am trying to get some interest for custom tracks from other builders. We recently talked about doing the step into custom tracks direction with the larger curves.

@coaster Is it still possible to get a free sample? I would love to show it in my local lug to break the ice ;) Unfortunately I cant send you messages here!? (It tells me I have 0 messages left to send, try it later... did not even send one today...) I also dont have facebook nor instagram. But maybe you can send me a message ;)

[coaster]

17 hours ago, Ragni Norgrimson said:

Very nice to see and a good review! Would love to see it with 9v tracks too. I am only using the PF-System, but sometimews there is trouble with collaboratives if you only have PF tracks on hand and someone wants to run 9v on the layout.

It would be very interesting to show the tracks at a local lug-meating. I am trying to get some interest for custom tracks from other builders. We recently talked about doing the step into custom tracks direction with the larger curves.

@coaster Is it still possible to get a free sample? I would love to show it in my local lug to break the ice ;) Unfortunately I cant send you messages here!? (It tells me I have 0 messages left to send, try it later... did not even send one today...) I also dont have facebook nor instagram. But maybe you can send me a message ;)

Hi Ragni, send me an email at info@bricktracks.com.

And 9V is in the works.  :)