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How hard is it to remove the metal rails of 9v track and place them back in to the track part? I thought maybe one our train people could shed some insight.
My first question would be why would you want to do that? Regardless, my guess is that removing the metal is going to cause some irreversible bending of the thin metal that will prevent it from going back on the track easily. On the other hand, if what you are thinking is practical, there is probably a youtube video showing how to do it. 🙂
The purpose is to take it out of the dark gray ties and put it in trans clear ties for an ice planet MOC I’m working on.
The purpose is to take it out of the dark gray ties and put it in trans clear ties for an ice planet MOC I’m working on.
Weird. And I have no idea how to do it. But cool idea! #subbed
You have trans-clear railroad track? Wow! Well, I am sure you considered that a power functions train does not require the metal rails. It sounds like it would be better without them.
Yes but the power functions track is all one piece, so I am assuming that the trans-clear track Walter has or is considering getting has no rails. I’m not seeing a picture of it on his Flickr stream though, so I don’t know if he actually has it.
My guess would be that it can probably be done, but I don’t know how easily. But I agree with Greg that the first place to look is YouTube. Also, there’s train people who modify their track as needed, so you might be able to find a forum on that somewhere. I’m not sure anybody in this group has experience doing anything like that.
there’s a grey line of purist I’m not familiar with…there are those copper strips that @laura has put on her track before, but if the intent is to say it’s all LEGO…I think you’d still need to have an asterisk for *modified.
I’m still confused here because ‘9V track without metal rails’ doesn’t make any sense. What’s the BL number of the part you ordered? If it is a prototype 9V track with no metal rails in it, you’ll have no choice but to put metal rails in it. If it’s an all-plastic RC track, the rails won’t come off any more than the studs come off of a 2×4 brick. In that case, you’ll have two options – run an RC train on it, most likely Power Functions, or use Josh’s suggestion of the copper sheeting to electrify it.
Okay, that’s what I thought initially. So then my original reply still holds. The other question though… did you order straight or curved or both, and how much?
9V requires a closed loop to run, so you’re talking a minimum of 16 pieces of curved, that’s a lot of removing of metal rails and installing them in the new track. Also, if you got straight, it’s been more than a year since I ordered any, but the last time I did, 9V straight track starts at $4 a piece used (new is practically non-existent) and is hard to get in quantity.
RC trains are backwards compatible – that is, they’ll run just fine on 9V track cause the geometry is the same, it’s just plastic rails instead of metal. But even then, if you don’t have a complete loop, I’m not sure how the train is going to run without you standing there operating it, there’s no way to make an RC train instantly reverse the way the space monorails do.
If you end up running your train on 9V, you’re also gonna need a controller, a DC adapter, and the wire that connects the controller to the train rails. If you’re running your train on batteries, I recommend the PF rechargeable unit, and you’ll need more than one, so one can charge while the other is running and then is ready to be swapped in when the first one runs out of juice during public hours.
No. Trains run on rails by definition. Without the rails, the track pieces are basically just 2×8 plates connected together. I have no reason to believe that the train wheels would line up with the groove that holds the rail, that said groove would hold the wheels in place, or that the ride would be smooth if it somehow did.
I don’t have any 9V track handy or I’d take a look. I checked BL to see if anybody sells just plain metal rails but BL doesn’t list them as a separate item. I’m looking at the BL pic of the 9V track though, and the plastic actually sticks up to hold the metal rail, I still doubt you could run a train on that though.
I also forgot the most important part, you’ll need a train engine. If you end up doing 9V, you’ll need to find a 9V train engine, and that could be the most expensive part. If you end up going RC, I’m pretty sure they’re available on Lego.com, they’ll have a wire coming off of them that connects right to the PF battery boxes. For practical considerations in operating during public hours, I’d strongly recommend 9V, but for reasons of cost and availability, you might find RC preferable.
I hope this works out for you cause this sounds like a pretty cool project. If I dig out some 9V track I’ll take a closer look though, cause I am worried now that Lego didn’t design the metal rails to be removed and there won’t be any way to obtain any to install in the prototypes.
Laura is definitely our resident expert on modifying track. Like – the only person I know who’s done it. But I’m pretty sure she’s only ever taken RC (read: plastic only) and added the copper, never modified 9V track. I think Ben’s right that it may not be a simple task, though…
Well, I found some straight track (it’s the used track I ordered more than a year ago, which means that, after all this time, it *still* hasn’t been put away, ugh). So I think I have bad news and good news, or at least maybe okay news…
The bad news is that I don’t see any way the metal comes off easily, and quite possibly not at all, which also means that reattaching the metal to the new track will difficult also. I’d check the train forums and see what they say, at the very least it’s going to require you to be knowledgeable about working with metal and possibly have some tools.
The good news is that curved track is way way cheaper on BL than straight, about one-tenth the cost, and more people have it in large quantities, so it looks like you can them for 50 cents each in the USA if you decide to go the 9V route.
The other good news, maybe, is that there’s a lot more plastic and a lot less metal there than I’d thought. So, at the very least, without the metal, there should be enough plastic sticking up and it should be close enough to the correct width that you can at least sit a train on it and have it look like it’s sitting on ice-covered rails, rather than just sitting on rail-less ties. I don’t know if a static display like that has any appeal to you, I think it would still look cool, although you’d have to put up with kids during public hours asking ‘Why isn’t that train running?’ Ooh, what you do, is you have a little avalanche of snow cover part of the tracks, and the train is stopped there while space workers clear out the snow.
So then the less good news is that the underlying plastic ‘rails’ are not continuous. They have little cutouts and periodic gaps that the metal part bridges. I’m pretty sure that this is a recipe for derailment at any speed. But, it’s probably worth trying it anyway. So my new recommendation is that you bring the track to the Jan 6 meeting (if you’re gonna be there), and arrange for somebody to bring an RC train, and see if you can get it to run. (I don’t have any RC train assembled, you’re better off asking somebody else. I know there’s a lot of trains in the LUG, although I don’t know how many of them are RC.)
Ok- I just got home from a business trip and found some 9V track and answered the question. An RC train will work on the track without the rails. Look at me flickr stream. There is enough plastic and and the metal is thin enough that it doesn’t make a world of difference.
Oh the humanity! I think you’re right though. I turned my track upside-down and tried to look inside that gap, as far as I could tell it was only metal, but your pic clearly shows that there’s plastic inside there. The change in thickness of the rail there shouldn’t be enough to derail it, at least not at lower speeds. Sweet! You sure BRUTALLY MURDERED that piece of curved track though, all the train people of the world will be having nightmares. You should still bring the track pieces to the Jan 6 meeting so we can see them.
Okay, I’m confused, I can’t fathom why you would need metal rails if you are using batteries? Anyway, I would strongly recommend against removing metal from the rails. It’s basically folded and crimped around the plastic, as I’ve pointed out in the picture below, it would not be easy to reattach and if you did it would not have quite the same affect. RC/Power Functions trains will run on anything, including the floor, because the battery is going to turn the wheels to matter what, I’ve seen people make troughs out of wood to run PF trains on.
@laura The original intent we to attempt to put 9v rails in the clear tracks shown below and run a 9v Ice planet space train. It looks like I will have no trouble running an RC train on it instead.
holy smokes @whitesidewjw those clear tracks are awesome!!
The original intent we to attempt to put 9v rails in the clear tracks shown below and run a 9v Ice planet space train. It looks like I will have no trouble running an RC train on it instead.
Okay gotcha. Those are sweet, where did they come from?
@laura They are test molds from over 10 years ago. There’s actually marbled clear/ red but the price is way out of my league. For a while they did a test in those two colors for quality inspections on molds. I have heard their process is different now but I am not sure. I still see a lot of new-ish parts in red that don’t appear in sets so maybe they still do it that way. The marlbed parts came from them flushing out the molds.
@joshhall Yeah they are cool but each piece of that marbled track sold for 800 euro. A used mr. gold can be bought cheaper right now on BL. There are two pieces that I know of. Those prices are really out of my league.
In case your wondering, I’m trading a some of my rare parts for other rare parts I want more. It get’s a lot more mileage than the money… but the marbled tracks aren’t even close to worth it for me.
That track does look cool, I’m looking forward to seeing the Ice Planet display. Whereas I have no idea what I would do with marbled red track, even if it was free. I guess you could say the train runs over a lot of people and their blood freezes to the tracks.
800 Euros for a single piece is pretty ridiculous. For fun I did the math, it would cost you more than $15000 to make a single loop. I could buy a lot of Legos with that.
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