As many of you N scalers know, Atlas has had some significant problems with their Chinese suppliers when it comes to their track products.  Some of their Code 55 stuff has been out of stock for over a year.  Dates I’ve seen posted for when stuff is “supposed to arrive” come and go.  The C55 flex was supposed to be here in August, but yet it’s late September and nobody has any in stock.  I’m becoming more concerned by the day that I’m going to be benchwork complete by the end of the year and Atlas still won’t have their act together.

Micro Engineering makes a fine product right here in the USA.  ME unweathered flex comes out to about $0.1322/inch, whereas Atlas works out to $0.1000/inch when bought through the likes of MB Klein in 100 piece lots.  I don’t mind the price difference, honestly – that’s not what holds me back.  I like the free-flexing nature of Atlas C55 better.  I find that it makes for much more even curves without kinks. I like the longer Atlas turnouts – particularly the No 10s.  And, at the end of the day, I want my ties to all match in terms of spacing and texturing.  I don’t want a mix-and-match of track vendors from a visual point of view.

I’m mostly just ranting.  I have a lot of woodworking to do before I’m ready for more track than I already harvested off the old layout.  But if we get into December and there’s still no Atlas track, I’m going to have to start strongly considering a wholesale switch of vendors or even going to handlaid.