Chopper Greg, keep thinking out of the box. Don't get frustrated with some comments. Like any forum, you are going to get fact, what people have always thought to be fact, real life experience (which often doesn't pertain to the issue anyway - people just like touting their. . . ) and the ones that keep breaking the ice. Many forums go off tangent, off topic and sometimes we all don't (completely) understand what one is up to. Each of your replies gives us more info. Be interested in your results. One side bar is many have talked about trying to avoid cleaning the rail so often. many tout this or that product, most of it low cost ordinary stuff packaged for the market to make money off those that don't understand or are curious. You seem to have a deep metallurgical background so keep feeding us info ! Maybe someone else will use it or even commercialize it, like T-Gage did. .
Indeed, David has some solid data, and I have spent so time talking to him over on a T gauge forum, because of it's connection with what I am wanting to do, and not only has he worked with N and Z scale, but with T scale as well, so he is in a very good spot to advise me in this endeavor. David has supplied me a couple of links that others here might find of interest: Wire Basics A scale relationship between currently available commercial Z rail sizes, David's custom rail, and four weights of real rail. Thank you for your comments, although I can't claim to have a education that included a real metallurgical background, as a hobby I have been casting metal on and off since '84, and in high school was experimenting with custom brass and Alum alloy's in shop class and I'm currently attempting to build a Tatara to make steel from iron ore - so I do have a bit of interest .
Alcoman, My apologies, I missed your post, and in doing so, failed to address your suggestion. The idea has some merit, and might be practical on a smaller scale. The only problem I can see is when it comes to magnetic uncouplers and weight in layouts that are much over a given size. It would solve the problem of magnetizing the wheels of the loco, but the fact that the metal strip would have to be hidden beneath the ballast as well as the air gap beneath the loco might prove to require a very power magnet indeed - and weight / space issues with the loco might prove problematic. Sliding the magnet over the metal strips may also cause unintended drag, as the magnet induces a minor electrical current and thus a magnetic field that then influences the magnet passing overhead. ( there is a experiment that can be done with some of the most powerful magnets, and that is to drop them down a length of copper pipe - the induced currents in the pipe then act on the magnet causing it to slow down and take longer falling through the pipe than it would take outside of the pipe - it happens with all magnets but only the more powerful ones do it to such a degree that it's easy for people without sophisticated timing equipment to test ).
Chopper Greg, I view your question as an engineering challenge. You mentioned using magnets for wheels which made me think of the rare earth magnets I have seen used for hidden uncouplers. I have a couple of salvaged magnets that are small but powerful, so I thought I would share the idea with you. Sometimes you have to go through a lot of possibilities before you find the one that works. Maybe you can use NS track for most of the layout and use strips of steel rail for the steep parts? You may have to put together a test bed sort of locomotive to try out some of the more promising ideas. I'll keep watching this thread. I'd like to see how you solve this. Good luck!
Think mostly grade ( 80% or more of it will be in excess of 2.5% grade ), with a few flat spots, but your point about using N/S track in the flat areas is well taken. I am planning on hand laying, most of it, so I suspect that the change between the wire stock and the N/S track will probably make a visual difference - but where it's can't be seen, it shouldn't be an issue.
