Tomix Brown Track

[VentureForth]

There has been much discussion about Fine Track here, mostly because that’s what’s being produced now. I wanted to show a little bit of interesting evolution in the brown track and was hoping some OG Tomix gurus could fill in some history. 
 

These are three generations of the same piece: S140 1001 straight brown track in what I think is in chronological order:

 

All three are practically non distinguishable from the top. But from the bottom, you can tell there are some interesting differences. I’d like to know why the differences were made and if those reasons were all carried through to Fine Track PC. 
 

You may be able to see in the picture of the back sides the differences in evolution. First major difference I see in the second track is that there are holes now included to screw the track into the viaduct. This makes it easy to swap out the track should it become damaged without having to buy the whole viaduct piece. Nice.  You’ll also notice that they removed the stiffener in the middle. Odd….  However the most intriguing change I noticed is noticeable from the side and bottom. Look between the viaduct screw hole and the nail hole. They changed up the spacing of the holes under the track. You can see at that location some air through to the top side. Why is this different? On one end, there is some interest crimping on the rail at those locations but no on the other side. This also makes for a very odd spike pattern. This carried through to the first Fine Track series, but not to PC. 

 

I also noticed they doubled up on the mid-track stiffener from 1 to none to two thicker ones for gen 3 and subsequently FT but not FT PC. 
 

Finally the two little holes at each end just behind the tab receptacle look like like a tooling hole. Looks like they used it in Gen 1, forgot about it in Gen 2 and 3 actually covered it up in FT then brought it back in FT PC. 
 

Anyway, just wanted to share. Idk if anyone cares or not or has anything to offer as far as the history of these changes go. Oh, and interestingly, all brown track kept the same exact part number and description. 

 

[katoftw]

Are the ends just slide in guides and not clips like current versions?

Edited March 9 by katoftw

[VentureForth]

27 minutes ago, katoftw said:

Are the ends just skide in guides and not clips like current versions?

That is correct. And the tabs would periodically break off into the receptacle and impossible to fix. 

[brill27mcb]

Interesting stuff! Yes, katoftw, the brown Tomix roadbed tabs are simply a tapered force fit, and can come loose easily.

 

Looking at the top-side photo and zooming in, it appears to me that they had a problem with the rails staying in place along the entire length of the piece. Where the regularly-spaced holes were changed, the second version cuts back some cast-in spike heads but adds plastic tabs that clip over the rail base to try to hold it down. In the third version, the modified holes are wider so that the plastic tabs could be replaced with stronger metal clips inserted from below. I think you are right on the screw holes for viaduct mounting, and I have no idea why they played around with the cross stiffeners at the middle of the piece.

 

Rich K.