Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Lionel FasTrack Book Robert Schleicher It could have been much better

The Lionel FasTrack Book
The Lionel FasTrack Book Read more...


Rehashed Tublar O plans that don't work with FastTrack I agree with the previous review. This was not what I expected. There were plenty of O track plans for 'old' Lionel track that don't work with the new FastTrack. Very dissapointed.
Inaccurate! BEWARE! This book while attractively printed is useless for actually designing and setting up layouts.I bought it to get the FasFrack geometry which is meagerly covered in Lionel's catalogs unlike the exhaustive treatment by say Märklin.Schleicher gets off on the wrong foot by stating that Lionel has always measured the size of a curve by the diameter of the circle that the curve creates at the outside rail. Page 77 Bzzzt! WRONG for FasTrack anyway. A simple tape measure check shows that the curve size is measured by the CENTER rail.This basic mistake propagates throughout the example layouts in the book. If you measure the track pieces and use a CAD system for track planning you will find that Schleicher's layouts do NOT align correctly in some cases by several inches as in the yard layout on Page 154. When you try to assemble the listed pieces as shown reality sets in and you realize that these plans simply do not work. If you force the specified pieces together you will have a distorted and unreliable track layout.Lionel seems to have made a beautiful track product but picked very bad track section sizes. Schleicher compounds the problem by presenting examples that simply do not work.
I would like my money back Others have detailed the factual inaccuracies of this overly expensive book and the fact that certain of its track diagrams simply do not work. In addition to these issues the book is weak on substantive technical information especially on wiring matters.
Save your money This book is of very marginal value. It has many nice but not very useful picture but it's technical descriptions are very very thin and incomplete. If all you're interested in is layouts the book is ok but if you're looking for information on how to use lionel systems this book will be of little help. Typical of the book's inattention to detail pages 4244 purport to explain how to use TMCC with Fastrack. In those three pages there are approximately 2/3 a page of text and 4 different pictures ALL of which show you how to connect to your track using a Lionel lockon onto an O27 i.e. nonFastrack piece of track. Need to know how to get a third wire connected to your Fastrack so you can connect to both the command base and power supply? Figute it out yourself. Worried that Lionel tells you to use 14 gauge wire and the Fastrack connections are 22 gauge? Too bad. No answers here. No apparent awareness of Fastrackrelated issues.This book is typical Lionel. Plenty of gloss but very poor documentation.
Nearly Useless. I wish I read the reviews before buying this book. This book is nearly useless and full of misinformation.I was hoping that this book would have enough information on Lionel FasTrack geometry to allow me to design my own layout. But sadly it does not. In one chapter it says that one could design a layout with a compass and triangle but most people find it easier to just buy a bunch of track and see what works. Well. Lionel track is EXPENSIVE. I want to know it will work before I drop a few hundred bucks. What exactly is this book for?Other pieces of misinformation in the book FasTrack curve radius is from the CENTER rail not the OUTER rail as described in the book.
The Lionel Fastrack book excellent book better than expected.
The Lionel FasTrack Book
Just finished my first layout I completed the layout on page 67 of this book and every piece snapped together perfect with no problems. So whoever is complaining about these layouts not working is wrong at least with this one.
Get on Track with Fasttrack It's a great place to start if you are new to fasttrack. lots of neat ideas but I found myself using them as a starting point for more elaborate or special shaped layouts.
It could have been much better I did see the reviews saying save your money. But having just received a train for Christmas I needed some Fastrack info hence the purchase of this book. On a scale of 110 I'd give it a 3. With this title I would expect to learn just about everything about Fastrack. I still don't have enough answers to determine if a particlar layout would work or not. He spreads the info about the various pieces all over the book. He uses a lot of words to tell you next to nothing about the pieces. On the plus side there are a lot of layouts. The pics of various layout are very good. but I don't need layouts. I have my own rough idea of what I want. I just want to determine what pieces I need to make it fit together. More size info as example. As example if I have a distance from outside rail to outside rail of 106 that would be a straight line and I want to put in a Wye on each end of that straight section with left/right switches on each end to join the perpindicular track on each end what's the length of straights I need. I don't want to go out and buy software or extra pieces to make it work. If you get my drift. So Mr. Author on your second edition present a chapter that covers the basics of ALL the various track pieces. Then move on to design layouts yards and etc.
Read more...



Related Products

Posted by tida at 11:17 PM
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)