My experience with EZ track is just from some that I used for a temporary test loop and a small 3'x3' layout I built for my son. The track itself works fine once you weed out the bad sections. I had close to a 20% reject rate when building my son's layout. Using the 11" radius corners about 1 in 5 will be undergauge. For running diesels, this is usually not a problem but my 3 year old is a steamhead like me and steam loco's need great track to run smooth.

The turnouts are pretty reliable but need some filing of the points. They are also nice because they are power routing. Once installed on his layout I have had no problems but they did take some fine tuning before that point.

The EZ track can be used with sucess but plan on trashing some track in the process. Get yourself an NMRA track gauge or the one available from MicroTrains works well and check every piece of track. Test and retest with every loco you have before finally mounting the track. Any track that is questionable, throw away and replace it.

My layout is being built with flex track, my current test loop is now Kato Unitrak.

There is no vinyl insulation on the wires. The wires are laquer coated such as magnet wire used in armatures and coils. There is nothing wrong with your loco. The wires should be various shades of blue, black and red.

My experience with these couplers so far as been on the J-class, the H16-44, and the new Spectrum Vanderbuilt tenders and it is less than stellar. I applaud the move to knuckle couplers but it would be nice if we could actually use them.

What exactly are these supposed to couple too? They are mounted so low that they barely touch a microtrains coupler height gauge. They couple with less than a 1/3rd of the knuckles making contact and do not stay coupled.

For our customers that have bought J's with the Con-cor passenger sets, I have found it easiest to just swap the tender back to a rapido. The stock knuckle won't mate with a Microtrains truck properly.  The same is true with the H16-44. On my vanderbuilt tenders (I bought 5) I haven't even begun to figure out what is the best cure. They will have knuckles on them eventually but certainly not the Bachmanns.