I agree with Trainman on both issues.
I had a Christmas layout upon which I had used whit batting. I ended up with locos that wouldn't run because the fibers had built up around the axles. I spent hours with a pair of tweezers, pulling out fibers.
A flat surface is definitely needed to prevent derailing. It you don't want plywood, maybe something like a few thick sheets of foam board would work.

Cutting gaps in EZ-Track works very well. Even though I run DCC, I've cut gaps where I want to isolate my programming track from the rest of the layout yet still be able to run the engine onto the programm track under its own power. IIRC, the piece of styrene I needed to use was either .010" or .020" but may be different depending on the thickness of your cut-off disk. The way I did it, I cut a small piece of styrene of the correct thickness and glued it in the gap with CA glue. I let it dry overnight and then trimmed it with a #11 blade to match the profile of the rail. Hope this helps.

I honestly would not be surprised if the gondolas not shown in 2025 catalogue 

I hope to see a painted sample of the high side wagons hopefully by the end of the year

Make the track level.  You'll never have level track on carpet. Put the track on the table or a piece of plywood.

  Carpet is terrible for Trains.  Inevitably, little fibers will get into every moving part of the Train.  The locomotive mechanism, the wheels, couplers, Everything.

The two words on eBay that make me smell a rat are "rare" and "vintage."

Yes. I've given up on trying to replace metal rail joiners with plastic ones on EZ-Track. Instead I use a cutoff disk in a Dremel tool to cut gaps in the rail where needed, then glue a thin strip of styrene in the gap to keep the rails from touching.

Len

At 88 I.m probably starting my last HO layout.  I have all brass locomotives in DC and would like to include a reverse loop.  Can I do this with Bachmann track?

Quote from: trainman203 on May 11, 2024, 04:13:59 PMThere's no such thing as gold with train set trains.  Unless they are from the early 1950's or earlier.  The myth persists that all old trains are solid gold.

That's even true of pre and post war Lionel trains. Just because a very, very, few Lionel pieces are worth some money people thing all old Lionel trains are worth thousands. A fact less than scrupulous sellers on eBay take advantage of. offering "rare and hard to find" locomotives for thousands that show up regularly at train shows selling for $150 - $200.

Len

I stated the same in some other post.

I got the thoroughbred set for my grandson. We set it up on a rug on the floor.  The cars decouple alot from slight rise and dips in the track I think. Is there a fix for the small couplings coming apart?