Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but a search didn't bring up any relevant topics.

I ordered 3 boxes of the bulk (25 pieces) N-scale 30" straight from my local store - sight unseen as no one in the areas seems to stock it. They called today. it's in and I just came back from picking it up. All excited I brought it into my train room and opened up a box and...

What a letdown!

I had assumed that a 30" straight section was going to be a single piece of 30" straight track, but it's not; each 30" piece is made up of three (3) 10" pieces... my intent was to reduce the number of rail joiners in my layout to improve reliability.

It seems to me that information should be listed somewhere, because someone, like myself, who was intent on using 30" sections don't end up with 225 10" pieces.

If I had wanted 10" pieces I wouldn't have needed to special order it and wait 2-weeks!

Another thing I just noticed a 5" straight isn't a true 5 inches - it's 4-15/16"... I wondered why my layout wasn't working out and then something said measure a 5" pieces and sure enough, that's where the problem was.

The most frustrating part of all this is that I based my layout on using 30" straights with as few 5' & 10" sections as physically possible, every thing from stubs to sidings and distance between turnouts, curves, etc are all based on a 30" dimension.... if I was dealing to 10" sections I probably would have ended up with quite a different layout. And now to find their 5" track isn't 5" I'm starting to think I made a bad decision going with EZ-Track.

Don't get me wrong, I love the way EZ-Track goes together and I also like not having to deal with a separate roadbed and ballast, and ultimately I know some of this is my own fault, I did the track design before I had the track in hand, but I didn't know exactly what kind of layout I was going to do and wanted to purchase all the track and turnouts at one time.

Also, can someone explain why the straight section on a turnout isn't 10" long? It would make a lot more sense if it were, because then if you want to make a change and add a stub or siding in the future all you had to do was take out a 10" piece and add the turnout. Now, as it stands you need two (2) 1-7/8" long pieces from the 90-degree crossover set (because they don't sell 1-7/8" pieces separately) added to the turnout to make it 10" long.

my 30" sections were one piece, the plastic part is three 10" pieces glues together, but the rails are one solid piece ( no joints).
The track is easily enough cut to length, but I agree that Bachmann needs a larger variety of section sizes.

The Bachmann track system is somewhat based on the dimentions of the Atlas snap track. These sizes have been common for a long time before EZ track came out. All they did was add roadbed to the track. The track sizes were originally based on european N scale which was measured in MM instead of inches. If you didn't know, N scale is called that because it is based on "N"ine millimeters between the rails.

As far as track sections, Bachmann just released a new track assortment that has the various short lengths of track that you need. Before that they also offered a short section assortment that came with a piece, that when added to the turnout, made the straight leg equal to a 10" straight.

You should always buy samples of track to measure and test sizes before you start laying track. There is always flex that allows you to make the track the size you need.