Product Review - Tomy HO Track

It always amazes me when I see people doing something different or trying something new based upon something they read on Slots New?.  I do not claim to be a persuasive type person or a great writer.  However, I do claim to be passionate about slot car racing.  I do not even claim to be an especially talented racer, just someone who has fun doing it.  That being said, I have seen a pattern of people, shall we say, being exposed to new items or ideas, or items and ideas they just haven't thought about before from reading this blog.  Maybe they have thought about them in the past but haven't thought about it in a long time.  In my recent foray into HO scale cars, tracks, and racing I have come to realize this is a nostalgic aspect of the hobby to many people.  I am seeing people who hadn't thought of HO in a long time actually thinking about getting involved with these little cars.  So, with that in mind I thought it was time to write a review on what is considered by most people to be the gold standard of home sectional HO tracks today.

I do not claim to be an expert on HO tracks, but then most people who are looking to buy an HO track are not experts.  In fact, they probably know less than my limited knowledge on the subject.  I will therefore be writing about my own experiences with the Tomy sectional track pieces.  Disclaimer....anyone who buys a track, or not, based upon my opinions is a sucker and doesn't deserve to have a nice layout at home.  Do your own research before you buy.  Only use my opinions as what they are, one person's opinions.

The Tomy track I have was bought online as an incomplete Tomy Super International set.  This set was the Super International set which came with the Super G cars instead of the Mega G cars and it had the single voltage power packs.  It was obviously bought by someone who got a great price on an older unopened set.  I believe this person bought this set with the intention of breaking it up and selling off the pieces.  What I received was all the track pieces, guard rails, bridge supports, power packs, and three of the four controllers (still in plastic bags).  What I did not receive were the cars and one of the controllers.  I bought this set for $55 knowing the cars were missing.  After all, I was going to be more interested in the old T-Jet cars, so why did I need the new magnet cars.  It sounds like a great deal, but remember the cars that come with the new Super International set sell for $40  each.  That means $160 of the value from the set was gone.  The power packs were not the Tri-Power packs, so more value was gone.  All in all, I think I got a fair deal and not a super bargain.  I have no complaints as I intended to use a variable power supply anyway.  So, the missing cars and lower grade power packs were not an issue to me.  If you are buying a set, be aware of what you want.  If the cars are important, definitely buy a complete set.  You will save on the cars this way.  If you do not want to buy a variable power supply and would like to use the power pack that comes with the track, I highly recommend getting a Tomy set because of the versatility of the Tri-Power.

The thing that sets Tomy tracks apart from the other brands is the variety of straight lengths and curve radius.  The Tomy system gives you more flexibility in creating a layout than any other brand I have found.  You can get curves all the way from a 3" hairpin to a whopping 18" radius.  You can get curve sections in 3" increments, so you have 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 inch curve sections.  The 3" hairpin only comes as a one piece 180 degree turn.  I couldn't imagine trying to attach 3" quarter turn sections!  The 9" curve does have the option for a 90 degree turn as well as a 45 degree turn. All other curves only come in 45 degree sections.  It would be nice to have other curve radius options in the 90 degree curves, but there is no need in wishing for something that isn't there.  After all, two 12" 45 degree curves equal one 12" 90 degree curve so you just use two of them.  This does mean more connections for the electricity and for the racing surface, but more on that in a minute.

The thing I remembered about old HO tracks was the difficulty of connecting the sections.  Or should I say the difficulty of taking them apart to change the layout.  The problem I remember was having the connecting tabs on the individual sections breaking off.  I cannot tell you how many times I have connected and disconnected the track sections of the Tomy track I bought.  It shows no sign of wear or breakage.  The joints are well designed and the plastic seems to be more flexible than the old tracks I remember.  Thus far, not a single joining tab has broken.  The versatility and the durability of the Tomy brand is a value and can be recommended for that reason alone.  However, there are some issues you need to be aware of.

I mentioned the curves are mostly 1/8 turn sections with very few 1/4 turn sections (45 degree and 90 degree).  This is important because of the amount of track connections there are.  Each one of these connections is a possibility for a weak point in the layout.  The electrical connections seem to be a lot stronger than I thought it would be and the current flow seems to be very good.  These rails are made from spring steel and the engineering behind the connections seems to take advantage of that strength.  The joining of the plastic sections is also strong, but there is an issue.  At least there was an issue with the sections I had.  Note...these were older sections of track and not the ones you would buy in a set today.  I found out talking with the AFX people there was an issue with the track many years ago.  The molds had gotten worn and a flaw had been detected.  AFX spent a lot of money retooling to correct this issue.  The issue was with the 6" radius curve sections.  In the Tomy Super International set this is the smallest curve section you have.  You also get more 6" curve sections than any other piece in the track.  You get a total of 28 6" curve sections in the set.  To put this in perspective, you get a variety of straight sections in 3, 6, 9, and 15" sections totaling 28 pieces.  In addition, you get a total of 28 pieces of other curves in various radius.  You get as many 6" curves as you do total combined straights and total other curves.  1/3 of all the track pieces in this set are 6" radius curves.  Understand, if you build a four lane track, which is what this set is targeted towards, most of your turns WILL have a 6" radius curve on the inside.  This will be a tight layout suitable for smaller spaces which could be a good thing unless you are wanting a lot of high speed corners.  So with this in mind, you can see this was a critical area.

The flaw in the 6" curve sections was in the rail height and in the alignment of the slots.  This flaw occurred in the track that was put out at the time the Super International set had the Super G cars and not the Mega G cars.  I commend AFX/Tomy for recognizing this problem and correcting the issue.  The problem was if the turn is to the left the slot seemed to be offset a little.  It is offset just enough to allow the pins on the cars to get hung in the joint.  The problem is that on the outside part of the slot when turning left, the leading edge of the slot is a little more to the right than the trailing edge.  The result is, if you are going slow, the pin is pushing out in the turn and hanging on the leading edge of the next corner section.  Also, the height of the rails seemed to be more critical at this point.  If the curve is turning to the right it did not seem to have the same issue.  I partially remedied this by sanding on the outside part of the slot to match the outside of the previous section.  This worked to some extent, but did not completely alleviate the situation.  After talking with the people from AFX I replaced the 6"curve sections that were giving me a problem with the new pieces that are currently being sold.  I can honestly say this helped tremendously.  I even ran T-Jets around the track with intentionally low speeds in the turns trying to get them to hang up and they wouldn't.

Before this issue was resolved and I received the assistance from AFX, I was going to recommend looking to other track brands and dispute this as being the current gold standard for HO sectional tracks.  Today, however, I cannot dispute the Tomy tracks being the best track to buy.  The quality is excellent, the engineering behind the product is brilliant, and the service cannot be rivaled.  Knowing the people from AFX are behind you if you buy their product is enough reason alone to buy this product.  In my case, an email to the company was answered in less than 4 hours and they communicated with me until the issue was resolved.  You do not get that kind of customer support many places with any type of product!

It is the common thought that a sectional track needs an extra power tap every 15 sections.  This would mean on my particular layout I would need a total of 3 power taps.  With only one power tap in place you do not notice any power drain at any part of the track.  I believe this is due to the engineering of the rail connections.

Final analysis....If you have the opportunity to buy an older Tomy Super International set, put out a few dollars more and get the newer set.  It is well worth the money.  The accessories available for the Tomy tracks are incredible.  If you do not intend on having club type racing on your track I wouldn't even change out the Tri-Power packs.  If you plan on club style racing, I would go with a variable power supply and a commercial lap counting system such as the Viasue photo cell set-up.  Other than that, the Tomy tracks offer far more than I ever expected.  They indeed ARE the gold standard of sectional HO scale slot car tracks.