Manufacturer: Peco (Devon, England). Exclusive U.S. importers F&H Enterprises, 7501 McFadden Avenue, Huntington Beach, CA 92647. Price: SL-995 right hand and SL-996 left hand 48 inch radius turnouts; SL-900 36 inch long flextrack with code 250 nickel silver rail; ST-902 300mm (11 13/16 inch) straight track section or ST-905 600mm (23 5/8 inch radius) curved track section with code 250 nickel silver rail; SL-910 nickel silver rail joiners (18 per pack); SL-911 plastic insulating rail joiners (12 per pack); SL-912 plastic code 250 to code 332 step-up rail joiners with removable metal inserts (6 per pack); SL-940 plastic end-of-track bumper kit (1 per pack). See your dealer for prices.

So let's begin with the turnouts. Our sample was a right hand switch with a nominal curved track radius of 4 feet, or about a number 4. The rail (and all rail in Peco's large scale line) is very high quality code 250 nickel silver. The railhead is almost square, the web has no taper toward the top, and the base is narrow. A typical American cross section would have a more shallow, rectangular railhead, a slight taper to the web, and a wider base. None of that is noticeable, though, and the overall appearance of the rail is far more realistic than anything available in code 332.

The standard length brown plastic ties, at the points, are 3 11/16 inches long, 7/16-inch wide across the top (slightly wider at the base), and 5/16-inch high. They are larger than LGB and ARISTO-CRAFT ties in every dimension and their center-to-center spacing is farther, too: 1 1/2 inches as opposed to about 1 inch. The rail fasteners are English style plates and bolts rather than American spikes.

The frog and guard rails are part of the tie strip casting so they are also brown plastic. A non-conductive frog means you can wire the turnout just as you would an LGB or ARISTO-CRAFT switch and keep gapping to a minimum. On the other hand, the plastic frog is about 1 1/2 inches long, so short wheelbase locomotives will stall there if you run them through the turnout at slow speeds. That is a side effect common to plastic frog turnouts in any scale. The quality of the plastic casting is excellent.

The moving point rail sections connect to their fixed counterparts by means of a rail joiner hinge. The tapered end of the point reflects precision grinding and the point rails fit very snugly, with no gap, against inlets in the stock rails. That greatly reduces any chance of derailment. The spring loaded points snap nicely into position so, technically, you need no switchstand or switch machine to operate the turnout manually. LGB and various other wheelsets tracked through the turnout smoothly and flawlessly, with virtually no wheel drop through the frog. Operation was superb.

One oddity, though: The tie locations preclude connecting track sections to the diverging rails without modification. The ties of each section interfere with one another. You must first remove a tie from one section or the other before joining the rails.

Gee, that leaves virtually nothing to say about the sectional track and flextrack. Their appearance, tie dimensions, rail, and quality match the description of the standard length ties of the turnout. Just keep in mind the sectional track comes in nominal 12 inch lengths and twelve curved sections make up a 47 1/4 inch diameter circle. The flextrack sections are a nominal 36 inches long and come with no rail joiners.

Peco offers three kinds of rail joiner. The standard nickel silver joiner is beautifully formed of a robust gauge of metal and slips firmly and easily onto the rail. It is about in inch long. The brown plastic insulating joiners are about half as long with a relatively low profile and also fit smoothly and precisely onto the rail. The insulating joiners are far less obtrusive and fit much more precisely than the typical yellow plastic code 332 joiner. The brown plastic step-up joiners, for mating Peco code 250 track with code 332 track, are similarly elegant, mate perfectly with the rail, and come with a removable nickel silver conductive strip. If you want to gap the rails where the two sizes meet, just leave off the metal conductor.

Finally, the end-of-track bumper. It is entirely dark brown plastic and exactly matches the track ties. It comes as a "kit", meaning you have to cement about four pieces together. I used Tenax liquid cement. As with our other samples, the quality of the plastic parts is excellent and the molded-in wood grain creates a credible impression. The nut/bolt detail on the "metal" support posts (they duplicate the rail profile exactly) is crisp and clean. The device slips snugly onto the rails. It represents a British prototype but some American bumpers were similar.

Each of our samples was of excellent quality and overall appearance. Peco track products appear to be durable and, according to what we know about them, should hold up outdoors as well as any other manufacturer's products.

One thing sets Peco apart from most other major track manufacturers, though. Peco has designed rugged, realistic, and good looking track products for the model railroad market with no concessions to the toy market. The result is greater precision and a much closer to scale appearance than its international competition. In fact, Peco's only real competition would seem to come from such small, high quality American manufacturers as Garich Light Transport, Micro Engineering, and Llagas Creek. If you plan to lay track soon and prefer the appearance of British track, Peco has few peers.-RR