Date Added: 28-Apr-2003    Courtesy: Craig Mathew
Cutting track the right way is important for a good fit and no derailments. Using a hacksaw will create metal dust which is hard to clean up. If you cut track on your layout and don't clean these shavings up well, then they will eventually find there way into your engine gears and moving parts and create additional headaches for you later on. Using a wire cutter pliers will save you the shavings, but will create angles on your ends which you'll need to file square to prevent rolling stock from jumping the track. Xuron makes a good tool for track cutting. This tool has a flat edge on one side so that the resulting cut is straight instead of tapered to a point. However, I am not pleased with the quality of this tool. Although it has provided many satisfactory track cuts for me, I've had two break, and one that got bent. These tools are just not strong enough for me, but then I'm probably stronger than the average user.

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