What’s the issue with Micro Trains track?

I think Micro Trains track with roadbed looks spectacular and works fine. Their system always ensures a secure connection. The main problem with it is that, just like land, they're not making any more of it...,

I spoke to Anthony last week and indeed seems they are out of the track business, its a pity. I had to fiddle with the turnouts straight from the package but then no issues again. Dis burn out a couple of coils, but that was during commissioning Digikeijs turnout decoders where the pulse were set to long. By the way also an excellent product and they too went under

Micro Track was really neat when it first came out and really helped expand Z scale in the 2000s. It worked well and had North American tie spacing. The only competition at the time was Marklin track, and a few people selling custom made turnouts, either ebay builders or the Peter Wright turnouts. The MTL turnouts worked well for me, but a good percentage of them needed tweaking. Usually there was a little casting flash on the bottom of the frog that needed to be filed away for it to sit flush with the rails, and that is what was causing most of my problems with their turnouts. There was a great deal of factory issues 2008-2010 (See Kader / Sanda Kan Merger) that impacted a alot of model train manufacturing in China, and MTLs Z scale track and diesels were impacted by this. For a while there were significant delays in getting MTL track. They eventually got their track back in production, but quite honestly their Z scale diesel never really recovered from that Kader / Sanda Kan shutdown. They focused on the MTL F7s which were completely made in the USA. MTL stated they wanted to expand their track line, they were just never able to make that investment.

When Rokuhan track arrived, they had just a vastly wider range of available track pieces. So alot of people started using that, willing to trade variety for the none North American tie spacing. Then add Atlas to the mix. Before Atlas, MTL was the flex track everyone used, but it came in 24" lengths. Along came Atlas with non roadbed turnouts, and matching flex track in 36 inch lengths (Before this everyone was using mis-matched turnouts with either MTL or Peco flex). Between Rokuhan and Atlas, with better selection and products, few people were building new layouts with MTL track.

MTL is kind of a sad story because they went from being the largest player in the Z market, and now their track system is basically discontinued. They had invested a bit of money in Z and that factory issue really took the wind out of their sails. Quite honestly, if they had expanded their track line adding more variety of roadbed track, and making a non-roadbed turnout for their flex track, I would probably still be using their track. It was a good product.

This begs the question, will MTL ever rebound or are they out of the Z track business for good? 

Rokuhan is the KATO track of Z scale, as their offerings just about mirror each other sans the tie spacing issue.


  Is there space for a NEW player in Z to market North American prototype sectional track with roadbed? 

To clarify...   MTL flex is 12-1/2" long, and Atlas is 24" long.   I wish Atlas was 36", it would really have been nice.  (and Code 40, too.  But I digress....)

For the MTL diesels, F or GP/SD, the trucks are still oversized (wide) but they track well and pick-ups are reliable (if you keep the dust bunnies out).

Which ever they would possibly reproduce would be welcome. People criticize not doing this, not doing that and the differences as it we have, but it happens in every scale. At least it would be potential economic value for buyers and a welcome to their existing models from each companies.