John Cutler
I have just realised that this new product range will drastically reduce the cost of hand building any EM turnouts, including curved, Y and asymmetrical formations. A pair of switch blades from C&L costs £14.21 and a crossing vee £14.40. So a complete kit of parts from Finetrax at £22.99 will save £5.62+.
(It will actually save me £12.72+ per turnout as I have a 50% failure rate assembling crossings from Vs so I currently buy complete common crossings from C&L).
A possible complication is that the SMP rail Finetrax uses is 0.1 mm narrower than C&L but I suspect that 90% of my requirements would use the kit bases which will apparently flex ( not sure how much!) or can be cut to suit. If you use Finetrax rail in C&L chairs they will rattle around; if you use C&L rail in Finetrax bases it will be narrow to gauge -a disaster for turnouts (how do I know?!).
I am still a bit worried about the viability of the new EMGS ready-to-lay turnouts . But I now think the bigger impact will be on C&L’s sales. For ordinary EM gaugers this new competition is probably good news on balance.