The flex track rails can be slid out of the railway ties. (They have to be able to slide in order for the track to flex.)

One end of the 4 rail ends on flex track anchors the rail to the ties, but that too can be overcome by lifting the rail a bit.

Non-flex track has similar anchors on the rails - the base of the running rail is compressed downwards making small lugs that fit into a corresponding hole in the rail tie. Once you find them and learn to recognise them you will probably be able to extract the rails from such track too.

Hi, John,
Sure! BTW, it's flex track, not fixed. The reason I asked is that a lot of the K track pieces I bought on eBay are damaged. Someone ripped them up none too gently from an existing layout. The damage is to the ties /center conductor, often right in the middle of the 3ft section. Not knowing any better, I thought I'd just snip out the damaged sections with my Xuron 2175B, then either slide the rail or the ties or both, together again.

Also, and more to the point, every single one of the 40 pieces I bought had been cut at both ends to make curves. So all the rails were uneven. Some really really short, some really really long. They must have been tight curves. I want very gentle curves, about a 7ft diameter. (I have a lot of space.) Rather than just cut every piece, I reasoned that if I could slide the rail and ties, I could save a good deal of material and not have to make so many cuts.

This is my first foray into K track. I have known nothing but M track since 1958. I always wanted to give it a try because it is so beautiful! Very realistic. And I wanted a 7ft diameter. My passenger cars looked so strange on tight M curves even 5200. I also run Märklin 1 gauge on 1:32 flextrack and I loved being able to have a huge sweeping diameter that flex allows.

However.... my K track ride has been a bit bumpy. Thanks to this wonderful forum, I'm learning. The 7595 clips and joiners will save the day. Unfortunately, no one so far stocks more than 3 packs, and I'd like to have 8-10. That's not a big deal though.

I wish the eBay seller had been as forthcoming as some of the other sellers of used K track. They would specify that all pieces had the 7595 joiners at both ends. They took good photos to show the condition. My seller just said "Märklin K track in good shape". NOT. Some pieces were truly mangled. No clips at all. About 30 % of the joiners were missing. Now I'm having to buy and install 160 total pieces To his credit, though, he did give me the very substantial partial refund I requested. But not before insulting me by writing "If you were any kind of railroad modeller, you'd know Marklin is AC, not DC."
Huh?

I'd appreciate any K track advice. i.e. Crushed walnuts vs. aquarium gravel for ballast etc. Dremel diamond cutting disc or EZ406?

Thanks to Dale for telling me how to slide the rails back and forth.

Regards to all,
Tom

Tom, What have you done, you've bought someone else's rubbish, nevertheless you can repair them, the only suggestion I've got is cut the rail where the sleepers have been ruined but this means more connectors and I wonder whether its worth it., and what's this about AC and DC ?

John

OK being flextrack you will be able to use this track just fine.

Yes get the diamond disk.
See https://cabin-layout.mixmox.com/2005/07/laying-k-track.html

For making contact to the additional cut bits, simply slide a regular (2 rail style) rail joiner onto each length of rail and solder to that rial joiner.

well almost, in fact what you do is cut a couple of the plastic bumps off the top of the railway ties (sleepers) with a work knife, so that there is room for the rail joiner to be below the running rail. Then you place the rail joiner there and slide the rail in from the side, through the rail joiner and onwards through the k-track ties. Once the rail is in place you can crimp the rail joiner onto the rail. Then solder a wire to it.

Note that if one need train detection sections, one needs to cut one rail anyway, and the technique is no different. You may even want to connect some of the isolated rails to detection sensors (s88) if you plan on digital layout control.

Connecting the center stud is not an issue at all, simply use your Dremel to grind off some of the black paint and solder a red wire to the underside, or solder onto the underside of the rail connectors if present. Soldering creates much better connections than clipped on rail joiners.

For ballast, I strongly recommend Merkur
See https://cabin-layout.mixmox.com/2015/11/merkur-ballast.html