I don't know about the new faller car system (likely what Wunderland is using) but the problem with Thunderjet 500 Model Motoring is that you can space cars out headed in one direction, but eventually they end up bumper to bumper like a boring IROC race.
Today, you can buy tractor trailer trucks, even the old cattle truck and every kind of street car down to the Edsel for Model Motoring (Car shells), but running more than one on the same lane, they don't maintain their distance. Drawback with the track is, the slot in the middle and the metal lines for current, resemble trolly tracks. FALLER AMS (Auto Motor Sport) is similar, but the track is concrete gray, contrasting from Aurora's black pieces.
Here's a video of the FALLER AMS grade crossing with the auto loader in action;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_hjddYLKQ
If you go by appearance, the new Walther's crossing piece is much longer than the Faller AMS crossing. With the Faller AMS crossing, railway tracks can be spaced realistically closer together, as per desired prototype. The original crossing from Aurora was brass track crossing a standard piece of 9 inch straight Thunderjet 500 slot car track.
Here's a look from onboard a train and a TRUCK!;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9GDVDTm ... re=related
I do not have Marklin nor Faller AMS slot cars, however Faller AMS outlasted everything else and was most popular in AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. If you are interested in the use of animated scale vehicles with your HO trains, you can join a Yahoo group on Automation and Animation of Models based in New Zealand by asking for a membership at this address;
http://de.mc269.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compo ... groups.com
The group is sizeable and the flow of innovative ideas to add animation to layouts with moving vehicles is pretty interesting.
For those not old enough to recall Aurora's Thunderjet 500 Model Motoring cars in HO, here's a video;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vTLSZxd ... L&index=76
And here's a
Thunderjet 500 commercial from 1966;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csc6Fend ... re=related
The cars are made for kids to operate at breakneck speeds, but they operate smoothly at slow speeds within an HO Scale Speed Limit as well. I mentioned in another thread that during night mode with street lights, if you put the track towards the rear of the scene, it looks really cool when suddenly between the buildings, you see a car creep through a cross-street. The only drawback like I mentioned before is running multiple cars on the same track, plus, you have to keep the road clear for the few cars that do run.
The reintroduction of Model Motoring today is an added dimension to layout enjoyment that has been overlooked since the 60's. With the versatility of these race sets integrated into train layouts; you can either have a race, or reverse the current in one direction, and have two way traffic! I used to know guys who kept the little kids busy with racing cars around the pike, while the big kids ran the trains! Too bad people forgot how much fun that could be!
As interest ebbed in HO slots, around 1970 or 1971, Aurora launched AFX which went up to 1:64th scale to rekindle interest, and they took the center stripes off the roadway and went solid black to resemble a race track. Changes were made in how the track went together, but Thunderjet/AFX adaptor pieces were available. AFX killed HO slots, the hate mail from model railroaders at the time was plentiful but fell on deaf ears, I wish I had kept the form letter I received back from them at the time.
D/
