Turnout Trials TWO + Tools

More turnout work, but this time with tools.

On another blog (I forget which one right now) I read about track tuning and checking the level across the rails.  Sure enough, the curve coming into this turnout from the left is banked slightly towards the center, which is fine, but the turnout is flat through the points.  Actually, it was slightly banked away from the center, so I could see how that sudden change in level might cause trouble for certain finicky rolling stock or locomotives.

My solution was to shim the turnout, seen above as the white strip beneath the ties in the lower center of the image.  This did the trick, eliminating most of the incidents of derailments in this location.  The only thing remaining that might cause an issue is the funky taper on the ends of the point rails.  Atlas clips the corner off the top of the point rail, which is already a pressed-metal quasi-rail to begin with, so it becomes a tricky thing to file without doing damage.  A gentle touch is required.

Work continues on a mini scene for a Railroad-Line forum challenge, and when that is complete sometime before tax day I will return to the benchwork for this railroad in earnest; hopefully sooner than later.  Also on the wish list is helping my oldest son with a project this week that might become a post if we get anywhere with it, and maybe even some rolling stock work.  We'll see.

Turnout Trials

One of my long-put-off tasks on the railroad has been tuning the turnouts, or switches.  This includes filing any rough corners or edges that wheel flanges might 'pick' and cause a derailment, checking the gauge and tolerances throughout the points and frog area, and securing the throw bar to keep the points held in place.  On that last point I have finally left the starting gate.

 The strip of white styrene has been temporarily slid into place beneath the throw bar to provide friction.  The piece is an HO scale 4x12, though the thickness is only important if, like me, you are using the same type of Atlas turnouts.  What matters is that it is enough friction to hold the points in place without regular operations causing them to move but not so much that it becomes cumbersome to slide the points over to throw the switch.

When planning this railroad and how it would be operated, I chose to make all the turnouts accessible in order to throw them by hand, whether with some sort of switch stand or by the 'finger flick' method.  Peco turnouts have a spring mechanism built in that locks the points against the stock rail; Atlas turnouts do not.  In the past I have used the popular but grossly oversized Caboose Industries ground throws.  Wanting to create a more fine-scale appearance on this railroad, I decided against using them here. 

Should this friction method work as well as I think it will, eventually I will glue the styrene strips in place when I balast the track.  I have beautiful little switch stand models that will live next to each turnout but they will only be decorative.  There are operating switch stands that either throw the turnout when you move them, or move in response to the throw bar sliding.  In the interest of time and simplicity I decided to not use those this time around.

I will report how this method works in a future post.  However I am already seeing results as I operate a locomotive that seems to derail at a couple turnouts.  After I inserted the strip, the engine has run right through without a hiccup.  Below, Pan Handle Rusty Route #225 rolls over the Icing spur turnout without derailing.  Note the white styrene strip seen beneath the tender.