Hey Gang - I have sort of a follow up on the curved turnout issue. I have a 6' x 10' in the garage, based VERY loosley on the SAL. I have a Walthers curved turnout on each end. All of my mainline curves are 32" which works great with the Walthers curved turnouts. I have ran into a SNAFU on the one that is a #8 (32"-36"). My Proto E unit glides over it, and right at the point, the lead wheel jumps off. Thinking it was rail, I pulled up the straight section leading into it, and relayed it using Shinohara instead of Atlas with the same results. I broke out the NMRA gauge, and discovered that the gauge between the points and the end of the turnout is almost 1/16" to wide. Does anyone have any idea's on how to correct this without replacing the $30.00 turnout and has anyone ever heard of this before? Thanks Ron
Well........ I use curved turnouts, #7 Walthers on my layout. When visited by the curved switch gremlins in the past, I have always tried to get creative and fix, rescale, tweak, and/or coax the thing into behavior mode. NADDA... doesnt work. Before you spend $200 worth of your time... just go get another one. Right now.. mine all work just fine....................... (crossing fingers, toes, throwing dust over my right shoulder) -Kitbash By the way... take your NMRA gage w/ you. I keep one in the car.
Why not try this: Slice off the cast on "spikes" which hold the rail in place, use 3 point gauge to hold rail in gauge, drill #78 holes to accomodate spikes. If you're going to replace it any way seems worth a try. Gary
Is the derailing happening at the frog, the point or an the end of the turnout? Run the offending equipment through the points and watch carfully where the derailment happens. Shinohara TO's are gauged at the extreme (wide) end of the NMRA standard. Often (particularly with high frog numbers and with curved turnouts) the check gauge between the frog and the gaurd rail is very wide - this will let some wheel sets twist slightly as they go over the frog and they will 'pick' the frog. This is easy to fix by adding strip syreen to the inside of the gauge rail to a tighter tollerance (use your NMRA gauge to find the size) and this will force the wheels to go through the correct side of the frog.
The E unit (which is the only one that does this) derails right where the direction points meet the rail. I thought I had it resolved by throwing the to in the other way, but alas, the same problem in the same spot. I have since taken the curved TO out, and replaced it with a #6 and a 3" section of flex. Thanks for the help Ron
Did the wheel fall in or jump over the point? Sometimes 3-axle trucks will lever themselves over a bump in the track. If there isn't a real sharp point on the point rails wide the flange can pick the front edge of the point rail and it will want to ride up on top of the rail. 3 axle trucks are more prone to this. The problem can usually be fixed by filing the top of the point rail so there is no edge for the flange to hit.
The whole idea of having GUARD RAILS on a turnout, is to GUARD the FROG point. Guard Rails are guaged to allow 1/2" clear between the frog point, and a wheel flange, so there is no possibility of a flange picking a frog point in real life. If you have ever watched closely when a wheel rolls over a turnout frog, you have seen that the outside edge of the wheel rides on the rail going away, which carries the wheel flange (1" wide), across the gap (where the two flange ways cross at the frog point), and continues to do so, until the wheel begins to ride on the frog point rail. Now the wheel is riding on both rails, until the going away rail curves out from under the wheel, but by then the wheel is well on top riding the frog rail. There is NO GAP for a real wheel to fall into, like there is on a model train turnout. Even on a real 2-1/2 degree high speed frog, the flange head still rides on the flange root so does not have any gap to fall into or bounce over. The flange gap (between the rail and the guard rail) allowed on factory model turnouts is almost 4", not 1". Now on the POINT RAILS.... On one curved turn out in real life, I saw a guard rail mounted to guide the wheel flange away from the POINT RAIL as well! Point rails are milled on BOTH sides of the web in real life. About 6 or more feet of the outside rail head is milled to a long taper just even with the web. On the inside, however, the long taper is milled down to flange depth, (1") and is continued all the way to a point leaving no more than 1/8" blunt at the point. If you will look closely you can see they actually thin up the web too at this area. The rounded edge contour of the rail head is formed only on the flange side of this taper. What this does is to allow the point rail to start below the flange, and slowly rise up in the corner between the wheel face, and the flange. If you did this on your model turnout, the point would be sharp enough to slice your finger like a razor blade! ( I file, then hone mine for this!) Also, I NEVER run my fingers over my switches either! This guard is only needed when approaching the point rail and holds the flange away from being able to pick the point rail to the inside curve. This guard rail stopped blunt about 3" short of the very point of the point rail, since it is a one-way use. There was only one, about four feet long, and of course it was on the inside curve. It had been tapered with a cutting torch for about 3" on the blunt end just at the rail head, and had the usual bent taper on the other end. There was no sign that a wheel had ever hit the torched end. All the thrust would be away from this guard rail anyway. It would not be needed when coming through the turn out from the frog direction, and would have no effect on the traffic through the large outside curve in either direction. So even real railroads have to solve problems with curved turn outs. Our problem is that in HO we do not have .0114" wide wheel flanges and .0117" flange ways that have solid root ways .0110" deep to eleminate the big gap our wheels fall into on our turnouts, especially the curved turnouts. Correct guard rails and proper weight and speed will help on our models though. You can't have fun unless you have really good track! "C"? "N"joy !!!
Hi gents, I build turnouts in N scale for sale, curved turnouts tend to be problematic in that the point rails on the outside of the curve have to be perfectly sharp and fit against the outside stock rail very snuggly. It helps to file an indentation on the stock rails to help the point rails a "slot" to fit in. But even this needs to be very carefully done. Long wheel base locomotives notoriously "hunt" the outside rail of curves. especially our too sharp Model railroad curves. If the turnout is installed the quick fix would be to put a guard rail by the inside rail to pull the wheels towards the center of the track. Properly placed it will cure the problem. If the turnouts not installed, careful filing and fitting the point rails should take care of the problem. Just make sure you test it with "six wheel" trucks. Another potential problem could be the wheels, if the flange is too sharp (not rounded as per the NMRA recommendations) then the flange (like a razor blade) will find the gap. Micro trains latest released low pros have this problem, so they require some sanding to round out the flange. Fox valley wheelsets are way better in that reqard. Rob Prototrack, Alaska
