turnouts

[crash]

Kind of new at this. What's the difference in the turnouts, #4, #5, #6. I'm building a switching yard and want to put in four or five tracks. Probably about a 18" - 20" wide area.

[ebtnut]

The turnout number refers to the angular spread of the diverging route.  A number 4 turnout opens up 1" for every 4" of run, a number 5 opens up 1" in 5", and so on.  Tight, compact layouts using 18" curves can use No. 4 turnouts to save space.  Larger and longer equipment likes higher numbered turnouts. 

[Trainman203]

The bigger the number, the more realistic things are, the better operation is, and bigger equipment can be used.

[infamouselijah]

Which turnout would go with a 22' radius curve?

[Bucksco]

This post has everything you want to know about numbered turnouts...

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/262912.aspx

[Hunt]

This post has everything you want to know about numbered turnouts...

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/262912.aspx

infamouselijah, Did you find answer to your question, "Which turnout would go with a 22' radius curve?"

[infamouselijah]

Not quite. It has the numbers, but for different kinds of track (at least that's what it seems like to me)

[infamouselijah]

I'm going to guess maybe a #6 though

[Len]

An alternative would be to use Atlas 22" radius turnouts mounted on cork roadbed. They have Code 83 rails, so transition type rail joiners would be needed, but they would get the job done.

Len

[Terry Toenges]

This is just using standard turnouts. To give you some idea of width in your planning, this is 17 1/4" wide from the lowest corner of the turnout to the peak edge of the track on top.

This is 7 3/4" wide.

[jward]

Bear in mind that Terry's photos are using the standard 18r switches with a 30 degree angle of turn on the diverging route. That makes the parallel tracks spaced much wider than necessary, they appear to be on about 5 or 6 inch centers. By using #4 or #5 you should be able to tightn up that spacing considerably, even using EZ track you should be able to get the spacing down to 3" or so. Using switches without roadbed, like atlas, shinohara or peco will allow you to space your tracks as close as 2" apart.

[Trainman203]

Ez track is basically train set track, not designed with yard operations in mind.  I've got EZ track on parts of my mainline and the first switch at the yard throat is EZ No 5, but the rest of the yard is another brand easier to use in a yard ladder.