EZ track turnouts

[richardm]

Can EZ track turnout frogs be powered. My turnouts have a plastic frog.

[Quentin]

I though they were already powered? Or am I mistaken? This question might have to be answered by someone who is older and wiser than my 16 yr old self.

-Quentin

[rich1998]

Can EZ track turnout frogs be powered. My turnouts have a plastic frog.

Not without a lot of work. Plastic does not conduct electricity.

I just did a Google search for, powering plastic frog turnouts, and found forums with discussions on this issue. Some members have a lot of experience and some here do also.
I doubt you would want to try this.
Replace the turnout with a powered frog.

I have hand laid my own turnouts some years ago. Stub turnouts 1870 era. Quite different. No frog.

Rich

[Gary Allen]

Why would you want to power the frog?  My train works fine with plastic frogs.  The crossovers have metal frogs, but they are insulated from the rails.  If you power the frog, you have to switch the power between the two rails based upon the position of the switch.

[WoundedBear]

Start running short 2 and even 4 axle equipment over #6 or #8 turnouts, and you will quickly discover why powered frogs are important.

All the turnouts on my layout are powered frog, and switch polarity using the extra contacts on the toggle switch that controls them.

It was a lot of work but well worth the effort.

Sid

[Trainman203]

The switches with plastic frogs are the ultra sharp radius ones meant to replace a section of 18" radius track.  Those are too sharp for very realistic operations anyway.  Consider replacing with number 4, 5 or 6 switches.  These do have metal frogs that can be powered by attaching a little lead wire supplied under the switch.  You do have to watch out for opposing polarity on the trailing side while operating but the elimination of stalling on a dead frog is well worth it.  

[Gary Allen]

Is there a trick to attaching a photo to these messages?  I got mine down to 45K and I keep getting a message that the upload folder is full.

[Len]

Is there a trick to attaching a photo to these messages?  I got mine down to 45K and I keep getting a message that the upload folder is full.

I wish they'd just get rid of that "Attach:" thing under 'Additional Options'. You can't upload pics directly to this forum. You have to upload them to a picture hosting site like Flickr or PhotoBucket and use image tags to link to them there.

Len

[Gary Allen]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/190657318@N07/50496134891/in/pool-14760616@N23/

[Gary Allen]

I really don't know if that worked or not.  Trying to share a photo of my grandson's train on our dining room table.  No basements in Oklahoma and no room in the garage.  Afraid we're limited to 18-in radius and short locomotives and cars.  He doesn't seem to mind.  He's 4 but does a good job driving the two trains.  Hasn't yet mastered switching the turnouts and crossovers.  A bit of a challenge using the Bachmann DCC controller we got with the first train set.

[Gary Allen]

I don't have any train layout design software so I drew it up in AutoCAD.  Worked extremely well.

[Terry Toenges]

Once you upload a photo to a site, open it up and right click on it. Click "copy image location" from the menu that comes up.
Then click the "image" tag in the box above the message area when you are typing your message. Paste the "image location" that you copied between the two image tags.
Like this but without the spaces: [ img ] image location [ /img ]

[Gary Allen]

Took me a few tries to figure out which one was the image tag but got it.  Hope this works better.  Thanks Terry.

[Gary Allen]

Well that didn't work.

[Gary Allen]