Powering Frogs

[johnd]

Is there any disadvantage in powering frogs?

I have a 4-8-4 Northern which I got for Christmas and two American 4-4-0 which a friend of mine gave me and a Trix Diesel (Not sure what it is - Union Pacific) which another friend gave me ( I have some very generous friends).

The diesel goes through turnouts without any hesitation but the others don't. I know that the 4-4-0 have short wheel bases and that is why. Not sure why the 4-8-4 does it.

Does anyone have better instructions on powering the frogs? Having a hard time with the instructions that are on the back of the package. Took the back cover off of one turnout and the guts look different than the picture.

Oh yea - N Scale.

[sour rails]

     The frogs have to be metal, then they would be powered.  Then you'd have to deal with isolating the tracks, which gets even more complicated.  Even with the isolated tracks, you have to make sure the power current is right, else you might see some undesirable smoke.

I run HO scale, and some of my turnouts' frogs collect unwanted gunk from the wheels, causing some steamers not to grip the frog properly.

[RAM]

 Check the pickups on those steam locomotives.  I would think that even the 4-4-0s sould be able to pick up current if both drivers are picking up current.  Is the tender used to pick up current?

[johnd]

Thanks for your help guys.

I don't think there are any power pickups in the tenders. I am new at this as you can see from some of the dumb questions I ask but I would think that if the tenders were used to pickup current there would be some kind of electrical connection between the tenders and the Locomotive.

If I race the 4-4-0s at I speed through the turnouts, I can get through them without stalling. 

I have some crossovers which Backmann made it easy to change to powered frogs. I'll try that tomorrow. Wife said I have played with trains long enough today.

Mack to my original question - is there any disadvantage in powering the frogs. I see that some manufactures supply them that way - others don't.

[Yampa Bob]

Actually I don't see any advantage in powering the frogs, only causes more problems with power routing and all that stuff.  I run several 4-4-0 with no stall anywhere, even if I park one on the frog.  Just my nickel, I'm sure many disagree.

The lastest buzz words are "DCC friendly turnouts", do a Google and you will get lots of conflicting information.  The simpler the better, at least for me.

Bob