Laying On30 Turnouts Using Templates

[hminky]

I am "retracking" the un-finished portion of the On30 Pacific Coast Air Line Railway with handlaid track replacing the HO Atlas Code 100 track. I have am chronicling the adventure at:

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/retrack/





Thank you if you visit
Harold

[felix]

Harold,

Wow, another masterful tome, thanks for sharing! Your stuff is some of my favorite, you make it "do-able" and keep the fun in the mix.

None better.

Felix - looking to warm up the plow cabin

[amdaylight]

Harold,

Another good "How I did it"

What scale are we in this week, are you back to On30? or are you kind of doing what I am laying the track to good HO standards and then you are able to run anything from HO, OO, Sn42 and On30? What ever I always enjoy your web site and the good information that you provide.

I notice that you say that you have moved past the India Ink and alcohol for staining ties, just curious why?

Andre Anderson

[hminky]

There is a certain point in time one realizes they are "racing the reaper", I have settled on On30. At my age I don't have the desire to build all the equipment required in the minority scales. I only have so much time and it is better devoted to layout building.

India Ink/alcohol has been done to death and it is about time to move on. Stained wood contains to much yellow to look aged in the larger scales. It is impossible to match stained wood ties with the PCB ties. Staining white primer on  both creates a match.

I also don't think India Ink/alcohol is the best way to depict weathered wood especially hardwood railroad ties.



Notice the tie color, doesn't look like I/A.

A real narrow gauge turnout from Slim Rails at:

http://www.urbaneagle.com/slim/spng.html

Harold

[rich19]

maybe I can motivate you to try (and then elaborately explain it on your website) a stub turnout. Want to make then for my own 1880's layout but am desparately awaiting a simple to understand article like yours....

richard

[hminky]

The "simpler" stub switch is actually harder to make and maintain. Keeping the alignment of the "stubs" and the turnout are a real pain. Been there done that. Never had much success with stub switches.

Harold

[amdaylight]

maybe I can motivate you to try (and then elaborately explain it on your website) a stub turnout. Want to make then for my own 1880's layout but am desparately awaiting a simple to understand article like yours....

richard

Richard,



There are two major problems with the stub turnout and they both have to do with the portion of the rail that is bent from one route to the other.

The first has to do with alignment, keeping the bending rails stopping at the same place left to right requires some sort of stop unlike a point switch where the point bears up against the stock rail there is nothing on a stub switch to stop the bending rails at the right point. The next part of the this problem is that the bending rail need to be kept down at the right height, in the scales that we work in the rails tend to float and then we have a derailment issue. On a point switch the throw bar usually slides under the stock rails and has the points soldered to it again solving the problem.

The next major problem is the bridles that hold the bending rails in the proper gauge, not only do they have to keep the rails in gauge, they also have to keep the rails separated electrically. Ideally they should also have just the tiniest amount of flex where they attach to the rail, I have built stub switches but the head aches to keep them operating always seemed to be more that they were worth. I used N scale PC ties to act as bridles but eventually the copper foil broke of the tie from the flexing and I had to remove the bending rails and rebuild them and then reinstall the rails in a railroad that was mostly built, in another words working around scenery.

I hope this explains some of the problems, if not let me know.

Andre Anderson

[kendoitall]

keeping the bending rails stopping at the same place left to right requires some sort of stop unlike a point switch where the point bears up against the stock rail there is nothing on a stub switch to stop the bending rails at the right point.
_________

True. But it has occurred to me that the mechanism used to allign the rails of a turntable to tracks might be a direction somebody with the know-how can pursue. Not me - my VCR still flashes "12:00"

Ken