Everyone who hand lays track says the best way is to just jump in. I've been wanting to give it a go. My current layout is a Z scale variation on the Gumstump and Snowshoe with a continuous run loop added. First up were six #6 turnouts, followed by one #4.5. I learned a lot in the process and had a great time doing them. After the first one they turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. The layout needed a #4.5 double slip to do away with the last store bought switch. It seems to be working okay. I would not recommend it as a starting point but it can be done with patience and a good bit of fiddling. Materials costs are very low but labor costs are probably best not mentioned. Here it is operation. Thanks for reading. Take care, Brent
Thanks for all the kind words. shortpainter, I will of course be looking for a SW1200 to help share the switching duties. ;-)
Outside of keeping all in gauge, the other 2 critical details are filing the rail base in the frog area (allows the gap to be kept small, so the wheels tread doesn't drop in) and the points shaping. I have usually filed a slight set-in to the stock rails, to allow the points to set in 'flush'. When making some N scale versions, I found the rail base was impeding me from 'poking' the frog exit rails in far enough. This limited by the frog exit rail bases pushing up against the wing rails. Same with the guard rails against the stock rails. These guard rails are key to keeping trouble out if the frog. More info on NMRA Recommended Practices: https://www.nmra.org/index-nmra-standards-and-recommended-practices, RP-12 and RP-13. I was just reading an article on turnouts, somewhere, and I can't recall it. it had 'enhancements' to the RP- drawings so show the not-so-obvious relationships of the Guard and Wing rails.
Nice work! I've been building my own turnouts using Fast Tracks. It's definitely nice to have a choice of turnouts in Z and building them myself has been very rewarding. I haven't tried anything as fancy as a double slip, though.
John, I hope these will help. Let me know if you would like to see something specific. Thanks for your interest. Here are some of the parts used in the switch. A close up. I'll post a picture of the current state of the layout in another thread. Take care, Brent