Tired of waiting on Atlas

Bob, John thank you so much for the insight. I still consider myself a noobie so all of this is great information. I am beginning to think that I can lay my own turnouts, just have to bite the bullet for the jig because I think that is the best way for me to go. Turnouts are my biggest problem. Either I wait for Atlas, go with ME or make my own. On the new layout I am designing or should I say modifying from somebody else's to make my own, I am going to need a ton of them and not having to stick with stock ones would make things a bit easier to design.

I have figured out my biggest problem is that I too am a perfectionist and instead of just jumping in and trying something, I talk myself out of it because I don't think it is going to turn out right.

 

If you lay your own turnouts, prepare yourself. The first two or three are learning experiences, you will not be happy with them. But after then it gets easier and easier and they get better and better. I have built about 100 or so and have it down to a very repeatable process. I can build about 4 turnouts an hour (assuming the wooden ties are pre-painted etc) and I am by no means or measure an expert fabricator.

 

David .. from what I have read, I kind of expect that and I am actually ok with it. Now I just have to break the news to CFO to acquire the funds. Since I have stopped working on my current layout as I don't like how it turned out and in the process of designing something new, this is a great time to try it out. You can only spend so much time XTrackCAD!

 

I'm starting to be convinced of the benefits of hand laying turnouts for my planned 14'x14' layout instead of Atlas or Peco C55. I'm probably at least a year away from laying track so plenty of time to build a few to practice on.

 

css29 and Westfalen,

Since you are considering the move to handlaid turnouts, I have a few helping suggestions for the lessons learned department.

Lesson one- Do not over commit to handlaid turnouts. Sounds funny, but there is rhyme in the reason. As you look at all of the turnouts you are going to need, realize that there may be some that you need a lot more than others. I standardized on #10 turnouts on the main lines. But when I wanted crossovers, I wanted something smoother so I opted for #12 turnouts. Since I only needed 6 for the whole layout, I purchased the #12's from a guy I found on the dreaded ebay for about $32 per each. The point here is to not commit funds for turnouts that will not be in enough volume to justify the time of the funds for the tooling etc. I have calculated that the return on investment only really happens when you make 25 or more turnouts.

Lesson two - if you have friends who are also doing this, then share the tools and the expense of the tools. There are 4 guys that I work with and we each purchased the tooling for 5 sizes. In the mix we have standard turnouts, wyes and several curved turnouts, also we have other tooling for both the code 40 and code 55 rail, since we all use code 55 on the mains and code 40 on the branch, industrial and yard tracks. So we share the tools with each other to reduce the overall investment for each of us.

Lesson three - If your CAD package can handle the custom turnout sizes, take the time to enter them. The #10 from Atlas is not the same geometry as the #10 from Fast Tracks. And none of the turnouts conform to Peco either. So trying to design a layout substituting the handlaid turnouts with the Atlas or Peco can bring you considerable grief when you start building the layout. Scrape the data for all of the turnouts from the Fat Tracks site and have it handy, not just to enter the data in a custom library, but to also have it on hand to look at while designing. I have it all in an Excel spreadsheet that I refer to often just to see what might work. As an example a curved turnout that needs ha 24" inner radius has two solutions a #8 frog that is 36" outer radius or a #10 frog with a 30" outer radius. I do not use any of the standard CAD packages for modelling the layout, I use an industrial level CAD package that the mechanical engineers I work with use. This is probably my biggest mistake.

Just a few tips from lessons learned department.

 

David thank you for the information. In my new layout plan I am already up to 50 turnouts and I am no where done. Making the investment sounds reasonable at this point. Doing the math, the cost for turnouts is my biggest investment as the flex track is really cheap in comparison. I really wish I had friends that were in to trains but I guess I live too far out for that. There is one club that is about an hour away and other that is about 1.5 hours away. Not sure I am up for the drive.

On my new design I am using ME for the track and turnouts. Since they only have #6 my yard dimensions get stretched out. If I went with handlaid turnouts, what would you recommend as the minimum?

 

Hi,

Your yard size is going to depend mostly on the locomotives and the size of the cars. If you are planning on Autoracks etc, anything smaller than a #6 could be problematic. If you are running mostly 50' cars a #5 would be the lowest I would go,

Since I am running long cars, Autoracks and 89' or longer flat cars, and even passenger traffic in my yard, I opted for #7 turnouts.

I have a very, very large layout under construction and I am almost into 4 digit turnout count. Of course that is high because I replicated the Barstow yard in its entirety as well as the yards in Flagstaff.

 

Hi Craig.

I used Atlas #7's on my yard, which is based on the NKP's main classification yard at Bellevue, OH, in 1957. Here's a photo of the east end under construction, followed by a photo of the completed trackwork at the west end, and then a photo of how it looks finished:







I probably wouldn't use less than a #6 if you are going to have big power (e.g., six axle diesels or 8-coupled steamers) going in and out. But if you can't spare the room, the next best bet would be home-made #5's. These will save some space, and will work far, far better than Atlas #5's, which I've had considerable trouble with (I wouldn't build a yard like this with Atlas #5's - too high a probability of problems). I've run my Big Boy through my hand-made #4's without issue, so a #5 should be fine.

Honestly, if I were doing this today, I'd use hand-made #8's, because this is a "center of attraction" on my layout and also the center of operational activity, with trains going in and out, power moving all around the yard into and out of the attached engine terminal, etc. But I've got a 25'-long wall to work with here.

I'll leave you with a photo looking at the completed east end of the yard where the engine terminal is:



John C.

 

If you draw your centerlines and bend the ME to it and start glueing it down...and then find you are a bit off line as it's being glued...you have to rebend the unglued portion

NO NO NO!! You must completely bend the track before a bit of glue is applied. It must be formed in to a complete representation ogf the final plan first. Not all that difficult, I did each stick in less than 5 minutes, and got faster as I went along.

Bill

 

Good advice on this thread! I followed and commented on John's experience with his Fast Tracks purchase in another thread, and I agree with his advice (if you can afford it) to purchase jigs & fixtures for the ONE turnout size you'll use the most...then, after you've built a few, you'll see that it's not rocket-science and paper templates are just fine for the remainder. Frankly, my only objection to jigs and fixtures is the price, since it minimizes one of the main advantages that hand-made turnouts possess...their low low cost.

By the way John, your list of tools is excellent, and illustrates the point that it doesn't require anything fancy to make your own turnouts.

I'll join in and reiterate that the first three or four turnouts will be throw-aways. However, the FT jigs & fixtures will reduce that number to two...maybe one??? John's experience with his yielded a functional turnout in two. Cosmetics and perfecting your soldering, filing and shaping techniques may take a couple more.

Craig, you might be able to add another yard track in your allotted space by nipping off the straight ends of your ME #6's to get a closer track spacing, but truthfully, I wouldn't use anything less than a #6 where you're running road power considering the implied size of your layout. I use smaller turnouts for industrial areas and my branchline, which adds functionality and "flavor"...and code 40 track too, which adds a lot of visible contrast between mainlines and less-trafficked trackage. Cutting the spacers between ties underneath the rails and spacing them a little further apart will also imply lightly-trafficked trackage, with old sidings and branchlines being served with really crooked-tied, kinked-railed trackage which ME code 40 can easily replicate.

John's advice about Atlas #5's is good advice and many people have had problems with them. I'd stay away.

Bill's advice about how to handle ME flex is exactly right. It can't be treated like "floppy" flex, and with a little practice, you can lay very precisely aligned track. David K. Smith (DKS) likes floppy flex because it's more "organic"...flowing naturally from one curve to another, and he may have a valid point, but...its other disadvantages are hard to ignore for detail-oriented modelers. Using a CAD program to figure out your layout configuration is a big advantage. I've used Cadrail for years and it was well worth the purchase price, as I've used it for planning my portable benchwork, positioning my portable layout in my layout room, several woodworking projects having nothing to do with model railroading, and I used it when I was designing weapons-mountable night vision and surveillance devices!!

The one costly instrument that several of us here have purchased that really adds precision and speed to turnout construction as well as other soldering jobs, would be a resistance soldering station. Although I still fire up the old Archer 35 watt iron (with wedge tip) for a few turnout soldering jobs and tinning parts, about 95% of my turnout construction is accomplished with the assistance of my 250W American Beauty soldering station along with the tweezer hand piece, with allows me to position, hold, solder, hold and release all in one smooth operation. It was expensive 15 years ago when I bought it, but there are several projects I have completed over the years that would have been simply impossible without it. It's paid for itself several times over and is something to think about, although it's not really necessary for just constructing turnouts.

As added inspiration and to emphasize what can be done when you know how to roll your own turnouts, here's a photo of my fellow-crazy Gregg Cudworth's Nn3 RGS (double-decked...the WHOLE railroad in his basement!!) a few years ago showing his code 30 ribbon rail PCB trackage in Rico Yard in particular a three-way stub switch!:


I've both heard of and seen modelers making turnouts and trackage out of .020" brass rod on PCB ties and equally small square stock. Once you learn how to manufacture your own turnouts, a lot of possibilities open up to your thinking.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

 

Gregg fashions his own custom brass turnout linkages and mates them up to investment cast Banjo switch stands that are about 4" high that sit on platforms on the fascia of the layout. So, they're manual, and the frogs are hot as his linkages have the appropriate electrical switches inherent in the design. Like I said, he's modeling on a level way above most of us which includes completely scratch-built bridges and buildings taken from photos and plans of the real deal.

I'll have to take some photos of his finished scenery and post them here one of these days. It's really got to be seen to be believed.

To bring this back to the subject of track and turnouts, those of you who may be interested in hand-laying track and would like to use code 40, be aware that hand-laid trackage (not using ME code 40 flex) with PCB ties every fifth tie, does not interfere with pizza cutters. This means if you have some industrial sidings or a branchline you'd like to model more accurately, you can construct the track using PCB code 40 tracks, and run your old Arnold Alco switchers on the rails without any interference.

What I enjoy about using ME code 40 are the cast-on spikehead details, but code 40 looks pretty good without it too, and if you have to have spikeheads and tie plates, Proto87Stores.com offers etched tieplate and other track and turnout details specifically designed for N-scale code 40 tracks and turnouts.

Here's a photo of my Park City Branchline which starts at Echo Utah, and goes south to several small town, mines and other communities. Mine is hand-laid with PCB ties every 5th tie with Railcraft/ME wooden ties in-between. Ballast is Highball Ballast Cinders with a few larger stones thrown in where appropriate. I will be installing Proto87 Stores spikehead/tieplate details later this week, and I'll post some photos in another thread after I photograph the result:


Here's a closer shot for the detail oriented among us:


Frankly, I'm not sure if the etched NS from Proto87 Stores will add much, but...we'll see soon.

Another point. Hand laid track is much more expensive than flex. If I were not worried about ever having pizza cutters on my code 40, I'd always use ME flex, which already has acceptable spikehead details cast into each tie.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore+

 

Thanks John for the finished switch pictures and excellent explanation.

 

I forgot one additional tool you will need: either a jeweler's saw with a fine blade, or a Dremel with the thinnest cutoff wheel you can find.

Fast Tracks recommends cutting the rail gaps for the frog with a jeweler's saw. I tried this once, and it does make a very fine cut, but it was a pain, and I worry that the very thin gap will close up with changes in humidity (it was also hard to get the gap clean so that I didn't have a short; "Shavings" from the cutting process are hard to clean out with such a fine gap). So in my later efforts, I just used a very thin cutoff wheel in a dremel, and cut from the back side of the turnout. The resulting gap is a bit wider, but still not horribly wide (as you can see in my "completed turnout" photos, which were done this way), the process is faster, and I don't worry about the gap closing when my basement humidity drops to zero in the winter. You do have to be careful not to "nick" the stock rails when doing this, particularly with very small turnouts like a #4, but it's still faster and cleaner, IMHO, than the jeweler's saw.

John C.

 

As to gaps, when cutting them with my turnout on the bench, I use a jeweler's brace with the finest-toothed blade I have. The trick to doing it cleanly and efficiently is using the really fine-toothed blade. If you use a blade with teeth that are further apart, it has a tendency to catch on the edges of the rail profile and will sometimes jump and nick the rail (usually in a highly visible spot!). The ultra fine-toothed blade will also produce very few burrs, so cleanup is only necessary where the last stroke was taken because they'll always be a little shard left there. I just run a single sheet of 400 grit sandpaper in the gap a couple of times facing each side of the cut just to make sure I've got all the shards cleaned up.

In 20+ years of making my gaps this way, I've never had one close up, but I always make sure I've got at least two PCB ties on either side of my gaps which the rail is soldered to.

For cutting gaps on rail that's already laid down, I use my Foredom Tool because the hand-piece is much slimmer than any of my Dremels so I can get my cut perpendicular to the rail. I don't use the Dremel cut-off disks because they're too thick in my estimation, but I use a hard to find, fine toothed circular saw blade (less than .010" thick) and lubricate it with beeswax, and it cuts right through the NS when run at around 1500 to 2500 RPM. Run it too hot and "POOF"...it cooks and the little teeth disappear...which we don't want. Dremel used to make these, but I guess liability problems forced them to stop, and finding them is difficult. Wish I could tell you where I got mine, but I can't remember.

Another way to do it, is to engineer them into your turnout construction by cutting the rail, squaring the cut, then adding the continuing rail with a temporary paper or Styrene spacer to keep the rails apart while you solder up the turnout. This produces a very nice, perpendicular and smooth gap, which you can disguise a little by CA'ing a paper filler into, then use a fine wire wheel on your Dremel to get rid of the parts hanging out. Truthfully, this is the most efficient and controllable way to make your turnout gaps with the caveat that you have to make sure the railheads on either side of the gap are as near perfectly aligned as possible, which can be done easily with your three-point gauges or a small steel straightedge.

Although this appears to be a photo of one of my kit-bashed UP CA-1's, it's also a photo of "engineered" gaps at the frog on my code 40 trackage. I don't use any paper spacers as you can see, and I never have problem with them closing:


Lotsa ways to do things, but I want the gaps on my hand-laid turnouts to be as small as practical, which is pretty small and there are ways to accomplish that, but it takes a little extra effort to either find the right tools or during construction.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore