I use Peco code 55 turnouts and usually have no problems. I noticed ,that a few newer ones ,#6's have a problem. When a loco or rolling stock go through the frog they drop and wobble. Some locos will even hesitate or stall for a second. I have check for debris, flashing, obstacles, rail issues and everything else I can think of. Anyone else experience this and is there a fix?
Not sure if this applies to their code 55 turnouts, but I have read that some of their code 80 turnouts have a problem with the guard rails being too far away from the track rails, so wheels drop and run across the frog on their flanges instead of the wheel tread being on the rails. I think the solution for those turnouts was to shim the guard rails to NMRA specs. But, I am not expert on this, not ever owning a Peco turnout, yet. I am following these issues because I want to use some slip switches and 3-way switches on a layout and am wondering if they will be reliable. So, I too will be awaiting more expert replies to your thread question. Steve
Did you use a NMRA track gauge to check clearances? If not, do so. That will tell you if there is something amiss with the turnout.
The problem here isn't that the wheels drop off it's that the older wheel sets have deeper flanges. What's been called the pizza cutters although I've yet to be able to cut a pizza with them. If you've ever watched the 1:1 foot scale cross over a open frog you'll notice everything from the engine up front to all the passenger or freight cars rock a bit as they cross it. What you see on your model railroad isn't so different. About as real as it gets. Just my two cents.
If the wheel flanges are too deep and hit the frog gully surface, wouldn't that cause the cars to RISE instead of drop? Seems like you may be talking about a different issue than the OP is asking about. Especially if it is not happening with the same cars on his other turnouts. Steve
Are these Insulfrogs or Electrofrogs? Their construction is significantly different, thus will cause wheels to react differently if the wheels are slightly out of gauge, or if the frog has a minor manufacturing problem.
I believe you are correct and that would be my oop's. Yep, the pizza cutters would cause the wheels to rise. Thanks for catching that. Wheels on the real railroad will drop slightly as they pass over open points such as a frog or crossing. That's what I meant by it gets real. Normally I'd catch such a thing but the edit feature had closed up and I wasn't able to get back to my original post. Just one of those things. Let's see if I can think up any more excuses? The cat pee'd on the matches?
I don't have one right in front of me, which I probably should - but I've got probably a dozen of the 'medium Electrofogs', which are not a #4 and not really a #6 either. If you look either side of the frog point, you'll notice there's basically nothing down there. On any other switch there actually is a place for the flange to roll on it. These are really deep flangeways by comparison. With the Mediums, if there's enough tread width, it's not noticeable, but if you have a narrow wheeltread with fine flanges (like the one bad run of BLMA's) BOOM! you drop in the frog just ahead of the switchpoint like a rock. I had a car that actually got stuck and jammed in it enough to stall a train. See if that's where your dropping, also see if it is specific wheels, all wheels, or what. I'm more suspect of specific wheelsets, treadwidth not 'bridging' across, and the frog base exceptionally deep down so that's there's nothing for a normal flange to hit. If that's true, you can put some strip Evergreen styrene strip in there and experiment, you can always carve that stuff deeper or remove it if it doesn't do what you want. I suspect with wider European wheel treads the flangeway depth can be made really deep without a problem, with our closer-to-scale tolerances the combination can be pretty deadly. A little drop is normal (maybe about .010 or less) but from what I've seen myself, it would really drop on some wheels. The flangeway depth doesn't do you much good with variation on flanges being what they are - all the way from old European to fine MT flanges and everything inbetween. So you can't depend on setting that depth. But if the wheeltreads are wide enough, they won't drop even if the flanges are much less than the flangeway.
See above. With the NMRA gauge you can check both the turnout as well as the wheelsets on the locomotive. This should be your first step in trying to isolate and address the problem.
As far as I know they always have made them in the single and double slip and crossings but single switches I don't believe they did.
The Fast Tracks website has some good videos showing how a turnout works that some might find interesting. It's specific with HO measurements, but it explains in great detail how the wheel rolls across the frog. https://www.handlaidtrack.com/online-videos-a/164.htm About 1/3 way down the page is a 4 part video titled "Demystifying The NMRA Standards". I found parts 2 & 3 to be the most useful.
Peco has been making N-scale Code 55 Insulfrog turnouts for years, including conventional (non-slip) turnouts. I own a bunch of them and have them installed on my layout.
It's worth nothing that Peco Code 55 track and turnouts has deeper flangeways than other brands of Code 55 track, with the Peco Code 55 track and turnouts being able to run old rolling stock that has the large flanges, even rolling stock from the 1960s and 1970s. I just did a test with a single truck that has low flanges, holding both that truck and a Peco Code 55 Insulfrog #4 turnout in my hands, and I noticed a slight wobble as a wheel went through the frog. But I have never noticed this symptom when using the Peco Code 55 Insulfrog #4 turnouts on my layout, and I have a lot of them installed. Since a #6 turnout has a slightly longer frog, it is possible that a #6 turnout might provide a greater chance for such a wobble to take place in a real layout installation (I don't have any of these installed in my layout). Almost all my Peco Code 55 turnouts are Insulfrog. I do have a couple of Electrofrog turnouts which I bought by accident, and I can confirm their frog construction is slightly different. ChooChooGuy, I have 3 questions: 1. can you tell us whether you are using Insulfrog or Electrofrog turnouts? 2. do the locos and rolling stock you are using have modern low wheel flanges, or older-style high flanges? 3. For the turnouts where you have this problem, if you do a test with older locos or rolling stock that has the larger ("pizza cutter") flanges, do you still see the same "drop and wobble" symptom? Or does rolling stock with larger flanges not suffer from this problem?
This is exactly correct. It is THE first step. If anything is out of gauge, you have no hope of achieving consistency. One of the biggest gauge issues in N scale is too narrow gauge wheel sets. I've checked some Peco code 55s I have and they are all in gauge through the frogs. If the wheel set gauge is too narrow, the wheels are going to hit the guard rails and wobble like crazy as they traverse the switch, maybe even derail. After checking gauge, then, if there's still a problem, look to see exactly what's going on and don't just guess. Doug
Why, then, aren't they listed on the PECO wesbsite? http://www.peco-uk.com/prodtype.asp?strParents=3309,3310&CAT_ID=3315&numRecordPosition=1 The format for PECO turnout part numbers is SL-(E)xxx(F), where the 'E' prefix, if included, indicates electrofrog and the 'F' suffix, if included, indicates code 55. Do you see any code 55 turnouts - not crossings or slip switches- listed that are not electrofrog?
Oops... I just checked my layout, and I have a combination of Peco Code 80 insulfrog, and Peco Code 55 electrofrog. I don't have any Code 55 insulfrog turnouts at all....and thinking back, if they had been available in my LHS, I probably would have selected them instead. Sorry!
It's OK, Carl, we don't hate you for that. I wonder about my own, once brilliant, memory sometimes these days too. However, I did know Peco only makes electrofrog regular turnouts in code 55. Doug
I use all Peco code 80 on my main line, I can not use the NMRA gauge for my wheel sets. They have to be a little narrow or the wheel flange will hit the frog. You can also shim the guard rails in order to use the NMRA standard wheel set width. I don't own any code 55 so I'm not sure if they are the same.
