First off I have to state that I stole this picture off of TO. It was posted by Harold, sd75mac@trainorders.com He also has a web site at http://www.phcomputing.com The picture was taken in San Timoteo Canyon, So-Cal. It might help if I would include the link Try three, I wanted the picture, not the link [ 11 September 2001: Message edited by: slimjim375 ] [ 11 September 2001: Message edited by: slimjim375 ]</p>
No problems Jim, Harold is also an active member here. Here in Sydney we also have movable frogs, we call them swingnose crossings. These increase the line speed of trains through the turnout, only problem is its just another piece of infrastructure that can cause reliability problems
The picture shows the smooth run through one of these switches, it is surprising they are not used more (except for the maintenance issue Paul mentioned). I have seen them used on model railways, and they save 'flangeway' problems for varying wheel standards
Imagining modeling that in HO scale!!! Looks like a challenge that i'm not going to take a bite out of! I'll stick to my regular turnouts... HA! Nice photo although.... Interesting...
Those ARE used on HO John! When I get then out, I'll send you a photo of one. They prevent "picking the frog point", the very BEST thing they do is eliminate the "Bounce" you get when a Box car rolls its wheel down into the excessively long area between the frog point and when the wheel again rolls up onto the rail again. Lionel turnouts were made this way for years but without guard rails. They do take some care in setting up, but work great after that, especially on the #4's and #6 switches with long engines.
Watash, I haven't seen any thing like that in HO something that either was before my time or is something from "Scale" clubs or something.. Anyway keep me in mind when you get to them! I bet they are nice though as in the running trains and all....No wobble on those turnouts...
First off, I do not want to start a flame war. If a turnout/switch is properly made, there will be no bounce when the wheel crosses a frog. The following is from the NMRA. 4. FLANGEWAY WIDTH (F in S-3) is the distance between flange-sides of the Wing and Frog Rails. TIRE WIDTH (N in S-4) is the distance between the Back of the wheel flange at railhead height and the outer edge of the wheel tread. a. Maximum Flangeway Width at the point of the Frog should be less than half the minimum Tire Width to ensure the wheel tread riding the Wing Rail across the intersection of the flangeways until it is supported by the Frog Point Rail. See Fig. 2. b. Guard Rail Flangeway Width is limited at its maximum only by Track Gage and Check Cage (G and C).
Well, you grab some ties and rail and make your own If you talk real nice, Steve Hatch of Railway Engineering might make you one. The only people that I know that have made them was TruScale.
SlimJim375, No flames, I just refered to the Atlas switches (turnouts) I have that are not made to the NMRA specs. and do have excessive flange width allowance between frog and guard rails. Also the guard rails are BENT at the frog point, not FORGED, so as drawn your FIG.2 is correct, while the Atlas product DOES have suffecient room for the average HO wheel to fall down and bounch over frog points. It is exasterbated by the 5 degree taper on most car wheels so the wheel does drop enough to perform a jitter crossing the frog point. I use fully sprung trucks, so it is noticable. The present day molded in one piece trucks probably allow three wheels to carry the car across this big gap enough to where it may not be noticable. If Bachmann and Rivarossi and others had made their wheel flanges to NMRA spec, Atlas would have been able to have the throat support high enough to support the flange as does a real switch. Then there would be no bounce either. I have tried Proto 87 wheels over Atlas switches and the effect is derailing. The flange width is suposed to be .028" which means the guard rail to frog width must be no more than .033" but when I mike several Atlas switches, they are .045 to .055" wide, so not to NMRA spec unless you fill them with Dev-Con and file them back to spec.
I hear you there. For the tread angle, that was one reason NWSL went to 2 degrees on their wheels. Another thing that really helps is going to a three point suspension on the cars. If you thought the 0.088" wide wheels gave you fits try it with 0.072" wheels. That is called make your own track work. It is all a big trade off between keeping production costs down, being able to run toy trains on it, strong enough to withstand youngsters (five year olds) and who they sell most of it to.
