Reducing Wheel Dips at Turnout Frogs


B

beiland

Well-Known Member
I've been working on a section of my track that contains some closely spaced curved turnouts (I refer to them as dbl-curves). The frog areas of these turnouts are pretty 'open spaces' that I have had some luck adding some plastic shims to in an effort to reduce some of this big wheel dipping,...that can lead to derailing of certain engines.

Got me to thinking what design improvements could be made to improve the situation?

I seem to recall some much older American Flyer or Lionel turnouts that tried addressing the problem??
 
American Flyer Switches

I was thinking back about some AF switches I had at one time. Could a modernized version of this idea be created in HO that would totally eliminate any gaps at the frog??

[720-Remote-Switches]

[26770-Manual-Switches-front]
 
Tru-Scale turnouts
Ah-ha that was a name/product I was trying to think of,...her is a quote from another site

Quote:
https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/185786.aspx
Tru-scale track started off with milled wood roadbed - think E-Z Track without rails. My objection was that the grain was lengthwise of the milled piece, sideways to the ties. I could never afford it myself, but did encounter it on several club layouts. Since the ties had tie plates milled into them, it was somewhat self-gauging when rail was laid on rail-free roadbed.
Tru-switches were unusual in that the points, closure rails and frog wings were a single assembly that pivoted between the stock rails. This resulted in a closed frog, and made them all but derailment proof.
An excellent product for its day. Of course, its day was six decades ago.

...and wheel-dip proof
So not many folks ever tried to 'modernize' this design?
 
Last edited:
Brian,

some time ago, i showed to you a similar photo according Roco turnouts made for EU deeep flanges and narrow gauged wheelsets. The weak point here is the back-to-back dimension of EU toy train wheelsets. They are often 14,0 - 14,3mm of width which made them narrow gauged in comparison with NMRA Standard width of 14.4. - 14.6mm.

[dsc03847ymkkq]

[dsc03846hckw3]
This above is my solution to refit those antique EU turnouts in a manner, that they match with the NMRA S-3.2 and can be negotiated with wheelests according NMRA S-4.2 with Code 110 wheel contour.
No dipping anymore.

Lutz
Click to expand...
 
Appears the Tru-Scale accomplished that, or very close to that continuous rail,...with no gaps like found with today's commerical turnouts?

I am NOT addressing the base plates of these designs, only the design concept of rail configurations themselves. Is their an alternative way to build a turnout that DOES NOT have that open gap at the frog !!.....tru-scale did it,...is there another way, or could the tru-scale concept be modernized??
 
My Current Thought

Okay this is just a really rough sketch at the moment, but perhaps it conveys the thought,...my swinging frog.

I cut out the location of the stock frog area on a Peco medium radius turnout, and inserted a plain sheet of yellow post-it note behind it
The new 'frog' would be that solid piece of metal that wold rotate around the 'pin' at the one end (circular pin shown) . It would swing from one side to the other and its two sides would line up the inner faces of the tracks in either of the 2 directions. It would allow the wheels of the rolling stock to roll over either of its solid metal edges.
DSCF8926.jpg

DSCF8927.jpgDSCF8928.jpgDSCF8929.jpg
 
Beiland: You might look at Swingnose/movable frog switches - Just the tip of the frog aligns with which ever track the points are set to.

Swingnose.jpg


Later
 
Is there any current commercial manufacturer making these?....in HO or any other scale??

The closes thing I can think of was the old Tru-Scale turnouts?
 
I can certainly live with this feature of the TS turnouts...
[420px-Krustenis_ar_kustigu_serdi_1-18]


Another feature I like about the Tru-Scale turouts was the single piece closure rails, rather than the jointed ones on most of the modern turnouts.

https://hoseeker.net/truscale/truscalecatalogpg2.jpg

brass version.jpg

I image it would be easy enough to camouflage those metal connecting and pivoting plates.

BTW, the TS turnouts were also offered in a relatively simple KIT form.
 
Turnouts, in kit form?

Lets suppose,....a commercial builder (or a small start-up] was thinking of supplying a 'kit form' of turnouts based loosely on the Tru-Scale ideas...no gap turnouts.

Perhaps they could supply an exact flat paper copy of the turnout, on to which one would tack-glue the ties down, then glue the rails down to those ties. What if rather than wood ties and track nails they glued the rails directing to the ties,...no tie plates at first. (any type of tie plates could be added later, depending on the modelers desires).

A couple of question arise here,..... wood or some sort of plastic ties.?? I'm imaging that the tie material would be supplied in long strips that could be cut to length for the individual ties. Many of today's plastics might not be easily glued (strongly) to our rails, ...particularly where you are not depending on molded tie plates to hold the rails in place? Suggestions??

And I think the code 83 rails would be my first chose,...a bit more flexible than code 100, and tall enough to allow multiple different wheel/flange combinations. This 'tie-plate -less' (glued down) construction would readily adapt to smaller code rails.
 
Another feature I like about the Tru-Scale turnouts was the single piece closure rails, rather than the jointed ones on most of the modern turnouts.

I image it would be easy enough to camouflage those metal connecting and pivoting plates.

closure rails on Tru Scale.jpg


I think those 3 metal connecting plates could be camouflaged with 'tie images',...OR

Perhaps that whole area between the closure rails could be a very thin piece of tough plastic material edge glued to the rails, and having an image of ties on its upper surface. The thin plastic or metal connecting plate(s) would hold the rails to shape and pivot smoothly over the underlying ties.

There are no joints in those closure rails, and the closure rails could pick up power from either end (both ends) of their connection with the primary rails.
 
beiland said:
Another feature I like about the Tru-Scale turnouts was the single piece closure rails, rather than the jointed ones on most of the modern turnouts.

I image it would be easy enough to camouflage those metal connecting and pivoting plates.

closure rails on Tru Scale.jpg


I think those 3 metal connecting plates could be camouflaged with 'tie images',...OR

Perhaps that whole area between the closure rails could be a very thin piece of tough plastic material edge glued to the rails, and having an image of ties on its upper surface. The thin plastic or metal connecting plate(s) would hold the rails to shape and pivot smoothly over the underlying ties.

There are no joints in those closure rails, and the closure rails could pick up power from either end (both ends) of their connection with the primary rails.
Click to expand...
So you are saying the inner pair of tracks just bend rather than swivel?
 
No, they still swivel in my new version,...

Another feature I like about the Tru-Scale turouts was the single piece closure rails, rather than the jointed ones on most of the modern turnouts.

I image it would be easy enough to camouflage those metal connecting and pivoting plates.

closure rails on Tru Scale.jpg


I think those 3 metal connecting plates could be camouflaged with 'tie images',...OR

Perhaps that whole area between the closure rails could be a very thin piece of tough plastic material edge glued to the rails, and having an image of ties on its upper surface. The thin plastic or metal connecting plate(s) would hold the rails to shape and pivot smoothly over the underlying ties.

There are no joints in those closure rails, and the closure rails could pick up power from either end (both ends) of their connection with the primary rails.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.



Back
Top