Thank you Richard for that very informative post. It comes at a good time for me since I am in the throes of deciding which track and turnouts to use.
>From your excellent report it sounds as though my suspicions are confirmed: for a hi-scaler such as myself, not overly concerned with the visual appearance of wheels, and one who has some LAF equipment, as well as AM, SHS to run, I need to just go with all hi-rail, AF compatible turnouts. That perhaps excludes me from running some of the wonderful River Raisin engines, (if I ever acquire any) et al, on the same loop, but I can live with that. A dedicated loop of scale height track and if required, compatible turnouts would solve the situation. For decades our S modular layout worked pretty much like that: one loop would run only scale, the other only hi-rail. Roy Inman From: Richard Karnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 15:44:00 -0700 To: S-Scale <[email protected]> Subject: {S-Scale List} Review of Custom Trax turnouts and Tom's Turnouts All -- There has been some discussion here recently about Tom's Turnouts. Quite coincidentally, Earl Henry was kind enough to send me a sample of both Tom's Turnouts and Custom Trax turnouts for my assessment. Earl's objective is to be able to run both scale and hirail equipment on the same layout, so he has been purchasing sample items from a variety of S turnout manufacturers. For my testing I used the NASG track/wheel gauge and an S Scale America fully-equalizewd truck with scale metal wheelsets conforming to the NASG standard for wheelsets. Here is what I have found: 1. Custom Trax #6 r.h. turnout with widely-spaced guard rails and a scale frog -- This turnout may tolerate hirail wheelsets, but the wheels that travel through the frog will bounce over it. It will not be reliable for scale wheelsets -- See explanation in #3 below. This turnout is compatible with the NASG gauge with respect to track gauge only. Additionally, the sharp end of the curved switch point is too blunt. It needs to be feathered to a point. 2. Custom Trax #6 L.H. turnout with closely-spaced guard rails -- This turnout will not tolerate hirail wheelsets. It appears that it will handle scale wheelsets properly. The right-hand turnout is compatible with the NASG gauge with respect to track gauge, frog, and guardrail flangeways. However, the track gauge of the left-hand turnout is inconsistent, varying from wider than the NASG maximum to narrower than the NASG minimum. And the sharp ends of its switch points are too blunt. They need to be feathered to a point. For both turnouts, the check gauge in the vicinity of the frog is consistent with the NASG gauge. 3. Custom Trax #6 r.h. turnout without guard rails -- This turnout will not be reliable with either scale or hirail wheelsets. Guard rails are required to pull the wheelset away from the frog point so as to prevent the flange that goes through the frog from "picking" the frog point. When picking occurs, the wheelset has a 50-50 chance of taking the wrong path through the frog. This turnout is compatible with the NASG gauge with respect to track gauge and frog flangeways. However, the sharp ends of the switch points are too blunt. They need to be feathered to a point. 4. Custom Trax #8 L.H. Turnout This turnout conforms in all respects to the NASG track gauge. I was a little concerned because the track gauge through the straight leg is the minimum allowed while at the same time the guard rail seemed too far from the stock rail. But the check gauge is correct and therefore the test truck tracked reliably through the turnout, even with considerable lateral force toward the frog point. 5. Tom's Turnouts -- These will work properly for some hirail wheelsets but probably not for all. The presence of guard rails requires dimensional compatibility (back-to-back wheelset dimension that is equal to or greater than the distance between inside of flangeways at guardrail and frog). DIfferent manufacturers' wheelsets differ in this dimension. SHS and AM hirail wheelsets conform to each other. Many AF and almost all Lionel wheelsets do not. None of the Tom's products will provide reliable operation with scale wheelsets. Scale wheelsets will not operate properly on the #6 right-hand turnout. They drop into the frogs, and they nearly always pick the frog points because of this. Additionally, the track gauge through both legs of the turnout exceeds the NASG maximum dimension. Scale wheelsets will not operate properly on the 6 left-hand turnout. They drop into the frogs, and they nearly always pick the frog points because of this. Additionally, the track gauge through the straight leg of the turnout exceeds the NASG maximum dimension, whereas the track gauge through the curbed leg is less than the NASG minimum dimension. These observations hold true for both samples furnished. 6. Tom's 9-1/2 Degree Crossing (#6 frogs) -- Crossings with rather large angles (larger than, say, 20 degrees) are fairly immune to frog-point-picking problems. All you need is guard rails that are far enough from the running rails to be non-functional (cosmetic only). But for shallow angles like this one, my comments in #5 above apply. The track gauge through the lower-left-to-upper-right leg is too wide. The track gauge on the other leg is OK. Scale wheelsets will not operate properly on this crossing. They drop into the frogs, and they nearly always pick the frog points because of this. I know that some of you will be unhappy with my assessment. However, I have confined myself to facts, which stand by themselves. But I do have a personal observation regarding Tom's Turnouts. These are mechanically and aesthetically well-made. They look exactly like the turnouts I made as a teenager, when I was still a hirailer. There is no reason that a properly-gauged Tom's Turnout will not function properly as long as wheelsets that are consistent with its check gauge measurement (the distance between the inside edge of the frog wing rail and the inside edge of the opposite guard rail) are used. That said, I fail to understand how a statement can be made that they will perform properly independent of a wheelset's back-to-back distance. For your reference I will be posting photos of a Tom's Turnout and a Custom Trax turnout in our Yahoo photos section. Dick Karnes [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! 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