A 0 scale friend used the tortoise on his entire layout and they seemed
to fire just fine even with the great distance required in 0. Since
this guy is about my age--gettin' old, he did something very smart. He
mounted all his tortoises' at the edge of the layout and used reach rods
for the final activation. This means all the wiring work and most of
the alignment takes place within inches of the installer. So this would
probably solve the problem of cross bearers in the way in many cases.
The only downside I'm aware of is that the internal contacts not being
able to endure a short above the typical H0/N range. Apparently this
requires additional contacts.
I use a couple of the machines to actuate 'wheel stops' on grades. I
personally don't mind the sound they make--you know they're working! On
the other hand my two switch-masters are a little too quiet. My older
PFM/Fulugrex machines squeal like a pig--you really know they're moving!
On one of my last assignments for the local switching railroad, the
Houston Belt and Terminal, where they had just installed remote switch
motors that were more like twin coils--they moved very quickly with lots
of sounds coming from the unit plus the whole switch itself jerked
around. I wonder if those were successful without alignment problems
down the road as these controlled four major throats in a very large
yard thus being critical to the entire operation. This yard used four
sets of dual SW1500's, each pair working one of the throats, 24/7!
Bob Werre
BobWphoto.com
>
> I vote Tortise.
>
> If you need more point pressure, just replace the wire. I use .042.
> Plenty stout for S scale. I don't think I would even mess with the
> Bluepoints because the aggravation of installing the linkages is not
> worth the limited savings over a Tortise.
>
> The one thing I would say about installing a Tortise is that you have
> to drill a hole beneath the throw bar. So if your switch is already
> installed, that would be difficult to do without damaging the throw
> bar. Another issue might be that your throw bar is located over a
> joist that precludes drilling straight down. Then you have to get
> creative: move the hole to the outside of the throw bar, or make an
> offset with bell cranks, etc.
>
> We have over 50 machines--some in place since 1988--and I think I've
> had problems with two of them. You can power them with a ten dollar
> Radio Shanty transformer.
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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