Interesting thread! Here is something I discovered, from a practical model
rail standpoint:
I had a number of Old Pullman code 100 curved turnouts which I placed near the
throat of a yard approached by 42 inch radius curved track (some of you may
remember this from the 1999 NASG convention). I was never able to get these
turnouts to operate perfectly all of the time, even after spending a lot of
careful time with the NASG track gauge (on rail and on wheels).
With the new railroad layout, I again had space issues where the use of the
curved turnouts was necessary to maintain the obligatory PPSSWS 42 inch minimum
radius curves on the mainline. Because of the prior history, though, I was
reluctant to do so - the proverbial rock and the hard place!
However, I had "discovered" the Fast Tracks jig constructed turnouts and remain
absolutely amazed at how smoothly rolling stock and motive power move through
these.
I was looking closely at the Old Pullman curved turnouts and noting that,
even though all rail approaching the frog is curved, the frog, itself, is
straight! At the same time, I was remembering one of the Fast Track videos
showing that, if you pre-curved code 100 rail and placed it into the frog point
jig for filing the points, the curve in the rail is "remembered" once removed
from the jig.
So I went ahead and pre curved two pieces of rail, one each to the through and
diverging routes of the Old Pullman turnout and used the jig to file the
points. I swapped the new resulting frogs into the Old Pullmans and problem
solved!! Rolling stock now runs beautifully through the altered turnouts.
I suppose the prototype radii are so huge, compared to the model, that straight
frogs still work OK on, even on curved switches. But maybe on the model curved
switches demand curved frogs.
Walt Jopke
Sent from Xfinity mobile App
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