While looking at the YouTube clip from the Rockville Z train show and looking at the RDC I spotted a pair of cross over switches. If you have a doubletrack mainline and want to electrically isolate the tracks from each other, how do you do that with a pair of cross over switches? There isn't enough rail to make a cut. Do you use plastic joiners like Märklin or just line the switches up up with a gap and nail them so they don't move? Or maybe you just run DCC and don't have to care about isolating. I have been looking at those plastic joiners but I haven't tried to use them yet so I haven't isolated my my two tracks on the double track mainline loop from each other yet. Instead I have isolated the back stretch of my loop so that I can park a train there. Easier to make cuts there. Cheers Mikael
Myself I'm running DC and rely on insulated joiners. However, Marklin's in my opinion show a drawback: they're assymetrical, showing one end far shorter than the other. I definitly prefer other brands matching code 55 rail. I don't remember the brand I'm using, would have to recover that pack, but it's likely Atlas... Dom
Thanks for the tip. Now when you mention Atlas I remembered that Zscale Monster Trains has just that. I include that in the next order so that I can test. Thanks Mikael
Atlas makes Code 55 insulated joiners but they are quite large and about 2x long. Since they are almost clear, you can simply cut 1/2 off each side. Micro Engineering makes code 55 joiners that are exactly what you need. Much more to Code 55 scale. 26-056. pkg of 12. And, they are brown Their code 55 metal joiners are near identical to MTL's without that long tab ! 26-055, pkg of 12. I use them exclusively.
