Greetings - I'm just starting back up in model railroading after many years. I'm using Peco Streamline Code 83 flextrack and I'm ready to add some turnouts. Does anyone know were I can get templates for the Peco turnouts? The radius of my curves are just over 20 inches, so I think a No. 5 or 6 turnout would matchup. Thanks in advance for help and suggestions.
You could lay one down in xtrckcad and the print it out. Also, the instructions that come with a PECO code 83 #6 turnout tell you approximately what radius it lines up with in a curve. Unfortunately I'm at work and those instructions are at home.
Thanks - I need to mail order some turnouts from Alaska and I'm trying to figure out what will fit with my existing layout...
Maybe some kind soul can photograph/photocopy/scan a couple next to a ruler and post or e-mail the images. You could then print them out at correct scale. I'd do it myself but I'm afraid I don't have any 83s (I have code 75s, but only because when I started this layout and bought all the track the 83 stuff hadn't come out )
A #6 turnout's closure rails would not be a great match for your 20" radius curve. You would want something in a 4.5 or at most a #5. I don't know that Peco makes those, but their Streamline Code 83 #6 is a very generous turnout if you can get several in a yard, even anywhere else on a layout that is on the small side (less than 45 sg. ft.) In any event, the factor that you are interested in is called the "substitution radius", and a #6 turnout's substitution radius is above 42", over twice the radius of your curve. If it were me, I'd look for a curved turnout, a #6 or a #6.5 at most, or I would fiddle with the diverging rail beyond the frog and try to curve it slightly, say like a 32" curve. You can nip the plastic webbing below the rail foot when you invert the turnout, use a sharp knife to cut thin blocks out of the stock rail's webbing since you are going to be wanting to compress the webbing on that side as you bend the rails. This would have to be done carefully over a series of slight finger pressure bends of the rails until you saw that they were slightly curved...and I do mean slightly. You want a 4 deg curve, or something like that, just enough so that you can slip the turnout into a curve more easily.
