The plastic goes brittle. I even started a topic on this board bout it. Correct........................ All of the above show these problems. If the matchbook turnouts come in Electrofrog, never have I seen one. Currently, the only Insulfrogs that I am using are, like yours, the matchbook turnouts. The remainder are Electrofrog. Both are showing the continuity problems. In the past, the matchbook, Insul and Electrofrogs showed both the continuity and deterioration/discombobulation. I have replaced several of the the other Insulfrog turnouts and electrofrogs with Atlas, B-mann or Kato turnouts. There is only one section of my pike that still has the Pecos: a parade track and an industrial section next to the parade track. Several of the Pecos in the aforementioned sections have come apart. I replaced most of them with Pecos as I had some unused in my track boxes It was simpler than pulling up the cork and replacing with B-mann or Kato track. In one or two places on the aforementioned industrial section, I did replace with Atlas turnouts which, of course, did not require pulling up cork. In places other than the parade track/industrial section, , I did pull up the cork and replace with B-mann or Kato.
The search function is on the sfritz again, so I can not find the topic that I posted regarding discombobulating Peco turnouts. The title was something similar to "Discombobulating Peco Turnouts". If the search function returns before the next time that I log ON to Trainboard, if anyone is interested, he can find it. Perhaps there was one who had a similar problem but I can not remember, now. The way that it happens is that first I will notice that the springload is not as tight as usual.. Finally, it goes altogether. When I pull up the turnout to examine it, the plastic ties and other pieces fall off the rails. As someone mentioned, I do not put ballast on the turnouts or nail down the things. I simply slide back the rail joiners, pull up the turnout.
Thanks for all of the feedback! I went through today and did some redesign work. Everything touching a mainline is “large” and everything in the yard or industry sidings is now “medium”. I feel a whole lot better about that and didn’t really lose any ladder length like I thought I would.
I think that's a smart plan, no matter what brand of track/switches you use. Same with minimum radius & radii transitions/easements. Just like the real 'roads do too.
It's hard to draw radii transitions/easements in the software but the method I used for creating them on my last layout worked really well. To me it looks so much better when you ease into a curve instead of just suddenly turning. FYI - Minimum radius on the layout you've been commenting on for me is 20.5 on the interior track of those balloon ends. Outside is 22. That's tighter than I'd like but with limited space there wasn't much option (although now that think about it I could make the benchwork a little wider and shoot for 24" minimum). The other mainline curves are all 32 or above.
I can only wish I had room for those minimum radii on my folded dogbone layout on a 36x80 HCD. I use N scale Unitrack, so I try to to keep minimum radii buried in the middle of broader curves. I have a complete-circuit mainline path with min radius of 12.375". There are no curves less than 11" radius.
I think trains will look great running on 20.5” curves. I don’t know how big a difference going from 20.5” to 24” radius would make visually. However, if you can fit 24” minimum radius curves in then why not?
Bigger is not always better except when it comes to model RR curves. "Back in the day" as they say, freight cars were 40 feet with an occasional 50 footer in the mix. Passenger cars were a mixed bag with 85 footers as well as 60 foot 'shortys'. Today, cars are longer with autoracks and flats of 80-90 feet in length. The esthetics of these transversing 9 3/4" radii curves is really bad. Couple this with the extended coupling distance often required so cars can negotiate such curves and the overall effect is doubly bad. My passenger cars couple really close, so much so that they will not negotiate a 24 " radius curve. They will handle a 27" radius curve which is the so called, red line, outside curve radius on an Ntrak 3 foot module. I would like our club to go to a four foot module so we will have curves of 39, 37.5 and 36 inch radii. But so far, no success in that pursuit.
