Model Railroading > Building Turnouts with Curved Routing

I'm not referring to curved turnouts but rather straight turnouts where the reverse routing is curved all the way through the turnout. These were common on street car and interurbans and used in yard ladders to save space. It looks like I'm going to have to build some for my freelance shortline that in theory had been an interurban. They will save me a lot of space too. And with a GE 44 Tonner and an SW1 for motive power and 40 feet cars, I should be fine. All my track on this HO railroad will be code 55

I am wondering what the procedure will be for buidling such a turnout versus a more conventional configuration. It doesn't look like anyone has any templates and I just may build them for the location and use No. 4 frogs. Perhaps the points will have to built more carefully?

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/20 23:05 by wabash2800.

The only difference is the diverging rail through the frog is curved.  If you are shortening the point rails also I think pc board ties would really help.  Not sure I'd want to go under 18" radius, but in the old old days some guys used 15" radius.  Sounds like fun.
John

It's all in the frog. Maybe I'm wrong but didn't Peco have some like this? Not the newer 83 line.

Micro Engineering has their newish yard ladder turnout system. One of them is a turnout that has the branch curved all the way through.
They're No.5's, but you can print the templates off of their website which should help you lay things out.

Micro-Engineering info is hard to find, the actual parts are even more difficult to find until you find the right source. The info I started with all came from a post on TO. I have some of these on order since January, here's a link for the 5b turnout which has a stock number of 14-713. The templates are a great idea but they don't print out right away so check the actual size once they are printed out, perhaps check the guage for example.

http://www.crusaderrail.com/pubs/mec_temp_14-712.pdf

Crusader Rail general Info for ME, a great resource:
http://www.crusaderrail.com/mec.html

Last time I checked Crusader Rail did not have the p/n's I was looking for, tried the LHS who became very angry at me and Micro-Engineering. Tried to paste the image but TO doesn't do that with pdf's. Good luck.

 

Thanks all. Remember, I'm laying code 55 in HO. I found this site. There might be something I can use though the radii look to be about twelve in.

http://www.proto87.com/Street_track_for_trolleys_and_trams.html


Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

It takes an afternoon of reading to absorb the various options on the P:87 site. The materials are high quality and require careful assembly. Radii can be adjusted to meet your needs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/20 09:46 by grahamline.

I purchased a Model Railroader Back issue with an article by Paul Dolkus about street trackage. His info on single-point switches (one point is fixed) is well taken for the street running section of my layout. Curved routing is also going to be fun.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/20 14:23 by wabash2800.