Model Railroading > Latest Peco #6 turnouts SL-U8361, 2

After spending the morning taking advantage of this weird 74 degree January 17th staining the rear deck, I snapped a few shots of the new Peco Streamline turnouts. I would have preferred to stay with ME but my pusher has no idea when they might be available again. The new Walters turnouts show February 28th and who knows if that is accurate so I came home with these. I like that they have mostly solid point rails and pre-soldered frog jumpers. Points are sprung which is good. Definitely going to need to notch the rail heads for the points and frog and add some heal blocks and maybe some joint bars.

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Few more.

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Even though the Peco code 83 Electrofrog don't have stock rail points, I chose to stick with them because of the shorting issue that can occur with Insulfrog or Unifrog turnouts when wider tread metal wheels bridge the gap where rails of opposing polarity come close together.  That has been a problem for some with Insulfrog turnouts and the Unifrog have a same configuration (see photo's) except for the tip of the frog is metal.  I've already read reports of the Unifrog shorting. 

So when I because aware the Insulfrog/Unifrog line of Peco code 83 #6 had been discontinued and replaced with Unifrog, I made an effort to hunt down enough #6 electrofrog turnouts for my yard before they became impossible to find.  Some don't have the shorting problem but I chose to remove the potiential by going Electrofrog, plus I like the appearance of the all rail frog.  Of course there is a small trade off with the points not being stock rail but operation in important too.  If any shorting does occur at the frog, you can paint the ends of the rails with black fingernail polish.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/21 14:50 by SPDRGWfan.

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Yeah Jim, I would like to think Peco thourghly tested these with thicker wheel treads. Will see. Here's a pic with a properly gauged Athearn wheel set.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/21 15:28 by ChrisCampi.

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I'd like to think it too.  The instance I saw on Youtube appeared to be a train of fairly recent HO trains, and the train shorted out Peco Unifrog turnouts in a couple of different places.  But there are remedies.  Perhaps a wheel was out of guage, which can happen often enough.  Might be the Unifrogs can find those for you.  Anyway, this is the direction Peco has chosen.  No more choice for the #6's.  The #8 and #7 curved still are available in Insulfrog and Electrofrog.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/21 19:31 by SPDRGWfan.

I used to have problems with this exact issue on the old Insulfrogs on a layout I worked on up in Denver.  Wheels were in gauge and of modern design, but they'd still short between the two rails where they came together into the frog.  Our solution was just to put some clear nail polish over the interference area where your wheelset is located so neither rail made contact.  It worked well enough, though it would wear off from time to time (particularly during track cleaning) and we'd have to go re-do it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/21 21:35 by NDHolmes.

NDHolmes Wrote:
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> I used to have problems with this exact issue on
> the old Insulfrogs on a layout I worked on up in
> Denver.  Wheels were in gauge and of modern
> design, but they'd still short between the two
> rails where they came together into the frog. 
> Our solution was just to put some clear nail
> polish over the interference area where your
> wheelset is located. so neither rail made
> contact.  It worked well enough, though it would
> wear off from time to time (particularly during
> track cleaning) and we'd have to go re-do it.

I've heard of the clear nail polish fix. I also would consider cutting the frog just beyond the wing rails, but before the jumpers, where the casting would normally end, to isolate it. I will be notching the rail head there to simulate the frog casting anyways. These will be lightly used on my layout and the clear nail polish will be fine if necessary. Thanks for the reminder.

Solution for me would be to put an insulated joiner at the ends of the rails off the frog and power them with a contact off of the switch machine. Install track feeds beyond the insulated joiners and you're done. No short, no foul.

Take some CLEAR nail polish and paint about a 1/4 to 3/8 inch on the frog to eliminate shorting problems.

To me it looks like the guard rail is to far apart from the stock rail.  There should not be a lop of slop in it and it appears there is.  That is letting the wheel flange move back and forth to much allowing it to contact both polarities at the frog.

We  have found an intermittent problem with wheelsets with insufficient taper bridging gaps. Never quite pinned down whether it was a wear problem or poor design.

Pecos are about as derail proof as you can get but , dang those headblock ties are O scale !

Posted from Android

trainman Wrote:
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> Pecos are about as derail proof as you can get but
> , dang those headblock ties are O scale !
>
> Posted from Android

LOL!

tomstp Wrote:
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> To me it looks like the guard rail is to far apart
> from the stock rail.  There should not be a lop
> of slop in it and it appears there is.  That is
> letting the wheel flange move back and forth to
> much allowing it to contact both polarities at the
> frog.

In this case, the photo I posted with the Athearn Genesis wheel set has it flange up against the rail. So there is actually room for it to move further over the frog.

Thank you for sharing.  It appears that waiting for the new Walthers turnouts will not be necessary.  I'd use the insulated joint bars as suggested by SP and Frog Juicers.  The PECO flex track is an excellent product and these will be of same specs.  Using Tortoise switch machines, the large head blocks on the turnouts can be dealt with as the spring would be unnecessary.  Thanks for the clear close up shots, Chris.

Well, tested these today. They short with a Walthers GP35 and really short with a Genesis Mountain so...Going to have to fix those frogs.

It probably wouldn't hurt to notify Peco of the issue.  The more they get reports, the better the chance they could modify the design in future production.  In a way, the Uni-frog has a design weakness or flaw and hopefully which could be fixed by designing the metal frog to extend a little futher so insulating point is farther from the frog, thus the rails of opposing polarity would be farther apart enough to be impossible to bridge by the average metal wheel tread.  A few of their other Uni-Frog turnouts I've seen appear this way, maybe from the N-scale line.  I don't recall.  Yesterday I found another of the discontinued Electrofrog #6 so I snagged it.

Cheers,
Jim

The thing is Jim, is that these ARE the new modified units. Peco chose not to address the frog which appears to be a well known week point judging from the responses here. Bad on them. Oh well, should be an easy enough fix. I will not be purchasing any more when Micro Engineering or Walthers are available due to their short length and overall look in any case.

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> The thing is Jim, is that these ARE the new
> modified units. Peco chose not to address the frog
> which appears to be a well known week point
> judging from the responses here. Bad on them. Oh
> well, should be an easy enough fix. I will not be
> purchasing any more when Micro Engineering or
> Walthers are available due to their short length
> and overall look in any case.

That's the real shame; Peco took a frog (Insulfrog) with a weak issue and designed it right back into the Unifrog.  I don't know how many Brits use the code 83 track, but I remember reading a British forum and there were some very strong opinions in favor of the Electrofrog and to they did not like the Insulfrog at all,  So when the Electrofrog turnouts are done away with, Peco may have a lot of mad hobbyists on their hands across the pond.  In England there seems to be a MUCH higher percapita of model railroaders as well.

Anyway, yes, bad on Peco and this could impact them in the future and not in a good way.  Yes, there is a fix, but it shouldn't be necessary.  At least in the past, customers had a choice and could buy Electrofrog when it came to the double slip and #6 HO code 83 turnouts.  Eventually all of the 2 lines will be discontinued in favor on a single line of Unifrog.  The code 83 #6 are getting more and more rare and if I can't find any more and need them, I need will likely buy from Walthers or maybe ME.

Cheers,
​Jim

Update on Peco Unifrog.  I did email Peco regarding the shorting issue with the Insulfrog and the Unifrog with a similar configuration with the rails of opposing polarity close together and short circuits.  Here is the response I got:

"Thank you for your email raising concerns about short circuits on the Unifrog #6 turnouts. It is standard railway engineering practice to put a 3° taper on wheels, which normally means they only contact the rail they are sat upon and the overhanging outer edge of the wheel should pass over the top of the opposing frog rail without contact. This is what we are used to, and it works that was on our OO and N scale products. However, NMRA RP-25 only recommends a taper, and having spoken to a former colleague who is deeply into American HO scale we now realise there are ready to run models being produced without the taper on the wheels, which would of course cause the short circuiting problems as you describe and what you saw in the YouTube video.
We are now looking at how we can modify the tooling to provide a longer Unifrog tip and greater gap between the frog rails. This will also be implemented on the code 70 #6 turnouts and all future HO scale Unifrog products.
 
Thank you for bringing it to our attention."

So Peco is aware of this issue and it looks like they are planning to make modifications to mitigate the shorting with out of spec wheels sets.  This is good news!

Cheers,
Jim