Model Railroading > The new Walthers code 83 #6 turnouts.

The newest version of Walthers #6 turnouts arrived at my LHS this week and I picked up two rights and two lefts for a crossover project. Overall I'm happy with them. These come with snap action points, continuous point and closer rails which eliminated an electrical week spot and decent spike and plate detail.

The point spring seems nicely set up with just the right amount of tension and are easier throw then the new Peco turnout. This is because Peco continued to spike its closure rail closer to where the heel block would be. This looks better on the Peco, works smoother on the Walthers.  All rails are nicely in gauge at the points and frog/guard rail sections. The ties are 9 inches wide and spaced at 19,5 inch centers. Walthers chose to make these turnouts pretty long and for some reason added seventeen and eighteen foots ties beyond the frog. I've never seen longer then sixteen foot ties here. Maybe somebody did that. I dunno. My track centers are 2.5 inches and I trimmed 6.5 scale feet from  each diverging route and removed the three eighteen foot ties. The Walthers twin headblocks are sixteen footers and look way better then Peco's version. The point throw bar is basically just for reliability and nothing to look at. Walthers also included two points to solder a frog jumper, one of which is at the end of a tie. Interesting.

Overall I like them. They look good and seem to flow nicely. Certainly better then Peco's to my eye. And I didn't have to spend twenty minutes filing points and flangeways like I had to on all my older Micro Engeering turnouts. I give the Micro Engeering turnouts a slight nod in the looks department but it's irrelevant because I still can't GET them.

A few pics.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/21 13:34 by ChrisCampi.

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Very happy with the new Walthers track.  They have a good feel to them right out of the box.  Nice that the points are filed as well right from the get go. 

ME is nice, but they are very fiddly.  I have had to add jumpers to the points and replace throw bars right out of the gate.

sixaxlecentury Wrote:
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> Very happy with the new Walthers track.  They
> have a good feel to them right out of the box. 
> Nice that the points are filed as well right from
> the get go. 
>
> ME is nice, but they are very fiddly.  I have
> had to add jumpers to the points and replace throw
> bars right out of the gate.

Yes, you nailed it with the ME turnouts. Once I got them set up, they've been trouble free though. I'm also happy with the Walthers turnouts. The old versions are troublesome from a continuity standpoint once they been ballasted. If these pass that test I'll replace a couple of the more troublesome #8's I have. Also be nice to eliminate the clunky ground throws needed for them.

Those do look very nice. Interesting how they nested the rails in the frog point.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Are these the turnouts has been re-introducing using Shinohara tooling after Shinohara retired?

100% new tooling.  Nothing from Shinohara.  

Didn't realize that!  Thought they had taken over Shinohara tooling.  Do they have the same electical characteristics as the Shinohara turnouts they used to sell (under the Walthers brand)?

Everything about these is new.  These are much better then shinohara and wont need any tuning out of the box.  Solid points with jumpers, connections to put feeders on, and sprung points.   These are right on par with Peco's.  

BlackWidow Wrote:
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> Didn't realize that!  Thought they had taken over
> Shinohara tooling.  Do they have the same
> electical characteristics as the Shinohara
> turnouts they used to sell (under the Walthers
> brand)?

Sort of. These are improved, see how the jumpers are embedded underneath the turnout in the above photos to get an idea how the power is routed. You could drop a new one in place of an older Walthers turnout. The new one would be more reliable.

100% of my 20 or so ME switches failed over time. They look great but if you will run tonnage over them, forget about it.  Bruce

It looks like you wouldn't be able to get much less than 2.5" track centers; that seems to be the biggest disadvantage.  Otherwise they look great.

Good review Chris.  Thanks for putting it out.

On the older switches the points would always get loose... somehow. Having the head block on that side was good for yards but appears to be wrong for mainline, once again if you swap sides it would work for a while and then the points would seperate. The solder points look like a great idea if the little solder tab holds up and has the right plating.

The distance between tracks would be adjusted by cutting down the diverging side, there's a YT video on how to remove one of the rails and interlock two switches together with out rail joiners. Neat trick but the headblock on the worng side and then trying to solder the short segments get to be a trick again.

Looks like the points are one piece of rail, should be much better than the bent up rail joiner as a hinge point.

I'm thinking this would be gen 3 for this design, maybe there's more. From what I've been told Shinohara did the manufacturing but the requirements came form Walthers, but maybe that was for the 'new improved' Gen 2 with the gaps near the frog. That was pretty trick and helped a great deal.

Agree with the ME comment, nice if you can find them.
$0.02.

+ Yes, thanks for posting the new products and the photos, good to see what's going on out there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/21 19:54 by TCnR.

Regarding track spacing. 2.25 would be easy, 2 is probably doable but boy that's to tight regardless. Head blocks- would have been great if they followed ME practice so either side is easily done, but trim them and a little putty and your good for the other side regardless.

Thank you for posting the photos of the turnouts.  They look like a nice product.

Bob

Yard tracks can be 2" centers so yes would take some tight triming. My staging yard is 2 1/16 inch centers.

Posted from Android

SPDRGWfan Wrote:
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> Yard tracks can be 2" centers so yes would take
> some tight triming. My staging yard is 2 1/16
> inch centers.
>
> Posted from Android

2 1/16 would be just over 15 ft track centers which is certainly prototypical. I guess I just don't know how you could get your fingers between cars when need be, but then I'm a fat fingered Klutz :-)

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> SPDRGWfan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Yard tracks can be 2" centers so yes would take
> > some tight triming. My staging yard is 2 1/16
> > inch centers.
> >
> > Posted from Android
>
> 2 1/16 would be just over 15 ft track centers
> which is certainly prototypical. I guess I just
> don't know how you could get your fingers between
> cars when need be, but then I'm a fat fingered
> Klutz :-)

And that's why I use padded barbecue tongs to pick up cars in tight places.
They're skinnier then my fingers!