Atlas Roco No.4 turnout question

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I just bought Lou Sassi’s book HO Layout For Beginners for my nephew. Looking through the book, Lou says, “For trackwork, you’ll use Atlas Code 83 flextrack, together with Atlas (15-degree) Roco Line and Super-Track (no. 6) Code 83 turnouts”

Lou explains how to power the Roco frog and why but I can’t find anyone on The Net who sells 'em. Could I substitue a No.4 made by someone else?? What do you think??

Any suggestions?? Thanks

2

Hello “conagher,”

Those Roco turnouts may not be available any longer. You could use all Atlas code 83 Custom-Line turnouts, which have isolated metal frogs that you can power in the same way that Lou shows in his book. However, many people find they don’t need to power these frogs, especially when running diesel locmotives with all-wheel pickup.

For example, Chuck Hitchcock’s layout on the cover of the February “Model Railroader” is built entirely with Atlas no. 6 code 83 turnouts controlled with simple Caboose Industries ground throws. Chuck hasn’t bothered to power his frogs, and his locomotives perform flawlessly.

There might be slight differences in the track geometry between the Roco and Atlas turnouts, but if you lay out the trackwork as Lou shows on page 15 of his book with photocopies of the actual turnouts, you won’t have any trouble making the necessary adjustments.

So long,

Andy

3

Thanks for the quick response Andy. I’ll take a look at Chuck’s article. We’ll probably buy switches tomorrow and begin working on the layout using photocopies as you suggest.

Thanks…

Mac

PS…I may use this for my WGH demos for awhile before turning it over to my nephew…so I want to make certain it’s fairly close to what Lou did so people can appreciate how it was built by reading his book.