I pulled a bone head and need some advice from some of you more experienced DCC guys. On the new layout I am running DCC using N scale Peco insulfrog turnouts. Well, apparently one electrofrog turnout got mixed in somehow and was installed before realized it. It is in an out of the way corner where I didn’t lay track beyond the turnout for several months. I realized my mistake this weekend. Of course, when I throw the turnout I short out that section of the main. My question is what can I do to salvage this situation short of cutting the turnout out and repaacing it? Ron
Hi Ron,
All you need to do is to install plastic rail joiners or cut insulating gaps in the two frog rails, those diverging from the point of the turnout frog. Then make sure you have feeders connected to those rails beyond the insulation. As long as this is the only Electrofrog turnout on your layout, you won’t have to worry about anything else. (This is basic two-rail wiring, as explained in my book, “Easy Model Railroad Wiring, Second Edition,” from Kalmbach.)
So long,
Andy
Thanks, Andy. I knew I had read about this process somewhere, but I wanted to confirm what I was doing before I broke out the old Dremel.
Ron
If you can still do it without having to remove the turnout entirely, slip one of the rail joiners off either rail end on one of the routes leaving the frog end of the turnout. The idea is to make an electrical break so that the polarity of one of the rails is not being countered by the position of the points rails which, unfortunately in your turnout, puts that power through the frog also. That means, in an electro-frog, that the frog will also push that power beyond it to two rails that meet at its point, which means a short since they are of opposite polarities. Slipping the one joiner back and leaving about a 1/32" gap, or so, will not permit the frog to extend power to that one rail that is inconsistent with the polarity it is getting from down the way.