I seem to remember seeing a blub somewhere about the proper mating of crossovers with turnouts when designing/building a double crossover. The problem is I don’t remember what crossover goes with which turnouts. As usual, any help anyone can provide would be welcomed.
Double Crossovers, I love them . . . . when they work!
I designed my layout with a code 83 Walthers/Shinohara double crossover in my mainline in 1989, that set my double main line track spacing. Unfortunately either the double crossover didn’t like my Rivarossi Cab Forwards or they didn’t like the double crossover.
I tried to make it work but after quite a few attempts there wasn’t much left of the turnout, I replaced it with a pair of Atlas #6 Custom Line turnouts. Over the years I tried many double crossovers without any success. The Rivarossis just won’t do a double crossover and I like my Cab Forwards better than the double crossover. I think that the Fast Track would work but after dinking with the wiring I decided I didn’t want that much complicated wiring on my layout. I’m a retired long time techno weenie and understand the wiring but I just did not want to go that way.
My Rivarossis didn’t have any problem with any Atlas code 83 Custom Line turnouts so I built my own double crossover with Atlas turnouts and their 19° crossing. Works and looks great and there is no additional track wiring at all. My Rivarossi fleet loves it.
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-25-2012-my-double-crossover.html
EDIT:
I failed to say th
All Peco turnouts diverge at 12 degrees, so their 24 degree crossover is an exact match for a double crossover.
Atlas turnouts and crossovers will vary according to whether they are Snap Track or Mark IV products.
The Atlas turnouts and crossovers is what I seem to remember the info being based on. Eack turnout type did have a different crossover that went with it.
LION has a nice double crossover. I think it is a Walthers/ Shinoharra. Cost ofver $100 it did. Other double crossovers are made of Atlas switches and crossings. The Shinoharra looks better and keeps the adjacent lines closer together.
ROAR
The Walthers catalog show data for their Walther-Shinohara code 83 turnouts and double crossover. The frog angle on the crossover is noted as 9-degrees, 30-minutes (9-1/2 degrees), so if the track between the frogs and crossover is straight, that makes a 19 degree crossing (I think). Note the #6 turnouts frog is noted as 9-degrees, 32-minutes, so the crossover must have #6 turnouts. It’s curious to me that the W-S crossings are only available in 30, 45, 60 and 90 degrees, not much help for making double crossovers.
Note the W-S #5 turnouts have frogs with 11-deg, 26-min, wanting a 22.9-degree crossing, and the #8 turnout frogs are 7-deg, 9-min, wanting a 14.3 degree crossing. I see Atlas code 83 crossings include 12.5, 19 and 25 degree crossings that I presume could work(??). I don’t know if Atlas (code 83, for instance) turnouts have the same exact frog angles or whether they (and W-S) might be roughly, but not precisely, angles corresponding # 5, 6, 8 divergence, or whether they round the actual to the approximate stated frog number. I’d have to get into sine tables to check that IIRC. Or perhaps the Atlas turnouts are tweaked on the #5 and #8 turnouts to perfectly match the 12.5 and 25 degree crossings.
I haven’t done one, so an experienced person’s comments on assembling one would be helpful. I would perfer the idea of building from components as that would allow customizing the track spacing to your preference.
Hello All,
I posed the same question a while back.
The answer I got was that the Atlas #4 turnout (not to be confused with the Atlas Snap Switches) diverges at 12.5-degrees. Using the 25 degree crossing will give you a double crossover.
According to the Atlas catalog the #6 turnout has a 9-degree 30-minute divergence, #8 has a 7-degree 9-minute divergence and the Wye is 19-degree 12-minutes.
I’m not sure what the divergent angle of the Snap Switches are and how it differs from the #4 turnouts.
Rather than building a double crossover I put two crossovers back to back using the Atlas Snap Track. To connect the divergent tracks I used the curved section included with the turnouts; ⅓ 18-inch radius pieces. These were placed with the diverging curves opposing each other to make a slight “S” shape between the tunouts rather than a straight section between the two.
Hope this helps.
Diverging routes on Snap switches are not degrees, but radii, and are 18".
A Youtube video of making a double crossover with Atlas packaged track. There are other’s. One big drawback is…they take up a lot of space:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smudBSPEsKQ
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
Hello All,
If you notice in the video he uses #8 turnouts. The longest turnouts Atlas makes; not sure of the exact length of each turnout.
Eventhough the sound quality of the video is garbled I did manage to hear that the finished crossover is almost 3-feet long.
The crossover that I described in my previous post; built with Snap Track turnouts and the included ⅓ 18-inch radius pieces, measures 41-1/2-inches- -no space savings there!
If you used #6 turnouts (only slightly shorter) and custom-cut track between them; rather than using the re-railers and stock fitter pieces, you might be able to save some space and still have a smooth transition.
For ultimate space saving you could go with the #4’s and custom-cut the fitter pieces, at the expense of aesthetics and reliability for larger locos and longer rolling stock.
Hope this helps.
In the back of my Atlas track planning book, it gives diagrams of how to do double crossovers with #4 and #6 turnouts. For a #4 they use a 25 degree crossing and for a #6 they use a 19 degree crossing. These combinations create 3" track spacing.
Good luck,
Richard
That’s what I was looking for (somewhat). I actually was looking for a crossover using snaps, but seeing that 6s use a 19 and 4 use a 25, I would guess that snaps would most likely use a 30. For my purpose the spacing isn’t critical. Thank you for all the assistance I was given.
Unless you will always be running very short equipment at very low speeds, that could well be a reliability issue, especially if it’s necessary to shove backwards through the crossover. It can be done, and has been done – with mixed results. But you’ll have better results with a wider range of equipment by using broader turnouts – with straight diverging legs rather than sharply curved as on a Snap Switch.
To clarify, the equipment that will be using the crossover is fairly short. 2-6-0 steamers and 6 34’ overton (pre-Athearn MDC) passenger cars per train for a tourist railroad. Occasionally, an S-4 with a few longer freight cars (42’ gondolas [ash & sand cars], 42’ tank car [fuel car], 100 ton coal hopper [coal for steamers]) may be using the crossover. All of these will be running at slow speeds as the crossover involved gives access to storage yards for both the coaches and the steamers as well giving access to a turning loop for the tourist trains (which also contains the service area for the steamers).
[Edit:]
The legs of the crossover are no less than 30" each (from end of turnout to end of turnout). The width of the crossover is just under 15" at its narrowest point and a little longer than 18" at its widest so as you can tell is not a tight double crossover. The lower ends of said crossover are the storage yards mentioned in the main body.
After playing around with ANYRAIL freeware to plan a glorified shelf layout, my futurevision ginormously expanded like the 1950’s B movie the “Blob” until it now engulfs our 13 x 19 “storage” room - the master bedroom we never moved into, mainly because we needed a place to store all the stuff that in Michigan would go in a basement but for some wierd reason no one south of the Mason-Dixon line bilds a house with a basement. WTF up with that? Basements are REALLY cheap sq ftage when yer building a house, but - oh, well. Whatever, man. Anyrail includes a complex library of all of the popular track vendors’ equipment. Using this to plan my next layout I found there is no way to build a Code 100 #8 Atlas double crossover, cuz there ain’t no matching diamond, cuz. Their longest turnout you can use is #6, which places the parallel tracks ~ 2-7/8 apart. Pretty wide, but I can live with it. Can’t live with code 83 Shin. Even if I could, ya can’t even buy the damn Shin double X’s anymore, Walthers don’t/won’t/can’t stock em, whatever the hell their problem is since they bought it out I don’t care. My older gen pizza Rivs won’t negotiate those 83 diamonds anyway, and I am not about to spend $350-400 each for an all-new, cupple dozn, loco roster just so my track looks good to some photo buff purists who will never visit my home - but all my family, friends & neighbors who don’t give a rat’s patootie about code 83 and don’t know it from a space shuttle door handle will. 
Sincerely,
Crotchety old man yelling “Git off my grass!”
PS: LOL, gotcha.