Has anyone on this forum tried double slip switches?..What applications are they best suited fro. I am referring to the Peco Insulfrog brand…Is there any special wiring that you have to do using these switches?..Thanks
I have a Peco dbl slip on my 4x8. It allows me to get from the outer loop to the inner & to the yard/tt. It is a great space saver. Performance is excellent - “0” derails despite my younger grandson wanting to go 200 scale mph all the time!! Mine is not an insulfrog so I have isolated it from two opposite legs (top left & bottom right looking at an “X”). I am using the Peco switch machines, which were a PITA as the switch was added after the rest of the track was laid. Cutting into cork roadbed + 3/4" plywood is not the ideal way to spend an hour or so!! That said, the switch machines also work flawlessly. The one PITA I still have is routing. I have put 4 “X” labels infront of the switch location with arrows showing switch positions and routing. I’m using the Atlas switches used for their switch machines. Solder leads on the Peco machines before installing as they are impossible to reach & solder afterwards - don’t ask how I know this!! Overall, excellent switches and not hard to wire & install B4 THE REST OF THE TRACK IS IN!![:)]
We have two Peco double-slip turnouts on our HO scale club layout. One was used in an area where two tracks cross and we needed the option of allowing a train to use either route. The other double-slip is in an engine service area where two tracks cross.
The backs of some large passenger terminals such as Union Station in St. Louis had dozens of double-slip switches to allow trains to enter or exit from any track and cross over to any other track.
here is a picture of moderate use of double slips in the real world
dbduck, Wow! That is a fantastic picture of the use of multi-dbl slip switches and cross overs in the “real railroad yard world”.
Double slip switches are great for use in railroad staging yards. I have three insulated dbl slip switches toward the ends of a seven track stub end yard, to enable switchers to get from one track to another (to escape) after pulling a string of cars onto one of the tracks, or to spot cars from one track to another in forming a consist. They are also great for passing from one loop to another on main lines. I used double coil switch machines mounted below the roadbed, so that there is no interference with the spacing of the tracks on this stub ended staging yard. No problems! Bob
The enclosed picture shows the use of an old dbl slip switch on my pass through yard. As you can see, it is controlled by a unique single “above layout switch motor”. Most dbl slip switches require two switch motors.
I operate on an HO layout with two hand laid double slip switchs. They work beautifully. The owner of the layout is a bit out of his mind after building them.
Dave
I made a #6 double slip turnout using the Fast Tracks jigs. It requires some refined skills in getting the points rails fastened to the throwbars. That part of it I had to farm out to a skilled tinkerer. Works well. No special wiring, but this version is an insulfrog type. I have it connected on two exits to #6 Streamline Peco turnouts that are power routing.
The double slips are really nifty. I can’t be without at least one somewhere on my layout. I placed mine on track two so that it links the two yard tracks and the AD track.
thanks…I have a photo somewhere on my computer …either work or home…that has at least 10-12 double slips in it…just can’t put my hands on it. It was for a passenger station throat for I think 6 tracks allowing any track to cross to any track, including outside to outside. The four double slips on the 2 center tracks had an “X” crossing between them. That was the center of the entire configuration. hopefully i will find it & post it
one such place is Chicago’s Union Station
In the ‘real world’ Double slips exist in passenger 'throat’s. In modelling, they function like 2 'Y’s back to back, along with taking up less room.
This is an ‘exotic’ switch that is fine, when it works, but too often gives you disproportionate amounts of trouble. It helps to have a masochistic streak.
There is a reason that most track lines either don’t carry, or have dropped them. Power routing is a problem, as are wheel shortings.
These are Pecos and have been on the layout for about 10 years the spring isn’t working on one leg of one of the slips, so I added a caboose industries ground throw temporarily. All of them have Peco switch machines attached, but we tend to operate them manually. They connect the two mainlines to the yard.
In the real world, the prototype installs them wherever they are appropriate, including singles at locations where a single track main has to allow for a station, and the only space available is the forty meters between a bridge and a tunnel portal. (A station stop requires a switchback maneuver, and uses both curved routes through the double slip as well as the straight route that ISN’T the main line.)
Bah, humbug. My hand-laid double slips are less difficult to build than a double crossover and, once built, don’t give me any more problems than any other turnout. Having built several, I don’t consider them much of a challenge.
The reason that most track lines don’t carry double slips is a simple matter of economics - the commercial product is EXPENSIVE! OTOH, the ‘makin’s’ of a hand-built double slip cost less than a single commercial turnout (exclusive of switch machines - the DSS requires two.) Power routing is no more of a problem than power routing for two conventional turnouts laid point to point. Finally, since my open points are electrically disconnected from everything there isn’t any way for a back-of-the-flange short to happen.
That said, double slips solve definite problems in the prototype. They don’t belong on an average model railroad that isn’t faced with similar problems.
http://azurehat.com/scrapbook/hello/2245815/1024/frankfurt-bahnhof-nytimes-2005.09.04-19.26.44.jpg
They are art!
I’ve just installed a double slip and a single slip on Sweethome Chicago during a recent track realignment. the lack of available space necessitated their use
Jon
not only a track maze but a cantenary nightmare
I used to ride thru that maze every day on the S-Bahn (Commuter) when I lived in Frankfurt!
A Double slip may require two machines but a double crossover requires 4 (if you want to avoid fancy linkage). The 2 “Y” solution would work but as noted previously, space gets eaten up and it also creates an unwanted S curve (Unwanted IMO). The double slip does not as it can be thought of as two pieces of curved track that intersect. I honestly think they solve more problems than they create, especially if space is limited. I cannot speak on the Peco units, never used any of their turnouts.
I;ll give you that they’re useful when they work. But myslef and most of my local mrr friends will go out on a limb to avoid the thought of such foul pieces of track. Besides derailing everything, they play heck with stalling engines (DCC system shorts) they never lead the way you want to go, and when they look liek they are, they’ll send off the other way, sometimes midtrain.
static middle frogs do that. Closed point frogs eliminate that.
My new layout will need them but not at that building point yet. Yepper, will hand build those.
Sounds to me as if some people simply installed some commercial product out of the box, without checking it for proper gauge and point contour, and then ran a bunch of maladjusted rolling stock over it.
As for stalling engines, simply wiring the DSS correctly will cure that. What many people fail to realize is that there are only four electrical sections - the acute angle frogs being two of them. One obtuse angle frog and the adjacent curved rails are a single section, which can extend to and beyond the clearance line. I can see where cutting random gaps in the rails and failing to de-burr the railheads can increase the probability of derailment by several orders of magnitude. Also, for whatever reason, people seem to be resistant to the use of hot frogs and dead points. Wiring them is simple, and will eliminate a lot of the problems with inadvertent shorts between closely spaced rails of different polarity.
When it comes to derailments, nothing can substitute for checking the gauge all the way through every piece of trackwork, and checking the gauge of every wheel set. After I got that through my rock-hard head, derailments became events to be investigated for out-of-tolerance dimensions, not merely ‘fixed’ by putting the uninspected cars back on the uninspected track.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
The May 2007 issue of MR has a good article by Carl Swanson on slip switches entitled " Special Trackwork Solves Layout Problems" , " How and when to use single-slip, double-slip and thee-way turnouts."It also has a list of commercial suppliers.
Peter Smith, Memphis