Double slip switch

[jecorbett]

On my old layout, I used a Shinora double slip at the throat of my staging loop. It gave be great flexibility in the least amount of space. I had an unusual track plain in which both ends of the single track mainline entered the same hidden staging loop and the double slip at the throat allowed me to operate either as a point to loop or a continuous running loop. It operated beautiful which was a must since it as in a hidden portion of the layout that was not easily accesible from the operating aisle.

[Flashwave]

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.

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)

Nah. Equipments fine. the track may be slightly out due to age, but they;ve checked it, re-checked it, both time

[Melchoir]

Wow…Thanks for the tons of experience and advice on using these switches. I really appreciate it.Double slips especially Peco don’t come cheap so will investigate my situation a little further…Enjoy your layouts

[BR60103]

Michael: I have a pair of Peco double slips on my layout. If you have the Insulfrog, you only need extra wiring to the point of hooking it up to the block that it’s pointed at. (choose one end). If you have DCC you don’t even need that much.

[BumpyJack68]

http://azurehat.com/scrapbook/hello/2245815/1024/frankfurt-bahnhof-nytimes-2005.09.04-19.26.44.jpg

They are art!

WOW!!! are they DC or DCC? ;D I realy wonder how the wiring works in prototypes like that?

[hon30critter]

WOW!!! are they DC or DCC? ;D I realy wonder how the wiring works in prototypes like that?

Hi BumpyJack68,

You may not get any answers from the original posters. The last post to this thread was done in May, 2008. There is nothing wrong with reviving an old thread, but as time goes on the odds of any original participants still being on the forums goes down significantly.

Dave

[richhotrain]

BumpyJack68
WOW!!! are they DC or DCC? ;D I realy wonder how the wiring works in prototypes like that?

Hi BumpyJack68,

You may not get any answers from the original posters. The last post to this thread was done in May, 2008. There is nothing wrong with reviving an old thread, but as time goes on the odds of any original participants still being on the forums goes down significantly.

Dave

Dave, I could not agree more. Ahh, reviving old threads, my pet peeve.

It would be better to start a new thread and just include a link to the old thread if you must.

Rich