I’m still working on the possibilities with my freight yard ladder configuration. I’m using Code 100 track.
There was a time at the beginning that I was considering whether it might be possible to utilize the Peco ‘Set Track’ turnouts due to their short length. I have REJECTED that idea as the curved diverging tracks are too sharp of a radius.
Next came the use of the Peco ‘streamline’ turnouts, … ‘small radius size’. One of the major appealing factors about these turnouts is the ‘effective radius’ of curved portion of these turnouts,…24" inches. My thoughts were that any of my trains that could negotiate a 24" radius curve track, could negotiate these turnouts.
( and yes I understand there could be some instances where long cars coupled to short ones MIGHT experience some problems here).
My next thought was what if i were to do some trimming of these turnouts so to make them fit even closer together? That experiment was less than satisfying when i laid out a string of 4 trimmed turnouts (templates), and compared them a string of untrimmed turnouts. The total length of the ladder was only approx 1.5" difference,…not worth the effort to do all that cutting/trimming.
Thoughts then turned to whether I could utilize the even broader radius of the ‘medium size’ Pecos. I laid out a string of these alongside the small radius ones. You can see there is quite a difference, so they were unacceptable to me.
I was doing some research on utilizing some Peco ‘small radius’ turnouts in my freight yard ladder design. I found this very interesting conversation, with lots of good and intelligent contributions. I’ve highlited some of the quotes that caught my eye, and concerned themselves with those Peco turnouts I’m interested in.
[quote]
…from a profession layout designer
This is true for PECO N Scale and for PECO HO Code 75 and Code 100, but the newer PECO HO Code 83 is accurately defined by frog number. PECO N scale Code 55 uses a #6 frog for all the turnouts, but the curved diverging leg has different radii for Small Medium, and Large, for example. PECO HO Code 75 and 100 typically have a #4½ frog, again with different diverging radii past the frog. So they are “exact”, but the curved diverging leg is the determining factor.
The second (and more important) is that the lower the frog number, the sharper the effective curve through the turnout. That means that longer cars and engines will be less likely to derail running through a #
Also consider other ladder configurations, instead of just linking the straight sides fo the turnouts and settign them at an angle. There are some other ways to combine the turnouts to make a ladder that uses less space - of course there are tradeoffs with other things, but you need to decide which you want more.
#5 turnouts are a reasonable compromise for a yard - Atlas #4’s are actually #4 1/2 and are also a good option - your bigger mainline locos won’t traverse the yard tracks, so the tighter equivalent radius isn’t really an issue.
As Randy implied, if you link some straight portions to diverging routes you can get more ladder tracks into a shorter linear space, instead of just stringing them trunk to tail, so to speak.
Here is a yard ladder with the turnout arrangement that Randy, doughless and I suggested:
This one has six yard tracks but you can reduce it easily by just taking out the last turnout in the ladder. I had to guess at what the radius of your fascia is so you will have to play with the positioning a bit.
Yes Dave I did get your email, and I was going to respond to it after I finished playing with my latest configuration. I’ll post my latest thoughts with a number of photos shortly.
For some reason I have problems with properly making ‘links’ on this forum? The software is confusing, or it works the opposite of other sites I am use to?? I hi-lite the link wording, then hit the link icon, and it does NOT make the link???
One other strange item,…I got no notice that replies had been made to this subject thread that I started?? It was only when I checked ‘my discussions’ this evening that I saw there had been several replies made.
Thanks for that drawing. I thought that was what you were suggesting.
One thing I was trying to avoid was adding additional yard tracks that were limited by an 18" entrance curve of those 2 dbl-curved Peco turnouts I am proposing for the head of that ladder. I would rather add more tracks that had 24" entrance curves.
I thought the Code 100 Peco curved turnouts had radii of 30" and 60". Those figures were discussed in a recent thread, and those were the turnouts I used for the drawing. If anything, I thought the larger radius on the inner track might cause you problems.
You have to use some additional instructions in order to post a working link to another thread. Copy the link into your post and then add the following before the link (without the spaces and apostrophies) ‘[ url ]’ and add ‘[ /url ]’ after the link, again without the spaces and apostrophies.
The link won’t highlight until you actually post your message.
The OP wants to use SetTrack parts, which are much sharper in both frog and radius, not Streamline (which are more workable). Not clarifying this leads to confusion. Cherry-picking statements out of the earlier thread (which was in reference to Streamline) doesn’t help with understanding what he is proposing.
I thought he said that he had decided to not use Set Track turnouts and had switched to Streamline small turnouts. He didn’t specify whether or not he was still using a Set Track curved turnout, but that would explain why the printout of the curved turnout in his picture looked like it had sharper radii than what my drawing shows.
Did I miss something? Ooops, I just realized that he did refer to an 18" radius in a later post. I thought he was making a mistake. That’s why I asked the question.
Gentlemen, I’m sorry for the confusion I caused by mixing in my use of Peco streamlines and set tracks. Lets see if I can better explain what I had in mind.
When I first began to look at ladder situations my thoughts were that the yard tracks would end up being spaced closer together if the series of the ladder turnouts were of a shorter overall length dimension themseles,…and a resulting tighter radius curve.
My first inclination was to consider those Peco ST set track ones for the straight portions of the ladder. I quickly determined those were NOT appropriate as they just had too tight of a radius in their diverging track.
So Set Track turnouts would NOT be used in the straight portions of my yard ladder. (notice I have not addressed the dbl-curve turnout situation at this point).
I next looked at Peco small radius turnouts as they have essentially a 24" radius in their diverging track, …and they are relatively short in their overall length,…at least more so that any other such ‘mild turning’ switch. I had read that one might even be able to make these turnouts shorter in overall length by triming them on either end such that they fit closer together. I got out the multiple paper Peco templates I had made (copy machine), and experimented with fitting them a close together as I thought possible. I then took some of those same templates and put them together in their virgin form (untrimmed) to see what difference there might be with 4 of them lined up in a row,…trimmed and untrimed.
Surprise. I found that there was only 1.5" difference in total length for the series of 4 linked turnouts,…trimmed vs untrimmed. So why go thru all the cutting and trimming to only gain 1.5 inches.
I even went so far as to experiment with the next size up Pecos,…their ‘medium radius’. These are longer length turouts of a nice broader radius (30 inches), but when line up in the ladder configur
So now we come to those Double-Curve turnouts. I needed a fairly tight turning radius to go from my yard ladder over into the peninsula area. I got out all the curved turouts I had collected over the years (all of them Code100), and discovered that most of them were approximately the same size dbl radius,…18" inner radius & 22" outer radius,…surprised again !!
Since I am partial to the good quality of Pecos I looked at their two offerings (ONLY 2 in Code100):
streamline dbl curve at 30" inner & 60" outer
set track dbl curve at approx 18" inner & 22" outer
The larger of these 2 was just not usable for my situation. The smaller set track one just might work. I laid some sectional track along side these dbl curves of this Peco turnout, and determined that their tracks were of sufficient radius to handle the small switcher locos and a lot of the freight cars I would be operating over them:
The inner curve 18" radius would have ‘Restriction Signs’ on it (them, likely 2), indicating only certain size/types of locos and cars.
The outer curve 22" could likely handle many locos, and would match up with the other 22" curve into the peninsula area.
[quote]
Peco SET TRACK dbl-curve turnouts
The SET TRACK from Peco is more of the ‘entree level’ track system than the STREAMLINE systems/tracks, As such it usually includes some smaller radius, tighter curve turnouts.
In their Code100 tracks they basically offer 2 double-curve turnouts,…a set track one and a streamline one.
The consensus of opinion puts the larger ‘streamline’ one at 30" inner radius and 60" outer radius.
The smaller ‘set track’ one is generally been quoted as 17 1/4" inner radius and 19 7/8&quo
Those aren’t the manufacturer’s specs, which I noted in your earlier thread:
Certainly the manufacturer would not understate specifications. You may still be able to shove strings of mixed-length cars through those tight turnouts, or it may be overly hopeful thinking. In any case, personally I’d suggest being realistic with yourself about the actual dimensions of the parts.
A to-scale redesign of the full area with more reasonable turnouts would allow you to use a compound or pinwheel ladder for a likely more reliable yard with a variety of equipment. (As others have suggested.) The compromise might be reduced yard track lengths or fewer tracks, but it might be well worth it.
But now I am repeating my repetitive restatement of my earlier recapitulations, so I’ll retire.
I built a 4 track staging yard with an additional branch line for a total of 5 tracks from a common yard throat. It was built on a 90 degree curve as well.
I ended up using a #5 turnout, a curved turnout and a 3-way turnout, all Walthers–Shinohara. My only issue is with backing passenger cars with Talgo truck over one turnout into the tightest curved track.
Curved turnouts help with getting into a tight space, and 3-way turnouts squeeze longer tracks into less space. They may not be prototypical, but it’s a selective compression technique that helps in our limited modeling spaces.
I think I sold off all of my passenger cars equipped with those truck mounted couplers. I do remember having to really fine tune those ConCor passenger cars I had a full set of, and back them slowly, purposefully over the multiply turnouts I had on my Central Midland layout yard.
Thanks for reminding me,…maybe…ha…ha
I likely have a few freight cars with them that I have not converted.
