I have the rails and frog done, this one wasn’t as easy as the #6 turnouts. The picture of the #8 turnout on the Atlas site isn’t linier like the #6 turnouts. The gauge is slightly wider in the center of diverging outside rail. The inside rail is 75.9348” radius, the outside rail is .039” wider than the ends. The #6 is less than .02”. That seems like a lot to me, the rails are .040” wide.
I’ll work on the ties and guard rails tomorrow. Getting the correct radius on this one was a baddie.
If you have a multimeter check for continuity between what looks like a small washer at the end of the tie.
If you read continuity connect your frog power to the small washer. Just to make sure check for continuity between the washer and the rails, there shouldn’t be any continuity between the frog and any rails.
After rereading your post I didn’t catch that it is the crossing that your having trouble with, sorry. Check all four turnouts to make sure the diverging rails after the frog have power. The #6 turnouts are powered. If not add some jumpers. The Atlas crossover shouldn’t need any extra wiring. If you have a meter check each rail for continuity, they should be connected internally in the plastic ties.
If the turnout rails after the frog are insolated the crossing won’t have power.
If the locomotives that are stalling have pickups on only one truck then the huge unpowered #8 frog is going to be a problem whether the #8 switch is part of a crossover or not, and all #8 switches on the layout anywhere will need to have their frogs powered, or keep alive will have to be added to every loco that has only one pickup.
I suspect it is more likely that the locos that stall have pickups from both trucks, but the length of the loco is precisely long enough so the front truck hits the dead spot in the crossing while the back truck is on the dead frog in the #8 turnout.
In that case you have 3 alternatives. You can add keep-alive to the locos that stall. You can power the frogs of the four #8 turnouts making up the crossover, or you can power the frogs of the crossing and leave the turnout frogs unpowered. (It may be that for the atlas crossover, powering the unpowered parts is impossible as they’re plastic, that part I don’t know - so maybe only two practical alternatives).
Adding keep-alive to your locos is a very good solution if you don’t have many locos - it fixes the problem for your entire layout once and for all and will let you run with dirtier track.
If powering frogs, you need a frog juicer or some other way to appropriately flip the polarity of the power to the frogs. A single-board quad frog juicer would be ideal if powering the turnout frogs.
FWIW, I have recently powered the frogs on about 100 Atlas Code 83 #4 and #6 turnouts for the club. I used 2-56 brass screws and they seemed to fit fine. I don’t think the walls of the hole were left too thin.
I do have one suggestion with regard to getting good contact between the screw and the frog hole. I didn’t cut the threads all the way through the hole. I stopped so that the top thread was slightly undercut. This makes the screw fit tightly into the hole thereby ensuring good long term conductivity.
Also, I used my variable speed drill to hold the tap. I found it much easier to line up squarely on the frog hole, and using a very low speed made it easy to control the depth of the cut.
John, any chance you could take a video your cell phone, post it on youtube? That way, we could see which engines stall and where the front and rear wheels are and exactly where they stop.
I did a quickie drawing of what I think a #8 Double Crossover would look like. It should be pretty close, I used Atlas pictures to make the drawing.
I’m presuming that all Atlas Crossovers have conductive jumpers internally in all of their crossovers, the 19° #572 does. The crossover frogs are plastic and less than ¾” long. The turnout frogs are 13½” center to center metal and the frog is 2.4” long.
After the #8 frog, a loco could be on all 4 frogs of the crossing, all at the same time. The two entry and exit frogs and the center frogs. What is the distance between the entry and exit frogs Mel?
