Model Railroading dinosaur here (anyone else remember Athearn Hi-F rubber band drives?). Well, given the average of this hobby, probably 99% of you do. Anyway, after 30 years without a layout, and having accumulated many older Shinohara turnouts, I’m going to start a shelf layout with my son. Most of my motive power is Atlas or Proto, and DCC is at least a possibility. I’m wondering how important is it to have DCC friendly turnouts, or can I make do with my present stock? I can solder, but if I go DCC I don’t want to have to rip up and replace turnouts, I’d rather pay the $ upfront if I have to. I’d appreciate benefits of the collective wisdom of the forum, or at least some wild a**ed guesses. TIA, Ken
Welcome back. I returned about two years ago. Having a very good time. I bought some new turnouts and used some old ones. Some are working better than others, but it has nothing to do with old or new or powered or unpowered frogs. Some turnouts just work better than others. The point; buying all new turnouts and all new engines and DCC is the way to go
EXCEPT, it costs, and if you have old brass you will want to run them. Either way, turnouts are still not error free out of the box.
Now to see what others have experienced.
Using non-friendly turnouts can result in your layout being shut down every time you throw a turnout. Fortunately, most non-friendly turnouts can be converted. Check out these pages for more info:
At “Model Railroader” we don’t use the term “DCC friendly” because it’s basically meaningless. There are essentially just two types of turnouts availalble commercially, all-live and power-routing. All-live turnouts, such as Atlas Snap-Switches and Custom-Line turnouts, and can be used without any additional insulation. Power-routing turnouts have to be used with additional two-rail insulation, in the form of gaps or plastic joiners (see Chapter 3 of my book, “Easy Model Railroad Wiring, Second Edition”). But both types of turnouts work just fine with DCC.
One issue that’s often brought up is the “back-to-back” short that can occur when the back side of a metal wheel touches an open turnout point and bridges it to a stock rail of opposite polarity. There are two factors that can cause this, and sometimes they occur in combination: substandard point clearance and out-of-gauge wheelsets. However, most turnouts have point clearance that meets NMRA standards, and improperly gauged wheels should be corrected because they can also cause derailments. The NMRA standards gauge provides an easy way to check on both these factors.
Our MR&T club layout was built with Walthers/Shinohara code 83 turnouts from several years ago, before the current so-called “DCC-friendly” types. We incorporated the necessary two-rail insulation as we built the track, and the turnouts have the required point clearance. We have no problems operating the layout with DCC, apart for occasionally finding a locomotive manufactured with one or more wheelsets out of gauge (and they can be fixed).
So long,
Andy
We have Atlas, Peco, and Shinohara turnouts on our HO scale club layout that were made long before the so-called “DCC Friendly” versions ever came out, and we have not had any problems with them not working just fine when we run trains using DCC.
For whatever reason, the name DCC-friendly seems to be inuitive, and I felt that I wanted a “friendly” turnout…which meant insulated frogs. I have made turnouts using the Fast Tracks method which requires the frog to be isolated with thin gaps, and they work very well. I also use Peco and Walther’s/Shinohara insulfrog, which also work well. However, despite their claims, both the latter two companies have design flaws with their gap placement…they are too close to the frog, and virtually everyone who owns one of these has to do some work on them to keep shorts down. So, if you can get powered frogs to work well, and don’t mind fiddling with the turnouts and your wheelsets to get shorts reduced to a rare frequency, you might as well get them. As for me, I just cut gaps in one rail further out from the frog, and that has solved my problems. What would concern some users is that the lengthened dead zone in a modified frog might preclude some locomotives from successfully traversing the frog under power. You may find that your older locomotives will have “issues” with such a set-up. Generally, manufacturers are sensitive to this problem, and have been selling locos that have more pickups in the wheels to provide steady power to the decoder/motor.
I keep seeing posts about how insulated frogs need to be lengthened or otherwise modified to avoid shorting problems.
Why not go to live frogs? How hard is it to wire a contact to the frog to get the correct polarity? The only reason I could see for not having live frogs is the sheer number of turnouts on a very large layout makes 30 minutes per turnout to power the frog a massive time sink.
Even Caboose ground throws and Humpyard levers are available with a contact for powering the frog. If you roll your own manual throw linkage, the same slide or toggle switch that provides point latching provides the contact for frog power. The only folks without ready access to a contact for frog power are those using Atlas or Peco switch machines. In those 2 cases (only common ones I know of), it does cost a few dollars extra to add the contact.
Live frogs mean one less place for your lights to flicker or your sound to reset or your short locomotives to stall. Finally, live frogs look better because they are made of metal, either cast or made from pieces of rail.
just my opinion
Fred W
The Fast Tracks dead frogs are made of rail, too, and are prototypically gapped at about the right spot for the length of a typical frog.
Thanks, all, for the informative answers. Since my layout will be built in sections, I think I’ll use the turnouts I have on hand, with live frogs and the proper rail gaps for insulation, and thorough use of my NMRA gauge on the first section, per Andy’s post. If this works, great. If not, I’ve printed the wiring schematics, and I’ll modify my present turnouts or buy new for the subsequent sections. I must confess, after I read the link about what is required to modify turnouts I gave some thought to switching to knitting, but at ten years old, my son is old enough to learn how to solder. Thanks again, this forum is a great resource, Ken
I am installing Peco Electrofrog switches and the link below has been very helpful.
Going all the way back to the original question:
Some older Shinohara turnouts have little brass contacts attached to the points which, when the switch is thrown, can, “Make before break,” contact the stock rails, causing a momentary short. In ordinary DC operation, this has no effect. However, DCC has lightning-fast electronic circuit breakers which will shut down the entire power zone when that happens.
The cure is to amputate the little contacts - easily done with a cutoff wheel and Dremel tool, or with a razor saw.
The other possible issue is wheel backs possibly shorting against the open point. In that case, the cure is to paint the center (not ends) of the guilty point with a small amount of lacquer (such as clear nail polish.) Clean carefully, and allow plenty of ventilation and drying time.
This from a former user of Shinohara turnouts who has since graduated to rolling his own from raw rail.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
All my turnouts have insulated frogs and I have no problems with them on DCC. In fact, the ONLY turnouts I’ve had that caused a problem were 2 that came with powered frogs and were labeled ‘DCC friendly’. They were anything but that. They were a monumental headache!. They have since been converted to insul-frog and no longer present a problem. No more electro-frog turnouts for me.
The Fast Tracks frogs are designed to be power routed.
On topic to the orginal question, on old shinohara turnouts there are three areas for possible shorts.
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At the points, if the gap between the stock rail and the points is too small the it is possible for the back of a metal wheel to contact the open point and cause a short.
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At the frog. If the frog is not properly gapped it is possible for a metal wheel to short by touching both the wing rail of the opposite point and the frog at the same time causing a short.
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On old shinohara turnouts there is a bronze phosphor strip underneath the points that is designed to contact the stock rail and route power to the point rails. If you are using some kind of turnout machine and power routing the frog and point rails through the machine contacts then it is possible for the machine contacts to complete the circuit before the mechanicals points move enough to break the circuit created by the bronze phosphor strip. Removing the strip solves this problem.
A properly gapped turnout with a power routed frog should eliminate almost all short circuit problems, Dc or DCC.
jktrains
You are mistaken. The frogs are entirely dead, as in [xx(]. The points rails are live, but they are gapped, necessarily, at the frog, which, once again, is [xx(]. The reason is that the frog is held in place the same way all the other rails are held there…on copper clad PCB ties. Since the frog is [xx(], it needs no gaps cut between the wing and guard rails, nor the stock rails. I know, since I have built several of them.
I think what jk was trying to get at was that you can solder a lead (or two…?) to teh frog that can the power the frog via the caboose hobbies or tortise or whatever contacts…
“Power routing” means the frog is powered according to the lay of the points, and that is not the case with Fast Tracks any more than it would be with any other DCC-friendly turnout…which Fast Tracks turnouts are. If you want jumpered power routing, then you would indeed need a jumper or a Tortoise, but I don’t see how jktrains’ response can be correct in view of his repudiation of my original statement unless he included that proviso in his repudiation…I don’t see it there.
Re-read the post! [|(] I said “power routed”, not power routing. There is a difference! If you had continued to read the post you’d have read my comments about properly gapped turnouts and routing power to the frog through the switch machine. Typically, a power routing turnout is meant to describe a turnout in which power to the diverging route of the turnout, and the siding beyond, are control by the position of the turnout points. As such, power to the siding is turned off by throwing the turnout to the normal position, with no need for a separate switch to control the siding’s power.
I too have built many turnouts using the Fast Track jigs. I have also built turnouts completely from scratch before such jigs existed. Do some research and you’ll find that the preferered method of building and installing turnouts is to route power to the frog through the switch machine so that there is no dead spot.
You equivocate, Sir.
And, in your last paragraph, preferred by whom? Not by me. I don’t have such a need. That was the original intent of their design.
I’m new around here but not to the hobby, but I saw some posts in this thread that made me wonder…why do you need to use insulation gaps for power-routing turnouts again?
My current layout in progress which uses Kato unitrack, and their #6 turnouts (which are power-routing turnouts) doesn’t use any insulation gap and it runs just fine on Digitrax DCC. I know other modelers on other boards that have been doing the same thing for 7 years or more. Just perplexed why someone would think you needed it.
The Jack Work article on handlaid turnouts in April 1963 Model Railroader (long before DCC-friendly existed) stated that he preferred to wire his turnouts as follows:
Points are insulated from each other and jumpered to the adjoining stock rail. This avoids any shorts at the points, even when flangeway clearance is reduced below NMRA spec for a more prototypical appearance. Jack used a truck to test for the minimum clearance he could get by with, and added a little bit to it to prevent longer wheel bases from binding.
When points are of opposite polarity, the frog must be insulated from the points - gaps cut. Frogs should be powered to avoid stalling and lighted car flickering. The frog must be powered by a contact that changes polarity when the points are thrown. Powering the frog also allows moving the gaps further away from the frog itself. Moving the gaps to the closure rails (can’t be done with dead frogs because the dead section is too long) improves alignment and structural integrity through the critical frog area.
Gaps in the frog rails beyond the frog eliminate power routing (which is not particularly wanted in DCC). These gaps also eliminate problems with frogs being fed inadvertantly from the track beyond the frog. As in the closure rail gaps, these gaps can be moved to a comfortable distance from the frog only if the frog is powered through a turnout-controlled contact. These gaps could be omitted for a dead end spur when power-routing was desired.
Wiring turnouts in this fashion was the preferred method for those making their own turnouts in 1963, and is today the most "