Has anyone experienced locomotives stalling when going through Atlas code 83 turnouts? My Heritage 0-8-0 and my Athearn 2-8-2 both stall with these turnouts. Any easy solutions? BTW I have DCC by Digitrax. My Bachmann 2-8-0 runs without any alteration.
Hello John,
My first guess would be that these engines are losing contact on the electrically isolated frog of the Atlas turnouts. If that’s the case you can solve the problem by powering the frog through auxilliary switch motor contacts or and auxilliary relay like the Atlas Snap Relay. See page 32 of my book “Easy Model Railroad Wiring” (from Kalmbach Books, of course) for examples of how to do this.
Good luck,
Andy Sperandeo
Editor
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
Hi Andy, Thanks for the input. It is greatly appreciated. I am using ground throws on most of my turnouts. Should I buy ones with contacts?
John
move up to “O” SCALE
Vincent,
LOL! The irony of this is that I just came from O scale! Thanks for the laugh.
Hello John,
Yes, the Caboose Industries no. 119 ground throw would be one way to power the frog with manual control. Another would be to operate the turnout with a slide switch under the roadbed controlled by a push rod to the front of the layout.
so long,
Andy Sperandeo
Editor
MODEL RAILROADER Magazine
Another good idea, is to use the N-track standard of “power drops” every 3-feet or so around the layout. When I do turnouts, I install a set of power drops on all three legs. If you still have stalling, you’re getting poor connections at the points, or the railjoiners/pivot point. I also solder a set of drops on the points rails, and this eliminates this problem. If you have a “electrofrog” or metal frog, you will need to take your Dremel with cut-off disk, and slice through both rails that join at the frog point. In N-scale, I go back 5/8" from the point of the frog. In HO, you might want to go 3/4". Then you will have a “dead frog”, but any loco will clear that distance before the trailing trucks hit it, and with power on all sides, you will never stall again. Food for thought. Robert
My 4-8-2 did stall on Walthers code 83 turnouts, where there was any curvature at all leaing into the points end of the turnout. This caused the leading wheels to contact the stock rail and short causing jerking… So I simply filed a bit off the stock raid (side near point) and bent the point rail inward a bit. and problem was solved. The track gauge indicated a slight out of gauge at this point before my “fix” - which seemed to be the way the turnouts came from factory.
ken