Hey everyone, with my layout I have a turnout on my mainline (no way!) that leads to a siding/passing track. However, the turnout off the main is part of a cross-over. I’m having trouble deciding how to accurately model what this would look like.
__________/ (engine facility spurs located here)
______
this is the track plan for the crossover in question. The bottom (black) is the main and will be code 70. I’m on the fence about whether I should just
Usually (but far from always) a prototype line would lay both turnouts of a mainline-to-siding crossover with equal-size rail. The transition to lighter rail would occur beyond the turnout, and beyond the point where using the turnout would cause side thrust to the rail.
In your specific example, the red crossover turnout and a couple of (39 foot) rail lengths to the left of the points would be heavy rail. To that turnout’s right, the lighter rail would begin close to the frog (no side thrust on tangent track.) The turnout in the service area would be fabricated of the same weight rail as the adjacent tracks.
I recall seeing a crossover between the somewhat separated main tracks of the UP in Wyoming. The turnouts were heavy (they were built to carry Big Boys) but the rails on the crossover itself looked like something swiped out of an old mine. They were only meant to be used by speeders and equally light weight vehicles. Anything heavier would have smashed the crossover into the ground.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I can assure you that any main track crossover on the UP (or any other class 1 railroad) is intended for trains, not just for speeders.
Dave H.
The practice Chuck describes requires rail-size changes twice rather than once. I always chose the simpler option of having the crossover turnouts in this example to be of different code size for that reason.
Mark
Dave, that was a full-page photo in Trains (or possibly Railroad Magazine) many years ago. The caption was, “Whose track is this?” with a more detailed description in the small print.
Unfortunately, that part of my magazine collection succumbed to a move while I was still drawing active duty pay, so I can’t quote chapter and verse.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
thanks a bunch guys.
So Chuck, would the rail to the left of the red X-over turnout be made ENTIRELY out of the same rail size as the mainline, or would it eventually switch to lighter rail after the elevation change had been made?
And should the engine service spurs be set lower than the red X-over turnout as well, or simply switched to lighter rail?
The red rail to the left of the crossover would drop to a smaller size about the length of a locomotive’s wheelbase left of the points. It’s also possible that the track would be at a somewhat lower level. (Main tracks slowly rise as their ballast gets renewed. The crossover would be kept level, but the siding itself probably wouldn’t.)
The engine service spurs should be at the level of the siding. If that would cause too much of a hump at the red crossover turnout, it would be better to build the whole thing on the same level and use different ballast to emphasize the differences - nice crushed limestone for the main and crossover, cinders, local gravel or whatever for the secondary trackage.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Yeah, see thats exactly what I was thinking about: running an engine from the service area to the opposite side of the passing track would look weird having it go over a hump.
I think what I’m going to end up doing is having the crossover’s be Code 70, and then the engine service facility be code 55, but on the same height as the mainline by using regular HO roadbed. The passing track actually has a couple of longer stub-ended spurs acting sort of like classification tracks further down to the left, before it connects with the mainline again, so what I think i’ll do is keep the whole passing siding on HO roadbed, but use code 55 rail, and then use code 55 rail and N-scale roadbed for the classification spurs. That way, I can get some height difference between the code 55 and code 70 without making it too unrealistic of a height difference, since the rail size will already be leading to like probably a foot difference in real life anyway.
Does that sound like a workable, prototypical plan?