Hello All,
Has anyone built a croosing for track other then 15, 30, 45, or 60? I have a spot that needs a 50 degree crossing. Any ideas?
Clint
There have been some videos showing creating frogs of any angle by laying one track over the other and marking where the frog will go and the angle to file to. This same method should work fo a crossing at any angle. There is also an article in an old MR, of the top of my head I don’t remember exactly when, but back in the 50’s or maybe early 60’s. This is available on the All Access Pass.
–Randy
Randy is basically saying that you would/will need to hand lay the crossover. Good luck, post photos.
Dave
I am not certain because I have never looked for it, but surely Tim Warris has such a video instruction posted on his Fast Tracks site? As Randy says, find your intersection, do a pencil shadowing overlay of it for the best angular fit, and then construct it using cut and soldered rail bits held in place with printed circuit board copper lad ties. I suspect you’ll need a number of gaps near the frogs.
I recommend building the crossing on pc board ties and soldering. Once it’s all done mechanically, you’ll need to cut a gap in all four sides of the “diamond”, and most likely at the “outside” in some or all of the rails. And in various of the ties, too. And you’ll need some sort of switching for the various parts, either with a toggle switch of with contacts on switch machines.
I also recommend you build it on the bench, not on the layout.
It can be fun. And it’s really not all that difficult.
Ed
A quick look at the MR index and in the MR Archive shows articles in the January 1947 issue and in the February 1951 issue.
Bob Bochenek
Handlaying any specialty track is not easy, and a crossing is no exception.
There are two points where rails of opposite polarity meet and, therefore, must be insulated from one another.
There are also four points on a crossing that must be left “open” so that the wheels can cross without derailment. This will require a total of 8 breaks in the rails.
Then there is a diamond that must be constructed to serve as a guard rail system through the crossing.
Rich
There are lots of ways to build crossings, many of which don’t require measuring angles and all that stuff.
Straight crossings with large angles are pretty simple.
Lay track on one route. Add guardrails and solder them to the running rails.
Mark where the rails of the other route cross the first rails. Use a cut-off wheel in a motor tool to notch the first rails/guardrails where the second rails cross. Only cut about halfway through, leaving the base of the first rails intact.
Make the second route rails by soldering guard rails to the running rails. Place them over the first rails and mark wher they cross the first rails. Use the cut-off wheel to notch the bottom of those rails, leaving the head of the rails in tact.
Place the second rails over the first rails, the two rails should fit together at the notches. Its best to position on rail and then tweak the notches for the other rail to get it in guage.
When everything is spiked down, solder the areas where the rails cross to form one big piece. Use the cutoff wheel to CAREFULLY cut out the flangeways where the rails cross. Finish the rail material with needle files. Use a piece of a hacksaw blade to ream solder out of the flangeways.
When all the flangeways are clear and the crossing is secured in place use the cut-off wheel to gap between each frog and then cut a gap in each rail approaching the crossing. That will give you 4 individual frogs isloated from each other. What I like to do is to cut gaps in one side of the crossing, then epoxy or super glue a piece of plastic into the gap, and wait until it has cured to do the next side. That maximizes the strength of the crossing. Hook up wires to each of the 4 frogs and connect it to whatever will control polarity on the crossing and you’re in business.
That’s an excellent primer, Dave, on building a crossing, but I wouldn’t call it simple.
It will require considerable skill to do it right and make it bulletproof.
Rich
The only piece of custom trackwork I have built so far from scratch is a level crossing at some odd angle I don’t recall right now. It also HO/HOn3. I built it following instructions found in the Carstens book by Paul Mallery, Trackwork Handbook for Model Railroaders. Yeah, Carstens is gone but book should be easily finable. Mine is the 3rd edition. Page 66-69 cover different types of crossings and then provide a tutorial on building your own.
Mine isn’t pretty, but works reliably. I built it in place, using a DPDT switch to set polarity for the through path as needed. So long as you can solder and have basic tools and patience, it’s a feasible project, even if your rank is Gandydancer Rookie like me.
Educate me because I must be missing something.
If a crossing is constructed correctly, why do you need special switches or wiring to change polarities?
Rich
I have used Cream City Turnouts, located in the Milwaukee area. The owner had some health issues that slowed down production for awhile but according to their web site he is building again. His prices are very reasonable, considering the time it takes to do this sort of work, they’re very cost effective. Everything is in gauge, gapped for DCC if so desired, and I could find no fault in any of the curved turnouts or crossings I ordered. Just a satisfied customer…
Mark B
Thanks.
Buying a commercial crossing and just dropping it in is simplest. ANY technique that involves building the track yourself is obviously a huge jump in skill level to do it successfully. My method doesn’t require hundreds of dollars in jigs, doesn’t require any special tools (other than a soldering iron and motor tool which are pretty common), doesn’t require cutting precise angles or lengths of rails and can be done on the workbench, on wood ties, on PC ties. Its about as low tech as you can get. It doesn’t work as well for very shallow angle crossings (less than 30 degrees lets say just to pick a number). The trick is to keep the flangeways open and not let them get too narrow. If you cut away a bit too much, it can be filled with solder and the hacksaw blade can ream the excess away.
Model trains operate by putting an electrical current through the tracks. One rail is positive and the other rail is negative. If the crossing frogs are all metal and live (have electrical current in them) then where the rails join, it will create a short. Therefore there will have to be gaps put in the rails and portions of the frog will need to have the polarity changed depending on which route is being used.
The alternative is to have dead frogs where there is no current in them. Live frogs require up to 12 gaps. Metal dead frogs require up to 16 gaps. Another alternative is to replace the area where the rails meet in the crossing frogs with epoxy.
I have built a couple of custom crossings. One use spikes and homasote, the other used PC ties and solder. While both took quite a bit of time and fussing to get right, the PC method made it much easier to get good results and to make adjustments. I use a DPDT to change polarity. I used Tim Warris’ templates at fastracks as a guide to what crossing rail configurations look like and then laid out the geometry in place on the layout.
While not too difficult, I wouldn’t consider either of these projects to be beginner level. Another option besides building them yourself, is that you could contact some of the custom switch builders selling on Ebay and see what they would charge for a custom crossing.
BTW: Don’t try to wire and gap them late at night [:-^].
Here is the spike and homasote double curved crossing. Trains go through this one fine but it did take some fine tuning to get it to operate reliably. the middle diamond is missing as this one is in hidden track work
Here is the PC tie crossing. Trains only go through this one in one direction, greatly simplifying things. Fine tuning was much simpler with this one.
Here’s a website showing how to do it using the half-lap joint method. The big advantage to this method is that the rail remains whole until after everything is soldered into place. You don’t need to worry about lining up short lengths of track.
http://www.bronx-terminal.com/?p=4303
Steve S
Steve,
Yes, an excellent resource, although I would caution against being intimidated by the crossings he’s making[:O] Those are truly works of art.
It’s basically the same method I used and that Mallery describes in the Carstens trackwook book. He may have called it by some other name, but the same basic concept. Yes, much, much easier to solder things up whole, then cut your gaps, then to try maneuver small pieces of rail into place to solder exactly where needed.
On the theory this thread needs more pics and at the risk of being ridiculed for my fat “mud ties” here’s my HO/HOn3 crossing somewhere around 20 degrees???
I thought I’d build one for practioce, then have to rebuild to really make it right. So I used some stripwood I had on hand on the theory the second version would see ties cut right for it. So my practice crossing turned into a good enough crossing and now it’s almost a keeper. The NG side is pretty good. The lesser used SG side has a noticeable jog. Derailments are virtually unheard of in either case.
Yep, and that was my point. Assuming that a commercial crossing is available with the correct angles, that would be preferable.
Rich
Dave, thanks for that explanation. I hadn’t considered live frogs because all of my crossings are commercial crossings, and they come, out of the box, with plastic frogs and gapped sections of track.
Rich