after installing and doing some simple testing of atlas turnouts, a car didn’t track the switch.
It seemed the end of the points were bent too far inward, so i bent the straight. that didn’t help because is seemed it prevented the points from being close to the stock rail.
so i bent the points a little inward so the points were closer to the stock rail and that seemed to do the trick.
is this typical of atlas turnouts? how bent should the points be?
also, the throw bar was in the way on one of the turnouts connected to the diverging rails of another turnout. I bent the tabs to remove it and reverse it to the diverging side. (and this may the cause of the above issue)
When I laid my track using Peco turnouts 25 years ago I had to do that same thing on a few of them. Since then no issues at all. Plus, I had to shave down the plastic part of the frog a bit on some, and widen the flange gap on some other. I guess my experience is 25 years ago manufacturing process was probably not as good as today. But the good news is after all the little tweaking I’ve had no issues over these past 25 years. Knock on wood!
Rich, just curious, do you know if the throwbar on Peco turnouts can be flipped like they can with Atlas? I don’t like them on the inside of the turnout like Peco has them.
I don’t think I would call it typical to have to adjust them, but it happens.
The throwbar was designed to be reversible. You don’t need to “bend” anything, a small screwdriver will flex the plastic tabs on the top of the throwbar and and let the tabs on the points slip out. Turn it around a pop it back in, or cut the throwbar extension off and power them from the bottom center.
Good question, Douglas. I went down and looked at my layout. It does not appear so. That can be a problem where tracks are in close contact with one another, as seen in the photo. I have to trim ties on adjacent tracks.
I sometimes flip throwbars on Atlas turnouts, but I don’t recall ever doing that with a Peco and I don’t think it can be done.
On Peco turnouts the throwbars extend the same distance on either side of the turnout. The headblocks extend on the inside. I usually cut them off and glue them to the other side with a little sanding to hide the joint.