Hey guys,
I was just messing with my track plan, and figured out that my layout would do much better if I moved a spur from one location to another…but the other location is in a tunnel.
Now I’m not afraid of derailments, I would make access holes, of course. But I just wanted to know if it was “Prototypical” to have a switch out in a mountain, and come out of it.
There is probably a prototype for everything some place. But boy I wouldn’t do it.
I have one at the edge of a tunnel. It actually exits in the tunnel. The mountain on top is foam and removeble. It was a pain to put in and maintain. I am having trouble with the power in the frog. I used Humpyard remote cable to turn it. I have it because It is the only place to get two feeds into my staging yard. I don’t recomend them, but I did it. Be aware that it will always act up with company, even if it has worked properly for the last mointh.
[#ditto] It would also be very worth your while to make sure you have a signalling device to tell you what direction the switch is since it isn’t visible(a cooler option would be to have a camera on the front of your locomotives so you can see for yourself, but that would be much more $$ than some LED’s).
I run subways, so a number of my turnouts are in the tunnels, just like 2 of my stations and one complete dead-end siding. I’ve got the camera in the front of the train, but after a number of derailments I put in the control panel LED indicators for all the turnouts down under. I had planned them all along, and I’d even installed the relays, but it just took a while to get the LEDs installed with all the other projects on the list. After I put in the LEDs, my derailment counts were way down.
Yes, I have lift-offs so I can access all of these pretty easily. Now, remember that I’m only running R-17 subway cars (1 4-car train) and a Bowser PCC, but I can’t remember the last time I had a derailment that was NOT caused by an improperly-set turnout. My turnouts are a combination of Atlas snap-switches and Peco curved turnouts, and they all have worked flawlessly for a year now.
Thanks everyone!
Mr. Beasely,
That has to be pretty cool running subways. BTW, you got my confidence way up on this in-tunnel turnout.
That is the latest track plan. As you see, I have drawn a mountainline, and circled the area where the switches will be. I have also added a red dot at the beginning of the tunnel on each track, on the left side, put a yellow dot in the middle on both tracks, and a green light at the end, on both tracks.
Red would be occupied, yellow(Or another red) would mean halfway/still occupied, and green would be good to go. BTW, I wouldn’t be running massivly long trains. I would also put LEDs so I knew where the switches were pointed.
The switch is there just so the siding could act for passage.
Generally, totally unprototypical and a well-known boo-boo on any trackplan.
BUT…
Some of us do it anyway, for various reasons. In my own case, I have both ends of a staging siding and one end each of another siding and a loads out/empties in coal mine.
In all cases, I used #8 Walthers/Shinohara turnouts. On two of them, I used Tortoises under the table. In the other two, I used a variation on the top mounted Tortoise described in MR a few years back.
I made absolutely sure the trackage leading into and out of each switch was as smooth and level as possible, although one is on a bit of a grade. Once the Tortoises were adjusted, operation has been virtually flawless.
There is limited access in each of these cases, but none of them would be pleasant to have to deal with on a regular basis Of course, that is almost always the case with any hidden turnout. Thus, if you do go where you’ve been warned away from, be aware that you’ll need to take special care in planning and construction to avoid a lot of frustration.
Right now, a lot of the hidden trackage – the back part of what is essentially a folded dogbone, with a narrow gauge branch on top of these areas – is still visible, although I’ve used some landscape cloth for viewblocks in many locations. When the permanent, but removable scenery is in place, it will be a bit harder to follow a train’s location, although I am considering CCTV, which is now dirt cheap, to help if needed.
On my layout, it has worked reliably now for more than two years, with no more than one or two slight tweaks. But it would be a frustrating PITA otherwise. I’m satisfied with my handiwork, but I have also come to appreciate the other fact about hidden trackage – the amount of time your train is running, but can’t be seen. If I had it to do over again, I might do things differently, but it has allowed me to squeeze in just the amount of operation into a smaller space than would otherwise be poss
I have a turnout in a tunnel and it worked great–I mean I had it to zero derails. Then I did some work on the layout–not even close to the turnout and now it derails about one out of every ten runs through. Yes I can reach it, but it is such a PITA. I need to work on it, but there is nt a lot of space so I put it off and don’t run that section of track.
This does not include the times that I screwed up with the switch.
If you have any other options besides putting the turnout in the tunnel, do it.
If not, you’ve been warned.
I have two switches at the entrances to two tunnels. I can see/reach both of them. Obviously not a preferred solution but due to space limitations a necessity. I backed away from a curved turnout, on an incline in the middle of a long mountain tunnel. What was I thinking ? I actually had it down, Tortoise and all but decided to pull it up. Sure glad I did.
You will not only have to deal with derailments but maintenance of the turnout. When the time comes to correct a problem with the turnout you will never have enough room to comfortably work on it. If you don’t cuss or know any cuss words you will by having a turnout in a tunnel.
Interesting horror stories.
I have four turnouts for staging sidings in tunnels and another two in a hidden but easily reachable area. No problems yet but I will have removable scenery near all of them.
With removable areas of scenery I don’t see this as any more of an issue than any hidden staging which many modelers use.
John Armstrong had one turnout in a tunnel that did EVERYTHING wrong!
It was on a curve, and every train terminating at Dotsero had to BACK through it, taking the sharper route! It was at the entrance to his infamous “reverted loop.” It was also totally inaccessible.
The solid fascia adjacent to it had a rectangle marked, "Cut here in case of EXCRUCIATING trouble.
John ran the Canandaugua Southern for more than forty-five years. As far as I know, that rectangle was never cut out.
Chuck
I have 7 turnouts in tunnels. I was careful laying track, and didn’t have a whole lot of trouble, but in a couple places, there were more problems than I wanted to deal with.
It cost me some serious effort to straighten it all out. Ramp up the throttle to a crawl, run clear around the table, whip on my magnifying glasses and flashlight, bend down to look through a birds nest of risers to get just the right viewing angle on the wheel, realize I missed the exact moment of failure, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat till I figured out what was going wrong then it was adjust, repeat, adjust, repeat, adjust, repeat…
I haven’t had a derailment in there since I fixed the problems, probably three or four months, not one. You can do that too, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.
Removable mountains aren’t very tough. Glue down your first two layers of 2" foam, then use bamboo skewers to pin down the rest of the peak. You can glue all the upper layers together too, just don’t glue them to the first two. Carve at will, lift off the upper section and plaster cloth the lower two layers. Drape Saran wrap over the top of the two lowest layers, so that at least an inch hangs over the edge.
Set the top section back in place and run your pllster cloth throughout, allowing it to lap over about half an inch. Short blocks of wood leaned onto streategic areas will help press down the wet plaster cloth and saran wrap, but perfection isn’t necessary. I like to do a medium area and then come back for the second layer of cloth, it gives the first layer time to get a little stiff, but not too stiff for fine adjustments, then the second layer locks it in place.
When it’s all dry, mix some water with lighweight spackling compound to get a cool whip consistency and paint in on with a one inch brush. Back and forth at first, to fill all the cracks, then gradually start working out the brush marks with up and down strokes. Stick to the most nearly vertical fall lines, fo
I don’t ever recall hearing of the prototype doing such a thing - after all that would necessitate a tunnel that went down from single track to double track - we modelers aren’t the only ones with locomotives that like to “split the switch” - but such a thing is common on model pikes in a hidden trackage environment.
Yes! John Armstrong did it - and he frequently designed layouts with it - but I remember he also was a strong adherent to the principle of keeping switches within reach so they could be worked on - if you are going to hide switches under scenery make sure you can get to them.
I am in a HO scale model railroad club. On our old layout, we had a mountain that took up practically a whole 36" module. This mountain had a tunnel through it on the inside track of the layout. There was a drop cloth that went over the access to inside the mountain. We had a siding in the tunnel. We had a button on a contol panel that would throw the switches to the siding or the main track. Then, the power would cut off on the section of track that the switches were not lined up for and the power would turn on for the section for which the switches were lined up for.
Sometimes, we would run two trains on that track. For example, we would run a one car passenger with one engine and a 6 car freight with one engine. When one train approached the tunnel, we would get ready to puhe button. Then, we would puhe button and the other train would come out. We had some big wrecks every so often, but it worked very well most of the time.
This was great fun. Some child or children would watch the train going in the tunnel and run over to see the train go out. Many times, they looked confused when they saw a different train than what they were expecting. We thought of a better way to do this, which we never did. Put a light source over points on the track, where photocells were placed, to automatically control these actions. When a train would block the photocell, it would trigger the other train to turn on.
We thought of another thing that could be done. You could have a long track under the table going up into the tunnel. At some point in time, you could push a button to stop the train running on the track inside the tunnel and trigger the other train waiting in the tunnel to come out. That would be wild. Some people watching this little 2or 3 passenger car going in and then, a 20 car freight comes out, and they know there is no way that that train could have been in the tunnel. A better way to do this would be to have some access to that hidden track that would look lik
Why is a turnout in an accessible tunnel any different than a turnout in a hidden staging or storage yard?
For me it is not. I’d find a way to hide the staging and have it accessible at the same time.
Spitfire - have you thought of changing the mountain line so that the turnout is actually in the clear? You already have plenty of mountain terrain. Also, in looking at the layout I can see that this is actually a crossover with two turnouts, with the diverging paths connected. This forms the dreaded S-curve, another thing to be avoided when possible. The turnouts themselves look like they’re #4’s, which gives you tight turn which only makes matters worse.
THose are #6s. I might change the mountain, but I’m a mountain man. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to do that…I’ll think about it. The thing that I really like about that is that the two tracks go in. I don’t know why, but I like that.
BTW, I’m using a plaster cloth type scenery idea with a foam or masonite backing. I was going to have a large acess hole in the area of the turnouts and elevate the tunnel roof in that area so I would have more room to work.
The reason I want such a long tunnel is because there is room for a few rural houses and such.
Here is one cut with it cut off. 
BTW, I’m leaving on vacation, so I won’t see you guys unless my mom brings her computer…
The SP Pit River bridge over Shasta Lake, CA. was double tracked at one time and the south end switch for the siding on it was in a tunnel about 50 yards. The siding was removed in later years because of being too short of a siding. There is a prototype for almost everything I think.