i know many modelers read magazines from cover to cover, but i’m often surprised when i find one article of interest. But the July issue had many.
i found the N Scale Insight column on derailments insightful. I hadn’t thought that a derailment might be caused earlier than where noticed
I’ve laid several turnouts following Tony Koester’s article and video, and found his “Upgrading older turnout” discussion on reworking points interesting postscript.
The “Build a Single-Point Turnout” was very helpful in better understanding the essential aspects of a turnout.
Steve Otte’s “Track 101” article was a good preface for the articles above.
“How to build an operating switch stand” is an article I’ll keep in the back of my mind when considering improvements, as well as a few others.
while building turnouts I learned that the positioning of the guard rails opposite the frog is very important. It traps the one wheel which then guides the other wheel crossing the frog.
the single-point turnout didn’t exactly use frogs. Instead, it just put gaps in rails where wheels needed to cross. There were gaps in other places, i believe, for electrical isolation. Opposite the gaps where the frog would be were the guard rails.
in place of the 2nd point, was a partial point that was fixed, but again there was a gap. What peeked my interest was the extra piece of rail on the moving point that acts like a guard rail to guide the wheel across the gap on the diverging fixed point.
the design of the single point turnout confirmed much of my understanding of how a turnout really works that i’ve learned by fixing derailments.