This is a hard question to answer, but is 16 turnouts too many on a layout this size? Eight of the turnouts are being used for a stub-ended yard and two for an interchange track. The others are for industry tracks. Is that too many given that about seven of the turnouts run into the mainline? I need about seven Tortoise machines to prevent the turnouts from moving while the wheel sets go over them.
TIA!
~Lee
The answer is – it depends. Sorry, but I don’t think there is a single fits all answer. For example, someone modeling a large yard and industrial may think it’s not enough. Another modeling the mainline through the Rockies my think too many. My local switching focused layout is an L shaped 12 along one leg and 8 on the other with staging along a third wall. Overall square footage is about 38 or less than half yours. I have 10 turnouts in the operational portion and 3 in staging. I cut down to this from 15 to make the trackwork less complex with more room between sidings. For me that works out to one switch per about 3.5 square feet which is slightly denser than yours of one every 5 square feet.
Without a complete track plan, the only possible answer is - insufficient data.
Remember, a single scissors crossover is four turnouts. A double slip is four that work as two. In tight places the prototype (and advanced modelers) use three-ways, lap turnouts and whatever else works to put tracks where they are needed.
The throats to my down staging yards at Nonomura have fourteen switch machines on the lowest level tracks, all in an area about 3x7 feet. There are other turnouts on higher levels in the same area, and there will be a train elevator there as well. I didn’t include a single set of points that isn’t needed for operation.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with no more turnouts than necessary)
I don’t understand why this is even a question. If that is the number required to produce the desired track plan then that is the right number of turnouts.
I think the number of turnouts is irrelevant. Could it be, that you have a feeling of having too much track on your layout? That it looks too cramped?
There’s no correct number.
Like the prototype, you need enough to get the job done efficiently. But you don’t want to pay for extras that aren’t needed.
If you’re short on cash, you go with the minimum number you can.
But remember, this is a hobby so it really is whatever works for you.
Enjoy
Paul
It may be that the OP is concerned about the number of turnouts on the main line track.
Since turnouts can be one of the biggest sources of derailments, unless the turnouts are high quality and fine tuned, each and every main line turnout will add to the operator’s grief.
The OP also mentions the need to install Tortoises to hold the point rails in place. Tortoises are one way to do it, but you could also install manual ground throws which are a lot less expensive and easy to operate, assuming that the turnouts are accessible. In any event, something must be used to hold the point rails in place so that wheel sets passing over the point rails don’t move them. Peco turnouts, for example, have springs to hold the point rails in place.
Rich
Rich:Since turnouts can be one of the biggest sources of derailments, unless the turnouts are high quality and fine tuned, each and every main line turnout will add to the operator’s grief.
Actually I’ve use switches straight from the package without any problems.
Rich,I’m sorry but,there’s no need to cause unnecessary worry over switches…
There should be far more concern over wheels being in proper gauge and the coupler trip pin at the correct height.
Larry, there may be no need to cause unnecessary worry over switches, but there is a need to raise necessary concerns over switches.
The pages of this forum are littered with anectodal evidence of derailment problems with turnouts.
Like you, I have used turnouts right out of the packaging with any problems. But, I have also had problems with turnouts right out of the package - - raised frogs, points that don’t tuck against the stock rails, etc.
Poor quality turnouts cause derailments. Why try to deny this?
Rich
Poor quality turnouts cause derailments. Why try to deny this?
Rich
Maybe its because the 58 years I been in the hobby I never ran across any switch problems.
Am I lucky? Probably but,still a good track record I would think.
I concentrate on proper wheel gauge and coupler trip pin height since 99% of my derailments has been cause by those problems-all due to my oversight during pre service checks…
The majority of today’s cars and locomotives already has the correct wheel gauge and trip pin height once the couplers is changed out to KDs.
I have been in the HO scale side of the hobby for 8 years. I have over 100 freight cars and 50+ passenger cars and I have never yet had a wheelset out of gauge.
Every loco and every piece of rolling stock has Kadee couplers installed. I often have to use the Kadee tool to bend up the coupler trip pin because, out of the box, a lot of Kadee couplers catch the frogs on turnouts. Whose fault? The Kadee coupler or the turnout with a raised frog?
Rich
As prior posters have said there are so many “it depends” responses to the question that I doubt if any of us will hit on an answer. A true 7x12 layout has a huge amount of central space – access? or are we talking a layout in a 7x12 room? that sort of thing.
I have seen over the years attempts to arrive at “formulas” for the “correct” amount of track and turnouts for a given square footage. They make sense when being read in a magazine, but of course nobody ever goes to the effort of finding perfectly wonderful layouts or track plans that violate the formula and are hence “incorrect.” And obviously an oval type layout on a 4x8 or 5x9 is a different animal than a linear layout 18" or 24" wide that takes up the same square footage.
I do think it is possible to have so many turnouts that the actual utility of each one ceases to be worth the expenditure. For example, I have seen small layouts with yards where the shortest yard track can hold just one car. Since the turnout that leads to that track, in theory, also costs you one car (if not more) if you intend to use that turnout, that turnout and additional yard track was, at least to my way of thinking, literally useless - including visually.
I don’t have a drawing in front of me as I right this, but the classic John Allen “timesaver” switching game, in a tight space, has something like 8 or 9 tunrouts, because it has a run around track. If that was the basis for an industrial switching area on a 7x12 layout, that would leave plenty of space to use an additioal 10 or so turnouts. In that case the literal answer to your question is “no that is not too many.”
Dave Nelson
There’s 10 turnouts on my 12’ by 21inch shelf layout, and it’s not at all cramped.
However, a layout with only 2 or 3 turnouts could still have too many tracks if it’s a convoluted “spaghetti bowl” layout with tracks looping around multiple times and crossing over or under each other.
As others have noted, it’s not clear why you are asking this question. You will always need some means of holding the switchpoints in place on every turnout for reliable operation, not only the mainline turnouts.
This could be a switch machine or motor, ground throw, or homebrew over-center spring.
Byron
Edit: Noticed that you asked the same question in 2009.
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/152738.aspx
Looks like you received the same sort of answers then: “it depends”. You might have to tell us the problem you are trying to solve or your specific concern before anyone can help. Good luck.
The Kadee coupler or the turnout with a raised frog?
Rich
I’ll put the blame where it lays-the low trip pin.That’s why I check every KD coupler conversion.
Blame the frog if you must but,the trip pin was the real villain since it was to low.