I vaguely recall reading recently of a modeller who claims to ‘tweak’ turnouts to match his track geometry. I recall he said that he flips the turnout over and cuts the plastic tie web - as in flextrack - to allow him to introduce a curve where there was no curve before, or increase the curvature of curved turnouts.
Does any one remember this reference ? Or, has anyone successfully modified a turnout like this ?
I need to decrease the radius (from standard radius as supplied to a smaller radius to fit into a track plan)of some Peco Streamline code 75 curved turnouts and would welcome any advice.
The process described can work, with a few caveats:
If you introduce too much curvature in the area of the points, the outside point becomes too short and the inside point too long for the geometry of the turnout. Also, curving the points themselves from their original state is not as easy as the tie web cuts and curving the stock rails. So keeping the increased curvature very modest in the vicinity of the points will enhance your chances of success.
Similarly, the frog itself cannot be easily curved from its as-built state, if at all. The same is true for the stock rails in the vicinity of the guard rails.
If the turnout is a power routing type (Peco Electrofrog), the open point may now be too close to the stock rail, causing short circuits when the back of a metal wheel brushes the open point. This is more likely to happen with sharper radii.
If you curve a turnout of a given frog angle, the closure rail radius for the inside path becomes much sharper than in the original state. This is already a problem for small # frogs on curved turnouts - the Walters #6 (#6.5) curved turnout already has a true inner path radius of 18". Curving the outer path sharper is going to decrease that inner path radius even more.
The Master (John Armstrong) drew several track plans using turnouts curved by web-cutting, but always started with a high-number straight turnout - and included an alternate location where the uncut turnout would fit (albiet with shortened siding length or the points ending up in a tunnel.)
Your description of shaping a hand-laid turnout by bending flex along the desired routes is exactly the way I lay all of my specialwork. By the time a commercial turnout gets ‘tweaked’ it takes just about as much time and fuss to get it right as it does to build up the equivalent from raw rail on loose ties. Plus, if the modeler screws up and has to redo, the commercial turnout may be a total loss ($$$!!!) The worst that can happen to a hand-lay is the necessity to shape a piece of new rail a few inches long.
Your description and the terminology are undoubtedy mine. I inverted Walthers/Shinohara #7.5 curved turnouts and modified both curves beyond the frog. Actually, what I did was not “increase” the curve", but I extended the curve…that is, I increased the radius because I had found, to my dismay, that the inner route was about 3" shorter in radius than advertized. I wanted to find bedrock on the inner curve at an absolute 24" radius, but measured it at closer to 21". So, I cut the “inside” rail’s webs to allow them to spread as I straigthend the curve they formed, and actually cut out little blocks of the webbing on the outer rail so that when I spread out the curve the outer rail’s webbing had room to crowd.
I have also successfully altered the straight route past the points on regular turnouts, but probably didn’t do the best job. You can bend and curve both those rails past the points, but it has to be slight. Think in terms of a 60" radius or more. That little bit, maybe two whole degrees by the time the wheels get to the point rails, actually allowed me to close the curved throat into one end of my yard, and allowed my reverse loop for turning trains. If you do that, go easy. The key is really good geometry on the approach, too, so that you don’t miss it all by having to bend those ends so much that the engines or longer cars just won’t be happy. Make it easier on yourself by getting the approach to do the bulk of accomodation if your curvatures are going to be okay.
I have not seen any recent articles on the subject, but Andy Sperandeo wrote a series on building the Washita and Santa Fe in MR back in 1982 in which he describes cutting out the runners on the stock rails of turnouts so that they “bend like flextrack.” Since that time, I have modified a few Shinohara turnouts in order to get smoother curves into industry trackage where space is tight. The amount of curvature is slight in all cases but enough to make a difference. I was hesitant at first, given the cost of turnouts, but the technique works. I have done the same thing successfully with the Walthers code 83 and code 70 transition track. John Timm
Honestly, the quickest way would probably be to just get either a Central valley turnout strip, which is curvable, or lay out wooden ties, and then just remove the ties from a stock Shinohara, or whatever, turnout, and rebuild it onto the curved route. The only thing you have to do is spike, and if you don’t want to attempt that, all you need to do is attempt the infinitely complex and nearly insurmountable task of gluing the rail to the ties or tie-strip… haha
Cutting out the three or four sections of tie strip with an Exacto blade on a stock Shinohara turnout should take about as much time as I took to write this–and a lot cheaper.
A little different perhaps but I have on a couple of occasions attempted to scratchbuild short radius switches–#4, #5, and #6–using curved frogs for inclusion in industrial trackage; my last confinement at a sanatorium convinced me that I was asking for nothing but trouble trying to do so!
Based upon the other postings for this topic what you propose to do appears to be possible . . . . . . . . . . however you would do well to adhere to some of the caveats specified in some of these postings. The geometry of switches whether prototype or model are tried and very well tested!
Thanks fellas for your valued input. I will digest the wisdom offered and proceed with caution.If I had the sort of acreage my railroad empire deserves,of course, I would not have to recourse to hazardous practices…