I have three Walthers Shinohara HO scale Code 83 #6 double crossovers. Two are currently on my layout and one is in the “junk box” of faulty track.
I am about to replace one of the two remaining double crossovers on my layout with a pair of Peco crossovers.
The one remaining double crossover is fine because I have tweaked the heck out of it, so it will stay.
Be it resolved, I will never install another double crossover on my layout. They are too delicate and too prone to failure, and way too expensive. I have problems with point rails that fail, lose their solder joints, jumpers that fail, lose their solder joints, rail ends that work their way out of gauge, and on and on.
If a single turnout fails, you fix it or you replace it. When a double crossover fails, it is usually one of the four turnout pieces, while the other three are fine. What a waste.
If your double crossover works just fine, I don’t want to hear from you.
This post is for all the rest of the forum readers who either agree with me or are contemplating the purchase of a double crossover. Don’t do it.
Sorry, one can’t hide from the fact that sometimes a double crossover is what works best for a certain application. I had a Shinohara HO Code 70 #6 double crossover on my previous layout and it worked just fine. I had no place or need for it on the current layout, but I did salvage it when dismantling the earlier layout and it sits in the box ready for another day.
Except in an area of extremly cramped quarters such as the yard outside a train station, I wonder if the real railroads ever really used double crossovers.
I just replaced an Atlas #6 double crossover with an Atlas #8 single crossover, as part of my curve renewal project. This allowed me to widen a 24" radius curve to about 25¾, and super elevate the entire curve. Now even my derailment prone Athearn SD40 is happy, and nothing stalls due to voltage drops or dead frogs. It’s a win-win situation.
I had 2 parallel tracks planned and thought of a double crossover, but used a double slip instead. All I had to do was change from parallel to angled just before it. That way trains see either a straight crossing route or rounding a curve instead of an “S” curve with a double crossover. I think the S-curve causes the problems.
I thought that I would update this thread to report three issues that I have encountered in fixing some flaws with two of my double crossovers.
One issue is loose rails at the ends of the rails. The plastic spikes easily break causing the rails to hang loose and out of gauge. The fix is to use CA adhesive or 2-part epoxy to bond the rail back onto the ties. You can also fit on a short replacement set of ties by slipping the spikes onto the edges of the rails.
A second issue is the point rail slipping out of its clamp on the throwbar. Again, the fix is CA adhesive or 2-part epoxy. Once the point rail comes loose, it is very difficult to press that clamp back into place.
The third issue is the least obvious. Walthers uses a series of thin copper jumpers on the underside of the double crossover to provide continuity between the various gapped rails, making the double crossover DCC Friendly. However, these jumpers are fragile and prone to failure. They are press fit, not riveted or soldered. Even when the jumpers appear to be pressed into place, they are not necessarily making contact witht he underside of the rails. If in doubt, use an ohmmeter to test each and every rail for continuity. I discovered one today and replaced the jumper with a thin stranded wire that I soldered into place on both ends and then covered the entire wire with 2-part epoxy to hold the soldered wire firmly in place.
I had the same issue with a couple of Walthers/Shinohara DCC-friendly turnouts. At first, after doing what you did by replacing the jumpers with a thin wire (insulated solid in my case), I noticed that there appeared to be a spot of something on the bottom of the rail where the original jumper was located. On the chance that the spot was solder, I reattached the original jumper by holding it in place and briefly hitting it with a small-tip soldering iron. It held and works! So … they are not just press fit, apparently.
The section of trackwork currently in my crosshairs was originally designed with a double crossover of sorts (actually located where the double track main made a transition to a yard throat and a single track bypass.) The configuration was something of a knee-jerk reaction.
Upon reconsidering the actual requirements, I decided to add a second bypass track, effectively putting the yard (passenger staging) between the two directional mains. That eliminated the need for the crossing (which would have been on non-concentric 610mm curves) and one of the four turnouts. As an added bonus, that simplifies my MZL electricals as well.
Maybe the health-enforced slowdown in layout construction has an up side…
There is the little detail that my specialwork is all hand laid, so I don’t have to worry about tweaking (or prying up and replacing) a commercial product.
It appears, that you found some similar problem’s on the Walthers turnouts, that I found on especially Atlas #4’s. Before I use a #4, I use a c-clamp with a flat piece steel to hold the points to the throw bar and use Medium viscosity CA on them, also, to the side rails, I then solder a jumper at the hinge part of the points and that solved a lot of problem’s I was experiencing with points moving and loss of continuity. I found it happens more on the #4’s than 6 or 8’s, but now I do the same to them, before I even put them in place.
Dante, that is an interesting observation. Using an Optivisor, I could see no solder, but I wonder if the attachment process is with spot solder, in which case I probably wouldn’t see it.
Frank, that seems like a good workaround. It is too bad that the manufacturers cannot, or do not, make these pieces of trackwork less fragile.
Chuck makes a good point about his handlaid pieces. He gets it right in the first place, so there are no follow up problems once the track work is in place.
We have one double crossover on our HO scale club layout, but instead of using a pre-fab one piece unit such as the Walthers Shinohara double crossover, I made it using 4 Peco turnouts and a Peco crossing.
If one of the turnouts ever causes a problem, it alone can be replaced instead of having to rip out a 4-turnout complex.
All Peco Streamline turnouts diverge at a 12 degree angle, and Peco Streamline crossings are 24 degrees, so they are a perfect match. If no extra track is placed between them, they should provide a minimum 2 inch on center track separation with the Peco Short crossing. The Peco long crossing will make a wider track separation.
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