I am about to order up some turnouts and I notice there are still some of the old style Walthers turnouts on the shelves at some places. Has anyone out there bought the new models and are they better? At some places, the older turnouts are on sale so I can save $10.00CA.
The description makes the new ones sound like a better more robust product.
Thoughts?
The new ones have springs in the throwbars.
Old stock may be the ones made by Shinohara for Walthers? If so those are old but very nice pieces. No springs.
If you’re saving 10 clams per turnout, go for the old ones. They work just fine. If they’re the very oldest they aren’t “DCC ready,” but that just means you need to be careful with feeders and gaps. Not a problem.
If you care about appearence, the new ones don’t have any hinges for the points, a solid blade of rail like the prototype. That alone would sway me to the new, as well as the spring that holds the points.
Here are track switches that are not “a solid blade of rail”:
Here’s some guys building a new switch. You can see one of the points still uninstalled:
Here is a relatively old Canadian National drawing of a track switch. Note the pivot location of the points:
Here’s a later o
My thoughts? I only use Walthers for specials like slip switches or a double crossover I might want one of for a special location.
Otherwise Atlas suits my needs…
The new features - sprung throw bars, no thanks.
But opinions and needs vary widely.
Sheldon
And the Walthers turnouts haven’t had that “feature” for many years. None of the DCC friendly Walthers/Shinohara turnouts were built that way, although Shinohara code 70 and 100 turnouts retained the old design.
For my money, I’d try the newer Walthers (i.e. post-Shinohara) product. Toward the end, the old Walthers 83 turnouts had a lot of gauge problems and other issues that required considerable tune-up for best performance.
The OP mentioned “OLD STYLE” just how old he does not specify. DCC “friendly” or power routing he also does not specify.
Mainly I presented the photo to show that there are some HO turnouts incorporating a pivot “hinge” in reply to Ed, AKA 7j43k, post.
Sorry to confuse the issue. I’ll back away.
Other Ed
Sorry, yes I meant the older DCC friendly ones.
The combined closure rail and point looks more prototypical even if it isn’t actually. Because our model turnouts are generally too sharp anyway.
Whether they run trains more reliably should prove an interesting question. You’d think they would.
I suspect this "improvement " was to save production costs.
And the discounted price ain’t bad either.
Rich
No need to back off, I knew what you were trying to illustrate, and likewise couldn’t determine until the OP clarified just how old the Walthers turnouts in question were. There’s old and well, OLD.
I spoke at length with the individual at Walthers who was spearheading development of the new turnouts. Shinohara was closing, and their tooling was worn out. A decision was made to create a new line of turnouts instead of acquiring and attempting to fix the old tooling.
The hinges can’t really be seen in full scale, and would be almost impossible to see of scaled down.
But let me correct my previous post.
I like the new ones since they have a solid blade of rail for the closure and the points, like the protoype. And they also more closely mimick the prototype turnouts that have hinges that you cant really see, unlike most of the models offered on the market.
The new Walthers turnouts look nice. I was passing through Nebraska a couple weeks ago and stopped at Spring Creek who had some on the rack.
The only thing I would comment is the Walthers turnouts will likely need to be trimmed to fit in some situatoins.
I’ve recently installed a mix of Atlas and new Walthers turnouts. The Atlas ones have the hinges, which doesn’t look quite as good, but they work better than the Walthers ones, even the big Atlas curved turnouts work better. The frogs in the Walthers turnouts seem really bumpy and my old DC locos with short wheel bases (the steam, right, but also some of the FP-7s) tend to hiccup going over them, and at low speed they might stop altogether, whereas they sail right through the Atlas turnouts. I won’t be buying any more Walthers turnouts. Your mileage may vary.
How easy is it to take the springs out and can you put them back in if you so desire?
Walthers provides instructions with every turnout. It looks easy enough and is reversible.
https://www.walthers.com/amfile/file/download/file/FISykVypAmjHHQCefd1wy1w1Rid48hO0/product/424830/
Item #1 suggests it is easy, whether it is or not ?.??
ME and Peco are likewise removable and in theory at least can be reinstalled.
Here’s the thread about Peco:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/271172.aspx
From what I’ve read and videos I’ve watched the challenge to reinstalling the spring is loading the spring while you fit both ends of the hairspring into their respective holes. It’s a tiny little thing. Walthers springs are at least weaker than the Peco springs.
You also do all this from the underside of the turnout.
Unfortunately the decision to spring/not spring kind of becomes non-reversible once the turnout is positioned/tied, ballasted down.
Except for Peco which apparently can be changed from the top though not easily.
Walthers and ME need the springs changed from underneath.
