I have built a small switching layout with my 35 year old Atlas track and turnouts. (nickel silver). I am getting a lot of wheel drop when a loco goes thru the turnout. No derailments but the loco dips. So I bought a new Atlas turnout and I get the same thing. Replacing all turnouts with a better quality turnout is not an option. Thinking of putting thin sytrene in frog to allow the wheel to ride on the flange while traveling thru the frog. Or using a little solder to close the gap in the frog. All are insulated frogs.
Turnouts work great, its just irrating to see my locos and some rolling stock, dip and click while moving thru the turnout. Its like a large gap between tracks sections.
You might be able to use styrene to build up the frog, do an experiment using a removable glue like double sided tape to adhere the styrene to see if it works without causing other problems.
Yes, have heard of that solution, not sure how well it works in practice.
Want to see some serious wheel drop? Get a Shinohara dual gauge HO/HOn3 turnout. Yet things just roll on through. In this case, there are just two solutions: build it myself or get a good custom turnout builder to make them.
If a relay with other turnouts that avoid this problem isn’t practical, try ignoring it. It’s worked so far for me – and is a lot easier on the budget and your sanity than the alternatives.
in Tony Koesters description for building hand laid turnouts, he says to fill the gaps of the fron with solder solder and uses a hacksaw blade to cut the wheel grove. But he cuts the grove shallow enough that the flange rides on the grove and avoids having the wheel drop.
Thank you for the responses. I like the idea of solder since I enjoy soldering so much. Just needed to know if there was another solution I wasn’t aware of. I don’t have any styrene so I will try the solder method.
The soft metal on the Atlas frogs is often too high relative to the rest of the turnout. It accentuates the wheel drop.
I’ve had luck putting a bench wheel grinder to work on the frog to even it up with the surrounding rails. A hand file or dremel would work, but the angles at which you have to hold your hand to work with those tools might make it difficult to get the frog nicely flat.
Added solder to two frogs. Sanded down with needle files and everything worked great. Then I noticed some wheel picking on the curved side. Started to sand down some more and all the solder came out.
Experienced the same issue long ago with Atlas code 100 Mark turnouts. Quick and lasting fix was gluing wedge shaped pieces of styrene to the bottom of the frogs and painting them black. I recall .020 thick styrene being proper.
Had some luck grinding down the frogs. No wheel drop at all. I have never noticed how high the frogs are on Atlas turnouts until I ran my finger across them. As much fiddling with track as I do, you would thing I would have noticed that. Thank you
Thank you for the thickness of the styrene. I want to try that too. My grinding left the frogs looking rough but operable with no wheel drop. Perhaps the styrene method will be better. Gives me an excuse to go to the hobby shop!
That must be an issue with where some of the Atlas turnouts were MFG’erd, with the high frog, I hear people speak of it alot on these forums. I have all Atlas custom line code 83 turnouts,(50) on My layout purchased in the 70’s/90’s era and not one has a high frog. The only thing I did was take off the black that was on them, didn’t care for the look…plus they work better when You power the frogs IMO.
BTW: What I don’t understand about this conversation…one being if the frog was too high, like many are suggesting, how can a wheel drop into it? Would the wheels not lift from the rails when going over a frog and then drop down once past the frog? Would not adding shims into the frog to lift it, make it worse? Then if you add the shims so the flanges ride on them, would you not lose contact for rail pick-up?
Simplest solution for a high frog, is just to sand it down with black steel grit reinforced sandpaper wrapped around a flat block of wood, with the sandpaper wrapped around the edges, so it does not hit a high spot. 220 grit followed by at least a 600 grit. Use of a mill file will give you an uneven surface and not as much control in making it flat.
Also if the frog is too low…why not sand down the stock rails going into the frog, at least a 1/2’’ transition, with procedure above…beats adding shims to the frog IMO. RP25 wheels don’t have that much flange depth to begin with.
The wheel drops down in the center of the frog in between “the points” in the center of the frog where the two gaps cross. The frog on my code 100 Atlas turnouts sit slightly above the rail height. The wheel climbs on top of the frog, then drops in the center then climbs back up the back half of the frog. With my new loco and rolling stock with metal wheels, the drop rocks the unit and makes a loud click. No derailments, just noisy. At slow speeds, the drop is pronounced. Some rolling stock derail at any speed other then very slow.
The styrene lays in the the “floor” of the frog in the gaps. Reducing the height of the drop and perhaps allowing the wheel to ride on the flange thru the small 1/8 inch gap.
I’m using code 100 Atlas turnouts. Long ago it was suggested to fill the frog with epoxy then use a hacksaw blade to recut flangeway. This helped but sometimes the epoxy didn’t stick to the frog and came out like your solder did. I use for sale or yard sale signs to cut a small piece to fill the bottom area and paint it black. I’ve been using ACC to glue the piece of plastic in. I have about 30 turnouts and this helps stop the noise of the wheels falling into the frog.
Ignatosky, This afternoon I got to digging around and actually found a few left over frog shims. Maybe splitting hairs, but they miked out at .017 thick. Back then (late 80s) I was running HO Kato and Stewart Kato drive locos and those shims were just right.
I wish You would have stated that in the beginning of Your post…that was a known issue with the Mark code 100 turnouts.
I believe Atlas made them that way in the beginning, because a lot of people were still using pizza cutter wheel flanges and that would not happen with them…RP25 wheel sets have a lower flange profile.
I stopped using code 100 moons ago.
I used to hand lay My brass code 100 turnouts and track or use Shinohara turnouts, starting in the mid 50’s.
The wheel drop into the frog gap is more noticeable when the car is heading into the frog from the tangent/diverging rail side of the frog and the frog is high to begin with. The wheels raise up first then lower either into the gap or onto the normal height stock rails.
Making the frog flat eliminates most of the noticeable drop. Its hard to make the frog flat AND smotth by hand, so I use the bench grinder carefully. I would be hesitant to use block sandpaper since I might also sand the surrounding rails and make them lower than I would want.
