@Ted S posted:Gunrunner John is right. Unless you're going for an authentic postwar look, keep saving your money and use Ross track instead of Lionel O22s. The Ross switches are much smoother and less derailment-prone. (Plus they have a wider variety of track pieces to make virtually any layout.)
That is not what I understood @gunrunnerjohn to say at all. I herd him say he has a 3 switch configuration with Ross switches and doesn't have a problem, and that there is no reason O22 switches cannot be in the same configuration as long as they are serviced to ensure that the decades old internal internals are intact and capable of carrying power all the way through just as I had discussed earlier. Following @Mannyrock, you will see the type of equipment he is running is actually prone to one of Ross' downfalls is that they do not deal with sliding shoes of engines and operating cars passing through Ross Switches. The design of the Ross Switch will cause the engine / car to uncouple when the slider shoe crosses the center rail of the switch. Operating cars with slider shoes will activate when going through a Ross Switch. Sure, you can modify the the Ross switches and such. Another thing to note is that @Mannyrock is using O gauge profile tubular track - Ross switches are O27 profile. Not insurmountable, but again, not as plug and play as the bulletproof standard O22 style.
@Ted S posted:With back-to-back Lionel switches, it might happen that both of a loco's pick-up rollers end up on a gap at the same time. That's easily solved by adding a roller on one truck of the tender, and a high-current tether to connect it to the locomotive. If in doubt, try the track configuration on a level floor first to make sure the loco can go through it without issues, before building it into a permanent layout.
Again, this is a potential issue for any type of switch with any track system and not unique to the O22 nor does Ross eliminate it. Looking at the generations of equipment @Mannyrock is operating, they were all manufactured at the time when O22 was the gold standard and tested/designed to navigate them.
