Hand Laid Track and Turnouts for 3 Rail

No issues at all - when doing your own switches you can just lay them in place and build them to whatever your layout design calls for - no real need to be bound by any numbers - you can customize them to be what you decide!

Code 148 should permit most 3-rail flanges.

My experience working to 3 rail Atlas 148 2 rail turnouts is to have the negative juice only flow through the outermost rails only.  If you retain negative flow through any negative divergent rails the equipment rollers may short on the divergent rails. I was going to build my own turnouts, but fell into an attractive deal on the atlas turnouts. My turnouts are 7.5 and I recommend as broad a turnout that will work in your space.

Best of luck .

Ron H

Yes the whole Idea on using a 2-rail fixture or 3-rail fixture (If I could get one made) was to build some the turnouts off the layout if I wanted. Especially for areas that it may be tough to build in.

Ron - If ground is only applied to the outside rail will the train lose ground when it goes to the divergent route or will the outside closure rail will need a ground feed? My idea was to provide ground to both outside rails but electrically isolate the outside rail near the closure to the frog, so there is no short. I am probably over thinking this. Where with the outmost rail having ground when the turnout goes divergent the outside most closure rail would make contact with the outside rail and have ground applied. Correct?

Thanks for your response guys.

Chris

Interesting idea. I've used the FT templates in other scales to build my own turnouts with great success. I don't see any problem with using code 148 for 3 rail. You may want to use a smaller rail for the center rail. I would measure the flangeways on an Atlas or MTH turnout and use those dimensions. The free paper template should be enough to get you going. I would use a few PC board ties so you can solder the core into place first then add the other ties.

I may have to give this a try myself to see what can be built.

Jonathan,

I learned about Fast Tracks from my buddies in HO and On30. I am also planning on hand laying my On30 portion of my layout as well.

I will look into using the smaller rail for the middle rail as well. Good Idea! Like code 100 or 120?  I would measure a production turnout, but don't have any on hand. 

I already planned on using PC ties to tack everything together. Then will add the wood ties. 

I bet if we get enough people interested in this. Fast Tracks would be willing to make 3 rail templates or fixtures. If not at least there is the two rail version.

 Being a guy who reinvents the wheel on a daily basis, I like this concept! 

My layout was built with 2-rail track, so I'm not very familiar with 3-rail operations. But wouldn't the use of a lower rail (e.g. code 100) for the middle rail cause problems at switches, where the pickup rollers have to cross one of the taller running rails? It seems as though the rollers could snag the taller rail at these points, unless perhaps the center rail was raised slowly as it approached a running rail. I think Marklin's stud-contact system (HO) was arranged so that the studs rose higher above the ties as they approached the running rails of a switch.

I hand-made my own turnouts for both O ga. and STD ga. founded off an article written in the TCA E-Train on-line magazine: 

http://www.tcaetrain.org/artic...ng/marxsw/index.html

Rich Reichard attends the York meets, and sells binders of his plans on how to build a marx-style switch for O ga. I bought his set of plans and slightly modified his ideas for my needs.

If I had trains from the 1950's and later I probably would have saved up an gone for the Ross switches for sure, but I run Std and O ga ranging from early 1900's tinplate to modern. I found that the new trains didn't run well through the old tinplate switches, and the old tinplate with the large wheel-mounted gears wouldn't run through the modern switches. 

The 'good, fast, cheap' rule applies. I am very happy with my hand-made switches but they took some time to make. I have probably have less than $10 of material in each switch.  I ended up making some simple tooling to assist in the work. There is the clear the advantage of making any turnout profile you can imagine.

I'm happy to report that instead of the normal clikety-clak, bouncey-bounce that my trains usually went through using especially old pre-war switches, they go 'woosh' like there was no turnout underneath them. Very quiet, very reliable. Just my two-cents.

I would use MTH scaletrax ,the rail is not as tall as Atlas , but tall enough as some brands of 3 rail have different flanges . It is also easy to solder and cut ,ties are a Euro style look . I built a long 60ft model of the KEY WEST Extension for a guy , wood ties cut from cypress and the scale trax rail . I had a mountain of code 172 in steel , which would be ideal for this . I had over 600 ft . sold it to a guy doing 1:20 scale narrow gauge . 172 was used in the past for early 2 rail with large flanges , I think I have 150 ft of nickel silver left , great for turnout as it is easy to solder .

Ted Hikel had built some turnouts using MTH ScaleTrax rail and Ross templates. For the frogs, he used shaved-down Ross Delrin frogs.

If your hi-rail equipment is more modern, you'll probably be fine with Code 148 rail which Micro Engineering sells. I think you can get the spikes and ties from Micro-Mark and other sources.

In theory, you could use FasTracks jigs to make the turnouts, but you'd need to widen the frog slightly and widen the guard rails out to about 1/10" to let the hi-rail wheel sets clear. Obviously, you'd have to add a center rail, but I recall that from what I've seen with the ties FasTracks sells, there's actually a center pad in the copper ties with cuts on either side (probably for dual gauge).

Hope this helps.

Everyone thanks for your responses. I'm glad to see that hand laying track and turnouts isn't a lost cause. 

Matt my hi-rail equipment is more modern, so Code 148 is a go for me. I'm glad to hear that the Fast Tracks jig will work. I guess I will need to make my own jig for the frog and guide rails. From what I know. The PC ties are a solid piece of copper at the top, so I don't think that will align the middle rail. 

Chris 

Good discussion Chris - thanks for starting.  Do you have any photos of what you've done so far?

c.sam posted:

Good discussion Chris - thanks for starting.  Do you have any photos of what you've done so far?

Thanks. No problem. I don't have any photos. I'm currently only in the planning stage of this. This post was to see if I was nuts for wanting to do this or to see if it was actually doable...hahaha

Chris 

Anybody still interested in this thread?

Replacing warped insulator rails with metal.

Great thread. I've built some basic 2 rail turnouts before, and would like to build substitutes for my 3-rail 0-42s eventually. The Reichard method definitely interests me.

When I went to add a eye level third rail nostalgia run to my 2 rail layout I started with Atlas flex and code .100" darkened center rail.  When testing my first right of way I noticed quite a few recent car's and some engine's flanges would click along the spike heads. 

Infact I display some PW three rail cars on Atlas flex and noticed the spike heads keep the cars from rolling off the ends.

I believe for a bullet proof set up you may want to get some code .172" rail plus some Ross frogs.

For the new 3 rail portion I use GG and Ross.  Great combo.

The reverse loops.

Tom:

Your bench work never ceases to amaze me.

@Empirical Builder posted:

Anybody still interested in this thread?

I am still interested in this topic. I haven't done anymore planning of my layout and I want to start it this fall. I still need to get my track plan developed. I guess I am slacking.

Anyway, I would like to somehow develop a method to hand lay track with fixtures (jigs) similar to FastTracks (Handlaidtrack.com). This would be very important to do for turnouts. It doesn't seem like straight or curved track would be a problem. It is more so the switches in my opinion. Trying to determine angles for points and frogs are a real challenge. Any ideas?

Chris