Pre war and switches

Rossplate switches.  The flange ways are deep enough to stop the bouncing and the guard rails don't affect large gear drive wheels on everything Ive tested.  Ross and Gargraves, even the old Lionel have bouncing and/or clearance issues.

My old layout I took my pre-war & Standard gauge switches out.  If I was building a new layout and wanted to run prewar I would use, probably, Ross switches. They are a pain for the real railroads too so don't feel bad.

I have one line without switches. The other two have Lionel 1024,1121, and Marx switches I run my Pre & Postwar Lionel and Marx on.

Did you try 1121 (027) switches?
They date back to 1937, and do not have the cast in guard rails that 1122 switches have. Some engines have problems with large gears hitting those guard rails.

When I had a Super "O" layout, I put down a loop of plain "O" track with no switches or uncoupling tracks so I could run prewar.

thanks i will look at them. i had not considered o27 as I wanted large curves around the ends of the layout but i see o27 can be had with a 54" curves. i will try them out.

 I have had some success with some of my prewar tinplate using the newer Gargrave switches with the cast frog.   Most of the success has been with the larger locomotives. For instance, my city of Denver as well as my 260E run very well on the Gargrave switches. The smaller prewar timplate is difficult to run through the switches. I am diligently working on some modifications to the switches that might make them  work for the smaller prewar template but today I have had no real success. Obviously, if I do come up with a modification that works I will publish it on the forum but right now none of my attempted modifications have worked.   In the meantime I have an oval on my layout for my prewar smaller template that has no switches on which I run the smaller template. 

I have a friend who uses Ross switches and he's given up trying to run his prewar tinplate over the Ross switches. I don't know what the problem is as I don't use Ross switches and have no familiarity with how they work.

Jim Lawson

I've had good running with K-Line switches if you can find them. The 072 work so much better than Lionel's latest ones. The New Lionel 031 aren't too bad though.

I did a lot of research on this a few years ago and after talking directly with Steve at Ross Custom, the guys at Gargraves, and Lionel, they all told me their switches would not work with prewar tinplate. I ended up going with O Line Reproductions (formerly RMT, formerly K Line Super Snap). I run mostly prewar and they work very well. They're no longer being produced but they can still be found. 

Yes, those are the K Line I used too. But I used just the 072. 

cjack posted:

Yes, those are the K Line I used too. But I used just the 072. 

That's what I'm using--I have 12 O72's on my layout. So far, so good. I buy them whenever I can get them at a good price, just to have spares since they're out of production.

Rob English posted:

Rossplate switches.  The flange ways are deep enough to stop the bouncing and the guard rails don't affect large gear drive wheels on everything Ive tested.  Ross and Gargraves, even the old Lionel have bouncing and/or clearance issues.

Rob, this is very interesting as Steve B. at Ross switches told me the Rossplates wouldn't work with tinplate due to flangeway depth. I have several places on my layout that could use a #4 instead of an O72 switch. What prewar equipment have you run through them?

John

Every thing on Standard Gauge works.  Flyer, Lionel, Boucher,etc,etc.  I have only run Lionel and Flyer, and some Marx on the 0 Rossplate.  They work fine, with the exception of the pizza cutter 260s with their extra deep flanges, which I found out about last weekend. I run standard gauge mostly, and run 0 on a friends layout the has the ross plate.

I should have clarified my first post as being more toward STDG.

Rob English posted:

Every thing on Standard Gauge works.  Flyer, Lionel, Boucher,etc,etc.  I have only run Lionel and Flyer, and some Marx on the 0 Rossplate.  They work fine, with the exception of the pizza cutter 260s with their extra deep flanges, which I found out about last weekend. I run standard gauge mostly, and run 0 on a friends layout the has the ross plate.

I should have clarified my first post as being more toward STDG.

Thanks Rob. I have Ross SG switches on my layout as well, and agree with you they are second-to-none. My 260Es were my "yardstick" when testing O-gauge switches. If a 260E ran through it, I knew pretty much everything else I was going to run would be ok, which has been the case with the O-Line switches. Like any switch, the O-Lines have their quirks, but if someone is looking for a good all-around switch to run all eras, they are hard to beat. I hope someone resumes production of them. What I don't understand is this: if K-Line / RMT / O-Line Reproductions can build a switch that works as well with tinplate as it does with modern trains, why can't Ross build one?