Trust me Wayne I tried everything short of a hammer and was even considering cutting ties and curving the diverging tracks to get where I wanted to go. Got that sorted out with a couple of number fives so I spent a few hours yesterday messing with under track uncoupling magnets to see if I can reduce the need to reach across multiple tracks and scenery when switching along the back drop.... think I will stick with manual uncoupling. Tried an atlas magnet and kept losing cars as I passed over it so I then tried some small round rare earth magnets I have with one under each rail..... placement was tricky at best and spotting cars with the momentum turned on was BRUTAL! plus smaller cars actually would move closer to the magnet after uncoupling just from the pull on the coupler trip pin due to the magnetic force. I could go electromagnets but invariably there is layout structure in the way where I would want them. I still may use one or two Atlas magnets on a couple of sidings but the rest will be manual with a Rix pick.
Soooo.... those #5 turnouts continue to cause me great pain and suffering. I was drilling a hole for a feeder wire near the end of one of these turnouts. My drill chuck just touched the end of the stock outside rail which then proceeded to wind around my drill bit pulling the track from the turnout like a banana peel, ripping up the turnout and about a foot of track beyond :oops: :oops:
I have a pic of the turnout and you will have to see it to believe it.... rail looks like a clock spring and a $30 turnout is destroyed sigh.. :cry:
try to post an image tonight or tomorrow so you guys can have a laugh.... errrr share my pain
I have the rail roller tool from FT. I've used it to create impossible radii just for s & g's and then straightened the rail again. Not sure it would work on that piece of rail though.
Yeah, I think I've seen just about all the turnout "techniques", but that is a whole new twist on the art.
We always learn far more from our own mistakes, than we will ever learn from another's advice.
The greatest place to live life, is on the sharp leading edge of a learning curve.
Lead me not into temptation.....I can find it myself!
building has been delayed while I waited for my CV plate girder bridge to arrive so I can lay the last section of track on the upper level. This last bit is the most involved as I need to work out how to install the bridge, the street underneath, the abutments and work around an very inconveniently placed support in the bench-work.... and figure out how this will affect my ability to pull the layout into 2 pieces when I eventually have to move it downstairs.... all of this because the layout plan changed to reduce the grade.
the one really niggling detail is that move to the new room in the basement may be coming soon and although I started the build with the intent of making the layout easily removable it would seem some lapses in judgment or memory have made this somewhat more challenging as I have inadvertently bridged joints and covered critical fasteners on the original framework in the process of modifying the plan..... so it could be tricky moving this thing.
bob_suruncle Wrote:... I have a modified Jordan Mack switcher with a bachmann power truck under it that pulls almost as well.... yeah I know... you all want to see pictures of that now too right? I will see if I can take a couple of shots and post them up. ...
I'm interested in exactly what you did here ... I have a Scale Structures Ltd. Mack Switcher that I wouldn't mind making capable of shoving one or two cars around!
Thanks!
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
