Manual Turn-out Control

[Gary S]

My layout has 2" foam on top, so the switch is mounted about 3" below the track. The bent aluminum piece will stick up through a hole in the foam and the wire will go into the turn-out.

We have to drill 5 holes in the bracket. Two will match up to the mounting holes on the switch, two for mounting the bracket underneath the layout, and one for the spring wire.



And the small hole for the spring wire:



Here is the bracket attached to the switch, with the spring wire extending through the hole.



For the operator, we use a 10-24 threaded rod and a wooden drawer knob. The knob screws onto the rod, but I put some Aleene's Tacky Glue in the hole just to make sure it holds well.



And here is the completed controller. To install, the rod is unscrewed from the rod coupling, the bracket/switch is mounted under the layout with wire extending into the turn-out. A hole is drilled in the fascia, the rod is inserted through the hole and screwed into the rod coupling. Push and pull equals diffferent route! The 3-way switch is used to power the frog.



And here is a photo of my old style controller which is way harder to build:



Woohoo!