I was running trains this weekend - specifically my partially weathered coal drag to see how some of my weathered coal hoppers looked. Unfortunately, I had a couple that would always derail at the switch right above my desk. I hadn't had these problems until I weathered the wheels and the couplers and I tried looking to see if the wheels had become gunked up with paint or the couplers weren't functioning properly.
And in the midst of all of that I tried messing with the switch (or more properly in the railroading lexicon - a turnout). I tried leveling the switch and hightening the points of the switch but I just made things worse - my switch motor wouldn't properly activate the switch, more cars were derailing - things were a mess!
It was time to evaluate the turnout. This is the second one I've put in place at this location. The first one was a Walthers Shinohara #6, and over time and farting around with it during the early days of operating my layout, I detached the track from the ties near the single end of the turnout and the switch wouldn't work reliably. I bit the bullet and went down to M.B. Klein and purchased another identical right-hand turnout. Installed that one but the ties also detached near the single end of the turnout when I installed it. Frustrated, I just made do, and I haven't really had problems until today.
So, this second turnout's got to be replaced - I can't make the thing work reliably. However, M.B. Klein has no #6 right hand Code 83 turnouts that are a 1-to-1 swap. They do production runs of switches and after they're sold out, your out of luck until the factories in China spit out some more. I remembered I had saved the original Shinohara turnout and took it out of a storage box. I also recalled that I had some Double Bubble epoxy in my workshop.... This set in motion the idea to see if I might be able to rebuild the Shinohara which would be a 1-to-1 geometrical swap with the current turnout.
After a couple of hours of dueling with epoxy, removing a bunch of silicone from the bottom and insides of the ties, and having to re-solder the switch point carrier I was successful at resurrecting the Shinohara. The thing looks like it should work again! (proof will be after I install it).... If you look at the photo below, all of the ties from the left (single) end of the turnout to the 12th tie were detached from the track (the ties have little plastic tabs that the track slides into, but just a little pressure or force and they snap). I epoxied the track to the ties and cleaned up the excess. The interior legs of the switch also pulled free of the point carrier (that's the thing just right of the 3rd tie from the left) and I had to resolder the legs to that and do some filing to ensure smooth operation.
I took the old turnout off the layout. Each of these turnouts is a bit of a technological marvel. Simply pushing or pulling on the switch carrier moves the legs of the switch to orient on one of the two output tracks (as you see above, this turnout is set to move trains to the lower track. If the switch carrier is moved downward, the legs move the train's wheels to the upper track. On my layout, all of the switch carriers are moved by Tortoise switch motors mounted under the track. This one goes through an inch of styrofoam and a quarter inch of plywood before getting to the motor. The interface between the motor and the switch carrier is a thin piece of steel wire. For the old unit I had cut that wire flush with the top of the switch carrier tie, but I quickly determined I just needed another 1/8th inch of length on that wire. Since you can't stretch steel wire, I had to dig through my supplies to find a replacement length and bend it to the right shape. I put the repaired turnout on the layout, reran the switch movement wire and carefully connected the rail joiners to the 3 tracks that feed the switch. Here's a tip on laying track. Always position your turnouts on your layout first and secure them well (keeping in mind that you don't want to restrict the movement of the switch carrier) and run your track assembly away from the switch. Don't ever try to put the turnout in last - inevitably you'll have to horse the turnout up, down or sideways to get the rail joiners in line, and that's when you'll detach the turnout ties from the turnout track. This is especially critical on the single end where the ties are only held down on one side of the track between the switch carrier and the points of the switch. If the track is off by half of one wheel width the turnout will always give you trouble. Such was the case of the previous unit - here's a picture of the delamination of tie and track - it's a wonder it lasted this long, and only worked because the ends were attached to another piece of track.
So, just for kicks, and because I'd done the other one the night before, I got the epoxy and solder out and attempted to put this mess back together. I tried, but attempting to hold the sprung track in place while putting a large weight on top of it was a bridge too far and it came out mis-aligned. I bagged it and stored the mess for the next time something like this happens, and I'll soon have a report on how the refurbed turnout is working (or not).
Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Ran a good deal with the switch headed right toward White Haven and the train ran well. Then I tried to switch the turnout. Although it had been working well before I glued the track down, now there's too much resistance to get the wire to push the switch. That's one problem. I helped close the switch by hand and having trains go through the other side of the switch toward Hazleton caused a lot of derailments. Arrrghhhh! Nothing is ever easy. I did try to straighten things and that helped a bit, but I'm still not happy with the function and I'm going to have to pull everything apart and figure out the underlying issue.
Took a break from the aggravation for a couple of days and worked on other things. After the break I did a lot of single car test runs through the turnout. It appeared that the closure rail (that is attached the switch carrier) that lets the train run through the switch was not straight and that's bad news for the wheels trying to stay on the rails. The trouble is that the closure rail is a lot thinner than the stock rail so you have to bend it carefully and you have to make sure it doesn't detach from the switch carrier. After a couple of tweaks I think it's about as straight as I can get it and the cars were running a lot better, but there's another problem - the track pitches up before the switch and then goes back down. I figure I need to do a complete redo on laying the track before the switch.
It's been a week, but I finally have something that works a lot better. Tore out the switch and the section of rail before the switch and smoothed everything out and made it as level as I could. Glued everything down and ran a lot of trains through the turnout doing some slight tweaking as necessary. Operation's back to normal - what a relief!
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