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Turnouts for Staging Yard ---
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The
staging yard will be built first and won't be prototypical of real
railroading. Still I'll probably build a couple industries to gain
some knowledge in that direction also. The main purpose of the yard
will be building and staging trains that will go onto the main part
of the layout from the east or west. The layout will primarily be a
point to point layout but there will be an option to also run
continuously or to or from the staging yard in either direction. The
other function of the staging yard is that there will be a
programming track where I can program decoders and a couple parallel
tracks in a loop where engines can be run in and/or tested.
Before
starting with the roadbed and track I wanted to have all the turnouts
made for the staging yard. I need 15 right hand, 11 left hand and
five 3-way turnouts if I make the staging yard like above. I'd bought
a #6 double cross-over fixture from FastTracks along with PointForm
and StockAid tools to go along with the fixture. I build a couple #6
turnouts with the fixture as you can build them along with the
cross-over using the fixture. I also built some curved turnouts using
paper templates although they may not be used in the staging yard.
More on building turnouts ( HERE
).
I
needed a lot more turnouts so right before Thanksgiving I started
making more #6 turnouts and also a #6 3-Way turnouts using a paper
template.
I
took my turnout building stuff to Denver for Thanksgiving with the
son-in-laws and built 6 left-hand turnouts there. I built two #6's
after returning and one more 3-way. The curved and other #6's shown
above I had built previously. I use a Fast-Tracks fixture on the #6's
and they go pretty quick now. Can't do them in an hour yet but under
two hours and getting faster if I make up the guard rails, points,
frog, and stock rails in batches. The point forming tools and stock
aid tools really help also in both speed and quality of the
turnout.
I'm
making the curved turnouts and the 3-ways with double sided tape on
paper templates and that is a little slower and for the 3-ways quite
a bit slower but then when you finish one you have actually finished
two.
After
returning home I wasn't sure about building more 3-ways but went
ahead and the one at the top took about half the time to get to where
it need ties vs. the first one at the bottom, about 4 hours. It will
take about an hour to cut and glue the ties to finish it. I still
need to do that with a lot of the others but they will go faster. I
finished the remainder of the #6 left hand turnouts before we went to
Phoenix for Christmas.
I
took my turnout building tools and supplies to Phoenix and started on
the right hand turnouts and got seven of them done there.
Upon
returning home I built the final two 3-Way turnouts. Still need 8
more right hand turnouts but I'm getting close to being done with
turnouts for the time being.
I
want to build a jig to hold a turnout in with a short section of
track on the legs so I can run a loco with a car or two through it to
make sure it works well before installing it on the layout.
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