trainsteve2435 said:
Hello everyone, im curious as to everyones preference on turnouts..... What do you prefer the most and why??? Hand layed turnouts or the readily availiable comercial brands? Im doing sort of a poll before i make my mind up. Thanks for all the input!
Steve
Are you going to hand lay your turnouts if enough of us tell you it's great? How about if your wife or girl friend tells you she likes commercial turnouts better - which way will you go then? Will you give me all your steam engines if enough of the others tell you that's the right thing to do?
My obvious point is that you should be making your choice not on a poll of us, but what's best for you and your situation.
Yes, I prefer handlaid track in general. But I'll use sectional or flex track in situations where they suit my needs better. For instance, my test loop or a Christmas layout - I'm not going to use handlaid track in those situations. And if the right radius curve is available, I'll use sectional rather than flex for those layouts.
For turnouts in particular:
- handlaid turnouts are cheaper unless you use Fast Tracks jigs. Then the $ calculation comes to how many turnouts of a given size are you going to build to amortize the cost of the jigs over.
- handlaid turnouts take more time to build. I've never used Fast Track jigs. Laying a turnout in place on the layout takes me about 4 hours spread over 2 evenings. My starting point is bare Homasote roadbed in place. My finish point is wired with live frogs, linkage and throw installed, weathered rail and ties, ballasted, etc.
- turnouts handlaid in place on the layout can have any frog number you desire, and have no visible gaps between them and the rest of the handlaid track. The trackwork flows, unlike commercial turnouts and flex track, where the joints between the two can be spotted many feet away. There are no blobs of black plastic pretending they are frogs or guard rails - everyhting is made of real metal like the prototype. If you need to make stub or dual gauge turnouts, or want to use a rail size that doesn't have a selection of commercial turnouts (code 70 and 55 in HO), handlaid turnouts are the obvious solution.
- Handlaid turnouts, if carefully laid, will have many fewer problems and derailments (should be none unless a train runs a turnout thrown against it) than commercial. In one
Model Railroader check, not one commercial trunout was fully NMRA standards compliant. When you hand lay track you can set the track gauge where you want it (right at the narrow tolerance is generally preferred) to resolve any tracking issues. But you need to spend the time to get everything right the first go-around.
- if hand laying, you can do your track in close to prototype sequence. I lay my ties and put down ballast before spiking any rail in place. Ties are stained before using, and rail is painted (weathered) before spiking.
- Visuals. If modeling 1920s and later Class 1 track with creosoted ties and tie plates on every tie, Micro Engineering flex track and Central Valley ties strips look better than most handlaid track with too-large spikes every 5th tie. There are scale size spikes, tie plates, joint bars, and other details available for handlaid track, but the time factor goes up when you add those details to every tie. On the other hand, pre-1900 track with some rough-hewn ties, no tie plates or creosote, etc, is easier to model via hand-laying.
Finally, remember track is a model, too - one that's up front and visible all the time. To my mind, track should look as a good a model as your rolling stock. Others may prefer to spend their time on other parts of their layout, and consider commercial track "good enough".
my thoughts, your choices