Passing through K-Line 042 turnouts, the shoes of my PW coil couplers snag and catch. I've been keeping them suspended with tape, but it's not a long-term solution since it'll leave a sticky residue on the underside of the trucks. I also tried using the tacky stuff that holds pictures on walls (the stuff we all used in college) but it didn't work, either. Any suggestions?
I've read lots of good reviews of these turnouts, but I have to say I am not happy with them. The fingers that stick up to move the points are so tall that they catch on the wheel flanges (new and old cars), making the cars bounce and even derail at high speed. Wha's worse, they go significantly over gauge, making my locos slam as they go through and momentarily drop below the rail head.
Anybody have any quick fixes - or recommendations for another tubular, 027-sized 042 manual switch?
Thanks - Dave
As long as you're using the K-Line switches, you can disable a shoe by wrapping a piece of solid wire around it above the sheet metal. The right size of insulated wire will do the job with a single turn and stay in place from the friction of the insulation without twisting or soldering the ends together.
Bob Nelson
Dave, this is one I don't have a quick fix for. I use Lionel 027 track and had periodic problems with the slide shoes from operating postwar cars snagging and derailing especially at switches. I finally modified all my operating cars to operate without the use of slideshoes and removed them all.
The one make of car I have had no trouble with is MTH. The design of their slide shoe is excellent. When you compare the MTH version side by side with a Lionel one, you can see the improvements. At one time early on, I wrote and called MTH congratulating them on the design improvement and inquiring as to whether the truck with the slideshoe pickup was available as a part for separate sale. It was not at that time. Maybe it is now, but I have since gone another way with my postwar operating cars.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Are these the K-375/K-376 switches? I'm using the K-275/K-276 with no problems ever. It seems with the O gauge profile, there very well could be more room to "lose" a shoe down in to the switch parts.
Rob
Are these the older large housing switches or the newer low profile switches? On my older ones the post that moves the swivel rail is very tall - much taller than needed. Some have been filed/cut on one side to reduce clearance problems. The newer switches have much shorter posts and don't seem to interfere much (at least not as much as the old ones).
Frankly, I replaced the fat housing ones with low profiles for other reasons as well - I was having a variety of operational problems with some of the old ones - sticking, slow or unreliable action, remote controllers not working, etc. Haven't had many problems with the new ones, except for one in an "S" curve that would actuate MTH dump cars when they passed over it, and would periodically see the pilot truck on my K-Line Allegheny derail there as well.
They are the 273/274 (manual) ones, yes, with the big ugly housing. What number are the newer ones - and do they work with 027? My 1022s work so well for the 027 portions of my layout, I wish there was a postwar option.
I've tried to file or cut down the post that moves the swivel rail, with not much luck. What did you use? That post sticking up was not a brilliant piece of turnout design.
Dave, I do not have, nor have I used the K-Line track, so I am just taking a guess here. There have been several issues with postwar sliding shoes causing problems that I have read over the past few years. In most of these cases, it seems that if you take a file and taper the angle of the ends of the sliding shoes, it fixes the problem. Not sure if it would work in your case, but you may want to give it a try. With a better angle, the shoe should just ride over the switch without problem. (I would think).
Good Luck,
dennis
TCA#09-63805
While K-Line changed the housing, and my guess is some internal parts as well (although I've yet to take my new ones apart to compare), they didn't change the model #'s, which makes it a royal pain to search specifically for the low pro's. There are a couple of low profile 027 manual 42" switches on ebay now (search for "K-Line switch*" and sift thru the results). The only drawback I see when using these manually is that they don't have the big levers on the sides to slide easily - you push a small nub of a post around a "U" slot on top instead.
Another difference I've noticed between the fat housings and the low pro's is that the swivel rail seems to be much tighter in the low pro's - the fat ones' swivel rails are very sloppy feeling to me with alot of play/twist - at least that's how mine are.
I used a small narrow flat file to file the posts down on my old fatso models - similar to a points file one uses to true up distributor points (man I'm really dating myself now). You could probably use a dremel to speed things up, just don't take too much off, as you can't put it back....
It does tend to be a rather tedious and expensive solution to a small problem.
Lionel collector, stuck in an N scaler's modelling space.
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