I'm thinking that commercial turnouts are going to give you a nasty "S" curve. I haven't actually tried it though.
You may have to hand lay it to get a smooth transition.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Ken,
Is it possible to introduce a small "straight" section of track into your curve; one that would allow you to install a 30-, 45-, 60-, or 90-degree crossing in that spot? That would be the simplist fix. Otherwise, you will have to handlay the crossing yourself.
My club layout has a single line crossing over a triple line and it worked out quite well in that situation. The curves were probably 36" radius.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Here are what the larger Fleshmann turnouts look like on concentric 32" and 28" circles. Note that the turnout does not fit the 28" circle. The turnout radius is tighter than 28".
Is this what you are looking for?
http://cgi.ebay.com/HO-curved-RH-switch-8-Micro-Engineering-rail-32-rad_W0QQitemZ370011531113QQihZ024QQcategoryZ19142QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem
Bill
ss122 wrote:I plan to have a double track mainline, with approx 28-32" radius curve ... I need a crossover on this curve. Which manufacturer's curved turnouts should I consider to most closely match these radii?
I understand how frogs are numbered, but I don't understand how this translates into radius.
Thanks for the search idea. The comment that struck me was, "To recheck my curved turnout sizes (Walthers/Shinohara Code 83), I built a homemade beam compass, laid-out arcs and overlaid the turnouts. The results are: • #6/#6.5: 24/18 (frog# depends on whether you believe the box label or the imprint on the turnout!) • #7: 28/22 • #7.5: 32/26 • #8: 36/30"
If you figure 2-21/2" track spacing in HO, there are no commercially available turnouts that have a 2-21/2" difference in the radii of the two routes. That being said, I'll probably go with the Walthers #7.5. Trains going from the inner to outer track will have some variation in curvature, but I don't think it will be a problem. Thanks again all. Ken
You might also consider the Central Valley turnout kits. They can be curved to any radius you need (within reason, of course)
http://www.cvmw.com/cvtswitch/index.htm
They also talk about curved single crossovers in the instructions for their turnout kits. For example:
http://www.cvmw.com/acrobat/8%20crossover%20right.pdf
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
I used a Shinohara number 8 (marked on the bottom of the ties as 36"/32" radii) to effect a crossover on a curve. Its counterpart on the other track was a straight Atlas #6, as the curve ended before the crossover joined the second track. I don't know what the radii of the tracks were, but there was no "S" bend or jog in the crossover track. The whole crossover was removed when I lengthened the passing siding, but it posed no problems during the time that it was in use.
Wayne
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
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