Bachmann e-z turnout problem

[mechanic]

My daughter and I have been putting the worlds greatest hobby project 4x8 layout together.

Since MR used Bachmanns e-z track on their dvd instructions we used it as well.

We have made it thru to the scenery portion of it but have stalled because of what I consider a major problem.

The Bachmann track comes with 4 turnouts.

As they are, 2 of them are unuseable and the other 2 work but not very smoothly.

The problem seems to be that when approaching the turnout from the switch point end,

one of 2 things happens.Either the leading wheel hits the point of the frog dead on and bounces hard.This leads to a derailment more often than not.

The other thing is that sometimes the rail that is directly behind the switch pivot point doesn't align with the switch rail and this also causes problems with trucks on cars derailing.

These problems are happening with all of our locomotives (and they run fine on my 4x10 layout)

So I'm wondering if I can fix these turnouts or are Bachmann units not worth the trouble?

Should we just tear them out and install Atlas (or equivalent) turnouts?

I have enough Atlas units on hand from another layout to switch them.

And if a different unit is the way to go,how do you level the non Bachmann turnouts with the e-z track? I eyeballed some cork road bed I have lying around and its no where near thick enough.

Any and all ideas are much appreciated.

thanks

Eric

[jeffrey-wimberly]

The turnouts can be fixed but it's quite a bit to bother with. On a past layout I used EZ-Track but I didn't use the Bachmann turnouts. Instead I used some Atlas snap switches. I used a couple of layers of cork (available from Wal-Mart for bulletin boards) under the Atlas turnouts and that came close. I then used pieces of card stock between the layers of cork to shim it up to the proper height.

[mechanic]

Thank you very much for that!

I guess I'm off to wally world today.

A little bit of extra effort now sure beats constant derailment problems later!

Thanks again JW.

Eric