Turnouts and Turntable

[Anonymous]

Hi:
I am looking for specifications (length, angle or radius of turnout) of Atlas #6
Customline. I want to draw a staging or storage area with Acad and thought I may be able to just insert them as a template rather than dwg. each one.

I was in 'N" scale and used Peco. However with DCC I think there are less problems with Atlas and "Customline" I understand also allows high speed without derailments.
Ken Ison

[nfmisso]

Ken;

Peco code 100 are the most trouble free turnouts in HO scale. See [url]http://www.comrail.org/{/url] for a DCC (Digitrax) layout using Peco.

There is no radius on a numbered turnout. The number (six in this case) is the divergence. The angled track seperates from the straight track one unit (inch, feet, metre, whatever) in six units of run.

For Atlas track, pull up thier software, then cut'n'paste into ACad.

[Anonymous]

Nigel:
Thank you for the information. However, the turn out piece on a #6 'snap' turnout goes off at a curve. The curve is such that the length of a chord across the arc is ~ 7.5" and the height from chord to arc at center is ~ 0.3125.

At one time I had the formula to calculate the radius from the above. If any one has it I would appreciate it.

Also you mentioned Atlas to down load from. Is this their "free ware" 5.0?
Ken

[Big_Boy_4005]

Atlas "snap" switches actually have curved diverging legs. The original is designed for use as an 18" radius curve when combined with the packaged extension section. I haven't looked at them in a long time, but they may have a "snap" designed for 22" radius. This may be what you have Ken. !8" and 22" are the common sectional track radii, which is the entire purpose of the "snap" switch.

Nigel is right, a normal numbered turnout has no curve.

[Anonymous]

Ken,

I downloaded the Atlas software, started a new drawing inserted all their turnouts and saved it as a dxf file. Don't cut & paste as you want everything to be ACAD entities. The Atlas components will be imported as individual blocks within your drawing.

Hints:

In the Atlas program, go to View/Properties/Texts & turn off "Display Article Numbers" otherwise they are imported as text within the block, not as attributes that you can do anything with. (Just my preference.)

Before saving it as a dxf, draw a straight line that you can use later as a dimension reference. Opening the dxf file, you will find that you need to scale down the entire drawing. Example: In the Atlas program I drew a 5" line using their "ruler" at the top of the drawing area.. After saving as .dxf & opening in ACAD, I simply used the scale function to reduce that line and all the turnouts along with it..

Define an MLine and you can use it as a straight section of track to snap to the turnouts.

Wayne

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kvison
I was in 'N" scale and used Peco. However with DCC I think there are less problems with Atlas and "Customline" I understand also allows high speed without derailments.
Ken Ison

Actually, I believe it's the exact opposite!

[Anonymous]

kvision, I didn't have the formula you spoke of when you gave the chord length and arc height at center but when you draw this on cad the radius is 22.6563" I've drawn the atlas switch in ACAD 2000, using digital calipers for my measurements and grouping the drawing where it can be pasted as a block. I have it on disc somewhere. If you want I can try to find it and send it to you as a e-mail attach. With all the crap going on on the internet I can send a copy (if I can find it) snail-mail. My e-address is [e-mail]. By the way if I recall correctly I drew Peco #6 also & because of its European based design there was quite a bit of difference.