Do you set-up your turnouts?

[gdelmoro]

Do you wire jumpers, frog and rail drop wires to the turnout before you place it on the layout?  If you have 2 or 3 turnouts in a tight configuration do connect & solder joints and wire everything up before you place it on the layout?

[rrinker]

 There were no jumpers on my previous layout, it was all Atlas. But I did add a frog power wire at the bench before installing the turnout. My next layout will be all or mostly Peco Electrofrogs, in which case I will be making the jumper modifications before installing the turnouts. It's nearly impossible to do so after installing, there are jumpers underneatht hat need to be cut, and nice slots to install the added jumpers so it's kind of pointless to put the jumpers on the top where they will be easily seen.

                     --Randy

[richhotrain]

gdelmoro

Do you wire jumpers, frog and rail drop wires to the turnout before you place it on the layout?  If you have 2 or 3 turnouts in a tight configuration do connect & solder joints and wire everything up before you place it on the layout?

 

I wire all three ends of every turnout (mostly Atlas Custom Line #6) but not the frogs, and I never solder the rails on a turnout.

Rich

[SouthPenn]

I have Shinohara code 100 non DCC friendly, Peco Electrofrog, and Shinohara code 83 DCC ready switches on my layout. 

The code 100 Shinohara and Peco switches are installed 'out of the box' with no modification. The throat or entrance is connected electrically to the rails. The diverging route and main route leaving the switch are connected to the rails with insulated track joiners.

The code 83 Shinohara is installed 'out of the box' and is electrically connected at all rails.

[tomikawaTT]

I handlay all of my specialwork in place, so there's no practical way to pre-wire anything.  Rail power drops (hot frog and both stock rails) are soldered as reinforcements to the frog and guardrail flangeways.  If one length of rail is the stock rail for several turnouts I only provide one 'hot' drop - the other guard rail(s) have a short length of wire in the flangeway but no electrical connection.

Drops are brought out to terminal blocks just behind the fascia, trimmed to length and connected to stud-and-nut terminals that link them to the rest of the layout electricals.  I prefer that to soldering under the layout - spelunking is not my thing.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[MisterBeasley]

I solder a frog power wire to my turnouts where appropriate before putting them on the layout.  I also prefer to not solder my turnout rails.  Instead, I solder feeders to the undersides of rail joiners.

I have assembled complex clusters of turnouts, crossings and short connecting tracks on the bench and soldered them to keep the whole thing aligned before putting it on the layout, but only in a couple of awkward places.