Fast Track turnouts and wiring the frog

[Aikidomaster]

I am building Fast Tracks turnouts for my HO scale layout. I use code 83 rail for the mainline and code 70 for the yards and industries. The turnouts are #8 and #6 for the mainline and # 6 and #5 for the yard and industries. My question is, do I need to run a wire from the frog to the tor switch machines? I mainly run N&W Class A, J, Y6b, and K3 on the main and a GP9. The yard and industrial area will use 0-8-0. I appreciate your help 

[tstage]

Craig,

Do you need to?  Maybe.  Is it a big hassle to add one so that any locomotive can navigate your turnouts?  Not really.

I prefer live frogs so I would recommend you adding the wire.  And if you haven't added the turnouts to your layout yet, now's the time to solder the wire to the frog.  Then it's in place whether you choose to power the frog or not.

Tom

[gregc]

you may not need to if your locos have keep alives and you don't stop them on an unpowered frog.

[rrinker]

 I ran wires to all my frigs. And then found that even my smallest looco (at the time) had no problem, so I never hooked them up. I can guarantee that if I did NOT add the wire ahead of time, when it was easy to do, I would have had locos that stalled.

 If those larger locos pick up from both sides of the loco as well as both sides of the tender, they probably won;t have issues (and you'll quickly find any that have a pickup problem, if you don't power the frog). The 0-8-0 on the other hand, may have issues with the #8, that's a pretty long unpowered section.

 My advice is to put the wire in. You can always choose not to connect it up, but then it's there in case you need it. After soldering all the rail to build a Fast Tracks turnout, soldering on one wire is no big deal. It's much harder to add a wire after you've installed the turnout and ballasted the track.

                                          --Randy