I can't comment on the Atlas code 100 turnouts, but some of their code 83 turnouts do have frogs that are too high. I first noticed this when a friend brought several of his brass locos to run on the layout. Those with a longer driver wheelbase had the most trouble, and it soon became obvious that some of the frogs were higher the they should have been, lifting all of the drivers on that side and stalling the loco. Not all of the turnouts (all #6) had this problem, but a few passes with a mill file corrected the situation.
Oddly enough, none of my own steamers, including an old John English Pacific, had any problems on the high frogs, even though it was code 83 track.
Wayne
Interesting subject I have a good number of Atlas custom line code 83 turnouts in use at the present time and have not noticed any specific problems so far. But I haven't had a lot of running time as I am in the building stages right now. Of course I can't find my NMRA gage any where (danged Gremlins) so are we talking the top of the frog? If I am reading this correctly should it be even with the tops of the rails?or we filing the safety rail portion of the frog
markpierce The flanges are too deep. You need to replace the wheels with NMRA-compliant ones. You may be able to replace diesel locomotive wheels, but as far as steam locomotives, you'll probably need to replace them with American-built, non-toy ones built within the last 40 years. Mark
The flanges are too deep. You need to replace the wheels with NMRA-compliant ones. You may be able to replace diesel locomotive wheels, but as far as steam locomotives, you'll probably need to replace them with American-built, non-toy ones built within the last 40 years.
Mark
Not sure I can agree this is all a flange problem. I hvae a 1950's Bowser K-11 that now needs remotoring but ran just fine through Atlas c100 turnouts. The flanges on it are smaller than what is on IHC Premeir series engines and the couple of those I have work fine with my Custom Line turnouts. The comment of the high frog on these turnouts is right on, in my experience. I have found the plastic that holds the frog is usually higher than the frog or rail and lifts a long wheelbase engine up so it picks the point. A little filing fixes that. In some cases I have had to shim the guardrails adjacent to the frog a bit to effectively pull the wheels away from the frog point. Turnout also needs to be absolutely dead flat without twists or humps. Check the wheel guage also which can cause problems.
George V.
I have several of my "Dad's" old engines as well but I use Peco turnouts instead of Atlas and have never had any problems.
He had lots of old Varneys and Pennline (Bowser) engines and they work just fine through the peco turnouts.
If the frogs are 'too high', it could be the flange depth on the older wheels you are attempting to run through these turnouts. Many commercial turnouts have filled frogs so that the flanges act like bearing surfaces while the tire crosses the gap between the points rails and the closure rails...which are kind of over-sized on all but the finest and hand-laid turnouts...or purpose-built scale ones such as Proto 87 and such.
It might also be that your wheels are not in gauge and that the flanges, correct depth or not, are either too far apart or not sufficiently close to each other.
So, it could be that the flanges are to 'wide' as you suggest, but my expectation is that the flanges are actually to deep. The rolling items from that era were manufactured to different standards and did not conform to the more modern RP-25 profile that the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) seems to have exacted out of modern rolling stock suppliers.
-Crandell
I had the same derailing problem with some of my Bachmann turnouts. Upon inspection I noticed the frog on each of the offending turnouts was too high. I filed them down a bit and that solved the problem.
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I recently had several of my father's old Varney, Bowser and English (late 40's, early 50's) steam engines restored to running condition; I am also restoring 14 of his freight cars from the same period. The first thing I realized was that they will not run on Code 83 track as the wheel flanges are too wide (diameter-wise).
So, I built a smail Reminiscent Railroad with Atlas Code 100 track. The one-loop test layout ran pretty well using only Atlas Snap-Switches. However, the finished product contains one wye turnout and two #6 Customline turnouts. The engines de-rail 9 out of 10 times on the wye and 6 out of 10 on the #6. Mostly it seems that the frogs are too high.
I also noticed that several of my newer steam engines have trouble with the same items. Is there something I don't know, or should I just make a diorama out of the older trains?