Turnouts

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

If someone could answer my question, I’ll appreciate this very much!

I’m creating Model Railroad program and am interested in how many turnouts exist and how do they look like. I mean there
should be predefined number of turnouts, am I right? The point is that my program should support Digitrax Protocol, so I
wonder if this will place any limitation to number of turnouts my program should allow to create.

Thanks,

[cacole]

Do you mean, how many different manufacturers, or how many different sizes? As far as manufacturers go, there must be close to a hundred if you consider all of the brands available around the world. If you mean the sizes of mass produced turnouts from companies such as Atlas, Peco, or Shinohara, you have many choices here, too, with the most common being rated as Numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for prompt answer!

Honestly I 'm freshman in this area, so don't be surprised if my question will sound like freshman's question :)

I mean types of turnouts like Straight Turnout, Curved turnout and so on.

I've discovered that there are two states for turnouts in Digitrax: Thrown and Closed. But the thing is that I do not understand how with these two states could be managed so-called "3-way turnout"... Maybe I've missed something... :)

Thanks,

Gvido

[cacole]

The three basic types of pre-made, commercial turnouts are straight, curved, and slip.

Most straight turnouts come in sizes rated from #4 to #8, with 4 and 6 being the most common. Instead of these number, some manufacturers, such as Peco of England, call them Short, Medium, and Long.

Curved turnouts come in different sizes, according to the degree of curvature. Peco makes small, medium, and large double-radius turnouts.

Slip switches come in two types: single and double.

A good place to look so you can see the difference in these turnouts is http://www.cchobbies,com

Go to the area listing Peco track, and there are pictures of the different types.

I hope this helps to answer your questions.

[roadrat]

There are also 3 way turnouts and wye's



bill

[roadrat]

Try this link.
http://www.cchobbies.com/track/peco.htm

[Adelie]

First, welcome aboard [#welcome]

To ease your mind a bit on a three-way turnout concern, it has two sets of points that are thrown individually. Essentially, it is a left hand and right hand switch mounted very close together on a common straightaway.

[cwclark]

and don't forget a stub switch turnout from the old days of railroading...but you have to scratch build those...they don't mass produce that type of turnout...chuck[:D]

[dinwitty]

Thrown or Closed? any layout design will have its methodology which way a turnout is meant to be. General rule, a :Thrown" turnout has been set to its diverging route, taking it off its mainline route, that could be anything, it could be a curved turnout, and throwing it might put it on its wider radius than the smaller radius curve, thats a matter which may be determined to be the "Normal" route.
"Closed" would be its normal route.

"Closed" could still mean it could take the diverging route thru the turnout and be called the Mainline.
The club layout I was in had one such switch that was normalized thru the diverging route as the mainline.
The switch machines were a special relay energize and hold design, whne you turned the power off the layout as a whole, any "turned" switches snapped back to normal mainline positions.

Generally, the rule is..Know Your Layout, which switch is normallized which direction.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dinwitty

Thrown or Closed? any layout design will have its methodology which way a turnout is meant to be. General rule, a :Thrown" turnout has been set to its diverging route, taking it off its mainline route, that could be anything, it could be a curved turnout, and throwing it might put it on its wider radius than the smaller radius curve, thats a matter which may be determined to be the "Normal" route.
"Closed" would be its normal route.

But if I'd have 3-way turnout wich has two diverging routes, on wich of them I'll switch ,by pushing Thrown???

[chateauricher]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Gvido
But if I'd have 3-way turnout which has two diverging routes, on which of them I'll switch, by pushing Thrown???

A 3-way turnout will have two switches to operate it.

As Adelie said, a 3-way turnout has 2 sets of points. Each set of points is operated independantly. That is: each switch is responsible for "throwing" only one set of points. Therefore, when you push "thrown" for one switch, only that set of points will move into the thrown position. The other set of points will remain where they were.

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much, your answers helped us a lot!!! :)