Would you solder feeders on turnouts in the following configuration ?

[Tom Bryant_MR]

Given the following turnout configuration, SW1, SW2 and SW3 all connected and caulked to cork but not soldered, would you drop feeder wires and if so, where on the turnouts.

These are Walther's Shinohara code 83 #5's.  All the other track pieces have feeders.

 

Thanks,

[GMTRacing]

Tom,

     I'm not familiar with the Shinohara track but on my Peco turnouts, I solder jumpers on both diverging tracks and any that might end up isolated as the Pecos' are power routing and I use DCC. Typically I solder to the rail joiners so repairs are easy if needed.  Hope that helps.   J.R.

[dknelson]

If soldering to turnouts makes you a bit nervous don't forget that Atlas makes railjoiners that have wire already soldered to them.  The joint tends to be fragile however so they have to be installed with some care -- and obviously need to be part of the initial track laying, not after the fact.

Dave Nelson

[Don Z]

Tom,

I would solder feeders at the end of the diverging leg on switch 1, both ends of switch 2 and switch 3 straight legs. You are then protected against power loss in case any of the little feeder bars on the back of those turnouts fail, as they have on plenty of my turnouts.

Don Z.

[rrinker]

 Assuming those are the versions with insulated frogs - I have feeders on all three legs of each turnout. All live frogs, you need gaps on the diverging side and then feeders beyond the gaps on each leg.

 

                          --Randy

[Tom Bryant_MR]

Thanks all for the advice.

These are the Walthers-Shinohara with insulated frogs.  These turnouts have small metal straps bridging from the outer rails (where power is) to the appropriate inner legs of the straight and diverging legs on the insulated side of the frog opposite the points.

Both Don and I have found these with the straps broken straight out of the box or in some cases we have found they go bad sometime after caulking down to the roadbed.  Several months ago there must have been a particularly bad batch as every third one or so had a broken strap out of the box.  Have not seen any lately.

Putting feeders on each end is a safe practice, albeit we should not necessarily have to, but ... I'de rather be safe than sorry and have to do this later.

Regards,