Exactly how important are powered frogs?

[fieryturbo]

Is this more of a problem with steam because you don't have at least 1 isolated truck fully on the track?  There must be a reason for this that I'm missing.  I guess what I didn't realize when I asked the question is that I want to know the 'why' for 'why does Atlas deaden the frogs from the factory' and 'why is this more of an issue with short locos?' I would think it's because you don't have at least one truck hanging on a stretch of live track (so steam would, by this theory, always have this issue)

I'm just trying to understand things from both directions, the why and the why not.

[tstage]

fiery,

The shorter your locomotives are; the more important live/powered frogs become.  I have a number of yard switchers - e.g. 0-6-0s, 0-8-0s, SW1s, HH660s, VO-660s, VO-1000s, etc.  Live frogs really help to eliminate any dead spots when moving over turnouts with smaller locos.  Cheap insurance in my book as far as reliability and not that difficult to add when building a layout.

I also use and prefer Fast Tracks turnouts so I don't have much of a choice.  They've worked great for me so far.

Tom

[fieryturbo]

I'm doing some work on my layout, and it occurred to me that I should probably care about at least knowing why I should power the frog.  Atlas turnouts are isolated, so I don't really have to deal with it per se, but under what situations does it become critical?

My roster consists of:

1x Bachmann DDA40X

3x Bachmann GP30

1x Proto 2000 (LL era) GP20

1x Proto 2000 GP30

1x BLI E9A/B set

2x Walthers Trainline coach cars, will at some point be lighted.

Assorted freight cars with metal wheels, 50' at the longest.  Includes an Athearn UP bay window caboose that will be lighted at some point.

I've built the layout so that the DDA40X can get to everything, even the deepest parts of the yards.

A ScaleTrains Big Blows may be in my future as well, so I have that to consider, but I feel like that's less of a concern than the DDA40X's D-D trucks.

Advice?