As I alluded to late in 2024, I had to revise my plans for Monk Subdivision and the staging area. With the upper level gone, a big choice had to be made and I decided to raise the track level to 50" from the floor. It meant I had to raise all the current staging benchwork too which, fortunately, went smoothly and only took a few hours.
To do this, I removed the Kato Unitrak loop and its shelf. The Kato track will serve its purpose elsewhere. It was a short but useful piece of track that helped me moved forward. When gone, I discovered the current staging wasn't level at all, which is quite the big issue when storing cars! So everything was levelled up during the raising process.
The shelf bracket holes in the walls were patched up and a new coat of paint was applied. Then, the fiberboard was reinstalled and painted with a beige color we use on Murray Bay subidivision for the fascia. It's a neutral and bright tone that blends well with anything. Sealing fiberboard really helps to reduce the dust on the layout.
Then, I started to lay the track, assembling several turnouts to create the yard throat and check the geometry. As I feared, the Walthers 28"/24" curved turnouts didn't perform as expected. Large steamed such as 2-10-2 experienced drivers binding when running over the points. This is unacceptable and some solution had to be found.
First, let's address the elephant in the room. Walthers new turnouts aren't good. Not because they are inherently poor quality, which isn't true, but because their geometry is based on the old Shinohara line of products. These turnouts have all have very drastic diverging routes. It's a sharp angle, then the track continue. This sharp angle is a nightmare for models even if prototype do have angled transition. The thing is prototypes use very, very long turnouts... not #6 or #8 and it makes a huge difference. If you look at PECO turnouts, the diverging route is a smooth curve that provides better tracking. Sure, unprototypical, but your trains don't derail.
The Walthers turnout issue is less of a problem with straight turnouts, but the moment you make them curved, it's a nightmare. And by the way, the interior radius at the points isn't 24" as advertised, but much sharper. To test that theory, I laid a Walthers turnout over the Fast Tracks template. Both are 24"/28"... but clearly, one isn't by a large margin.
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| Walthers VS Fast Tracks |
So out of the window with the Walthers curved turnouts which are reliable with diesels of all kind and small steamers, but don't like large steam locomotives.
It seems the handlaid solution is the only way out. So I went to Fast Tracks and printed two templates. The first one was for a #10 28"/24". Following the advice of Chris Mears, I laid a flextrack over the diverging route and tested my large steamers. The IHC 2-10-2 didn't have issues, the Bachmann QJ 2-10-2's drivers binded a bit and the Bachmann USRA 2-10-2's speed slowed down by half while travelling the points due to serious binding. I also tested my BLI USRA Mikado 2-8-2 and it had no issues at all. So we can rule out the 24"/28" turnout.
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| A little bit tight, but IHC 2-10-2 can run over a 24"/28" |
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| The USRA binding at the point of a 24"/28" |
Well, theoritically, no... But, when you slightly adjust the connection angle between each turnouts, it do works. This is about a 1/4" variation over 15" long. I did some verification with the Walthers turnouts and it's not enough to induce a noticeable kink that could cause havoc later down the road. To be honest, this is well within the tolerance when laying tracks.
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| The revised yard throat... I'm happy with it, and my locos too! |
Another nice thing is that I've also been able to greatly streamline and simplify the yard geometry to, which will make operation much easier. All in all, these turnouts issues wet me back of a few weeks, but at the end of the day, I'm closer to the goals I set for myself. Now, it's time to build custom turnouts.
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