Turnout radius in yards, both curved and straight vs minimum radius.

[nkalanaga]

Yes, the radius-style turnouts, in HO or N, didn't work well for crossovers.  Fortunately, by the time I needed a crossover, I was using code 55, and there were no radius-style turnouts.  On the other hand, one would have been handy in Moria yard, to connect the mainline to the mining company tracks, with the mainline on an 18 inch radius curve...

[craigolio1]

Indeed. Likewise if you had a turnout on mainline where the main runs through the curved side of the turnout. You wouldn't want a 3" piece of straight on your smooth curve. I guess the Fasttracks templates don't work for that. I would have to free hand in that situation.

Craig

[nkalanaga]

Craig:  It probably would have been easier to lay my own, and considering that I did handlay multiple dual-gauge turnouts for the same town, I should have.  But I kitbashed an ME #6, then added a third rail to the mainline side.  If I was doing it over I'd lay it myself, but it works, so I'm not about to rip it out!

[craigolio1]

Dual gauge! Wow. Do you have a link to any photos?

[nkalanaga]

That's a tough one.  I'm on a backup computer now, and all of my files are on a separate drive.  The only one I can find right now is this one, on ImageShack, and I don't know if it will work.  They seem to be making it as hard as possible to use...



This is one of the #8s.  I found that I could make code 55 #8s, and code 40 #6s, but nothing smaller. 

[peteski]

The only one I can find right now is this one, on ImageShack, and I don't know if it will work.

If you had a free ImageShack account and you didn't become a paying member by the end of 2015 then all your photos there are gone.  That is what happened to me (by choice).

[nkalanaga]

No, at least some of them are still there, but they're hard to find, because the thumbnails are blank. 

None of them are truly lost, as I have the photos on my backup disk, but it's in an inconvenient spot for quick retrieval, and the originals are on my main computer, which is in the shop.  This one has a small hard drive, little RAM, and is quite slow, so I'm limiting my browsing to basic sites for a few days.  I don't look at, or post,  my photos often, and the only ones online are the ones I've posted here or on the Atlas board.

[craigolio1]

Wow, nice job! I'm always impressed by nice looking track work and dial gauge is very interesting.

Thanks for posting.

Craig

[nkalanaga]

Thank you!  The turnouts in that photo are handlaid, the C55 #8 on the mainline, a C40 #6 dual left/narrow right to its left, and the C40 #4s in the mining company yard behind them.  The rest of the track is all ME, with the third rail added by removing a tie every inch or so, replacing it with a PC tie, and soldering all three rails to the new tie.