Micro Engineering Turnouts - Thumbs up!

[mike_lawyer]

I received a number of Micro Engineering turnouts today, and had a chance to compare them with an Atlas Code 55 #7.  I am very impressed with the ME turnout  First, the frog is complete cast nickel silver.  No plating like on the Atlas switches.  Second, I measured the ME turnout with an NMRA gauge, and found it much closer to NMRA measurements than the Atlas #7.

The only blemish I found with the ME turnout is that the frog casting was slightly higher than the surrounding rail.  Not a big issue as I leveled the frog off with a flat file. 

Testing it with several cars, and the ME switch is smooth as silk.  For this general #6 or #7 turnout size, it is definitely a winner.

I have some ME flex arriving next week, and I am looking forward to trying the flex with the turnouts.

[robert3985]

I received a number of Micro Engineering turnouts today, and had a chance to compare them with an Atlas Code 55 #7.  I am very impressed with the ME turnout  First, the frog is complete cast nickel silver.  No plating like on the Atlas switches.  Second, I measured the ME turnout with an NMRA gauge, and found it much closer to NMRA measurements than the Atlas #7.

The only blemish I found with the ME turnout is that the frog casting was slightly higher than the surrounding rail.  Not a big issue as I leveled the frog off with a flat file. 

Testing it with several cars, and the ME switch is smooth as silk.  For this general #6 or #7 turnout size, it is definitely a winner.

I have some ME flex arriving next week, and I am looking forward to trying the flex with the turnouts.

Good move.  If you don't need any other size turnouts than true #6's, them ME is the top choice.  I find that the ME turnouts are the closest to hand-laid (with hinged point rails) that's available...with no complicated throw-bar castings/connections or plated mystery metal parts, and they are spot-on as far as proportions, tie length, tie spacing is concerned, PLUS...you get spikeheads to match your ME track too!

Photo (1) - Micro Engineering #6 turnout directly compared to a drawing of a prototype A.R.E.A. #6 turnout:


Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[wcfn100]

I'm glad you had a better experience than I did.  I bought three for a small layout for my son and all three were unusable out of the package.  I had to disassemble the throw mechanism and scrape out the glue to even get the points to throw.

Jason

[mike_lawyer]

I'm glad you had a better experience than I did.  I bought three for a small layout for my son and all three were unusable out of the package.  I had to disassemble the throw mechanism and scrape out the glue to even get the points to throw.

Jason

Were they the older, non-DCC compatible ones, or the current production DCC turnouts?  So far, I have not had problems with mine.  I have 10 turnouts right now, but have not inspected each of them thus far.

[nickelplate759]

I had issues with last few I bought (about 5 years ago).  The outer diverging (curved) rail seemed to be too straight, forcing the non-diverging rail to flex and distorting the turnout to the point that it slightly resembled a wye.  When I forced the non-diverging rail to be straight the gauge on the diverging rout, about midway between the points and frog, was narrow.

All fixable, but not wonderful.

[robert3985]

Were they the older, non-DCC compatible ones, or the current production DCC turnouts?  So far, I have not had problems with mine.  I have 10 turnouts right now, but have not inspected each of them thus far.

A good rule of thumb for ANY purchased RTR turnout is to check it out before installing.

I've installed plenty of ME turnouts on friends and customers layouts & modules, and I've never had one that was totally unusable.  I've had some that required a bit of tuning, but that was easy as almost all the RTR turnouts I've used from various brands on other people's layouts and modules needed "tuning".

However, I've only got one ME turnout...an old one...on my test track...and two that are somewhere in a workbench drawer along with one Atlas55 #7 and a Peco55 Three-way.  I've been making my own since the middle 1980's, and will continue to do that.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore.

[nkalanaga]

The only experience I have with ME turnouts are  the old ones - 25 years old.  Other than the frog being too high, and, on some, warped, they've worked fine.  Once I figured out what the problem was, and either shimmed the point area, or filed the frogs, even the "bad" ones work fine.

Until I found the problem, my test train was an ABBA set of first-run Kato Fs, pulling a passenger train.  Invariably, the trailing truck of the second unit would derail on the diverging side of one particular turnout.  If I turned the locos around, the trailing truck of the (new) second unit would derail.  If I ran three units, any three of them, the train ran fine.  If I ran all four without a train, they ran fine.  If I pulled the train with four GP-38s, it ran fine.  Weird.

It derailed at the points, so I concentrated on them.  Couldn't find anything wrong.  It turned out that the frog was warped, which tilted the FRONT truck.  The Fs had almost no play in the trucks, so when one truck was tilted, so was the other, and the rear truck would lift over the point.  Going straight through, it wasn't a problem, as the flanges weren't against the point.  With any other combination of trailing weight and locos, the flange-point interaction was different.  And, if I hadn't had Trainworx turn the flanges down, it probably wouldn't have been a problem.

By the time I could run that train, both ways, on all routes, I had good track!

[Sokramiketes]

On another note, which shops have these in stock again?

[mike_lawyer]

Question about use of these turnouts with Tortoise switch machines.  I am running the throw wire on the Tortoise up through 3 inches of extruded foam.  Can I use the standard size Tortoise throw wire? I also have some thicker throw wire in my parts box I could use. 

Mike

[nickelplate759]

The turnout throwbar is too fine to accept a thicker wire.  If you enlarge the wire holes the throwbar is likely to break.

But, the regular wire is likely too flexible to work at that distance;  I had difficulty at 2".

The solution for me was to use thicker wire but add a short extension of thin wire to go through the throwbar.

[mike_lawyer]

Does anyone remove the spring on the throwbar?  I have a turnout where the little tab underneath the turnout came off, and the spring went flying who knows where.  Any issues operating the turnout without the spring mechanism if I am using Tortoises?

[mmagliaro]

On all the ME turnouts I used on my old Pennsylvania layout, I removed the over-center springs because I was operating
the turnouts with Caboose ground throws or a few tortoises.  It eliminates all these problems.  You won't need a heavy Tortoise wire
once you get that spring out of there.  I didn't have any trouble with the throwbars after removing  the springs.

[mike_lawyer]

On all the ME turnouts I used on my old Pennsylvania layout, I removed the over-center springs because I was operating
the turnouts with Caboose ground throws or a few tortoises.  It eliminates all these problems.  You won't need a heavy Tortoise wire
once you get that spring out of there.  I didn't have any trouble with the throwbars after removing  the springs.

Do you think the standard Tortoise throw wire will work if I am going up through 3 inches of extruded foam if I remove the springs?

[mu26aeh]

It's recommended when using a Tortoise and Peco switches to remove the center spring, I imagine the same can be said for ME as well.

[nickelplate759]

Do you think the standard Tortoise throw wire will work if I am going up through 3 inches of extruded foam if I remove the springs?

The wire that comes with the Tortoise isn't long enough to go through 3" of foam.