Looking for advice re: Electrofrog or Unifrog turnouts

[mark dance]

I have yet to encounter any Atlas or Kato locomotives with flanges wide enough to cause problems as long as the wheel flanges are gauged to NMRA standards.

...or (limited to my experience) LifeLike/Walthers or Intermountain or Rapido or Bachmann...

md

[robert3985]

...I also have several rather old locomotives, Minitrix and Graham Farish, that have huge pizza-cutter wheels, which is why I've decided to go with Peco track.
I've bought a couple of each to do some testing, but I'd really appreciate any real-world advice from those with experience using one or the other, or both. Thanks!

Ray

Anybody have any experience with old Minitrix and Graham Farish locomotives?  I think these would be the main worry as far as "thick flanges" are concerned.  IMO the vast majority of locomotives produced in the last 20 or 30 years would probably run through the Unifrog turnouts without any problems.  BUT, there may possibly be problems with some off-brand ancient locomotives that happen to have extra thick flanges.  Totally out of my experience, but rumor has it that there have been incidental problems with shorting at the frog with the Unifrogs.  The only possibility when looking at the design of inducing a short there would be extra thick flanges....so, I wrote that as merely a caution.

I would hope that Peco took this possibility into consideration when designing the frog/frog-wing area of these turnouts and the location of the gap at the front of the frog, since in all probability there is more really old N-scale and N-gauge locomotives being run in England and Europe than in the USA and Canada.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[OldEastRR]

I was looking at a Electrofrog X-ing I have and I think adding the same kind of gap arrangement to it that is on the Unifrog would help make the operation easier. As it is now, Peco has  rails of both legs attached to the frogs themselves. By isolating the frogs entirely the rails can be powered from the tracks they connect to and the frogs only be controlled by dual DPDT switches. This leaves as little rail as possible to be dual-powered, and eliminates insulators on the ends of the X-ing track.
Since I mix Peco and ME track, I'm thinking about cutting down the cork roadbed under the peco C55 turnouts so the rails sit at the same height as the ME. Anybody else do that kind of modification?

[robert3985]

...Since I mix Peco and ME track, I'm thinking about cutting down the cork roadbed under the peco C55 turnouts so the rails sit at the same height as the ME. Anybody else do that kind of modification?

Although I use ME C55 flex (I actually use my stash of original RailCraft C55 flex for foreground trackage) and build all of my turnouts and diamonds on the bench (C55 and C40 nowadays), I recommend to those who don't wish to make their own turnouts but want to run "the best" C55 trackage, to use ME C55 flex, ME #6's, Atlas #10's, curved turnouts & diamonds, and Peco 55 small and curved turnouts that may fit the track plan better, all mounted to Midwest Cork Products roadbed...either HO or N...or both...sanded of course before the track goes down.

Naturally, if they do that, they're going to have to modify the cork roadbed because of the taller ties on the Peco 55 turnouts, as well as figure out some way do rail joiners for mechanical alignment between Peco's C55 rails and regular C55 rails.

There isn't any one "best" RTR C55 track in N-scale unfortunately, and the "best" is a combination of ME, Atlas and Peco C55's IMO...so, I'm all for combining them so your track fits your track plan better.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Point353]

... as well as figure out some way do rail joiners for mechanical alignment between Peco's C55 rails and regular C55 rails.

The PECO code 55 rails have a double foot, one of which is normally buried in the ties.
If you remove the ties and trim off a short section of that lower foot, you can then install a rail joiner on the remaining/upper foot to connect with "regular" code 55 track.
This does not eliminate the need to compensate for the overall difference in height between the two track types.

[mark dance]

The PECO code 55 rails have a double foot, one of which is normally buried in the ties.
If you remove the ties and trim off a short section of that lower foot, you can then install a rail joiner on the remaining/upper foot to connect with "regular" code 55 track.
This does not eliminate the need to compensate for the overall difference in height between the two track types.

That's what I do by grinding away the lower "foot" of the Peco code 55 with a motor tool.  (I hold the track with a damp sponge to control the heat build up).  I have used this approach to mate it with ME code 55 bridge track and ME code 40 that I used in the diesel shop model.

md

[Point353]

That's what I do by grinding away the lower "foot" of the Peco code 55 with a motor tool. 

Or a pair of rail cutters, such as those from Xuron, and a file.