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Up to this point I have been working diligently to fabricate turnouts for the layout and although it’s been going well, it’s not without its setbacks. Firstly, scratch building turnouts takes time, and when you are investing that much time into one small aspect of the overall project, you risk the chance that you’ll start to rethink previous decisions – which is what has happened in this case.

While I am happy with the overall plan, and the nice modeling variety it has to offer, I’m not sure if it really addresses my goals: to test the waters of N scale by building a small, portable layout. Although the layout is only the size of a door, it’s not as small as I thought – and certainly not portable as far as ease of transportation is concerned. Secondly, I don’t really want to have to wire the return loop, and the corresponding circuits as my wiring solution would require me to switch blocks back and forth for continuous running, and I know that at some point I will simply want to sit and watch the trains go round and round.

Finally, it has become necessary to gut and refinish a portion of our basement. If ever there was a time not to have a model railroad in the midst of demolition, this would be the time.

Therefore, the Unfinished & Uncertain has been absorbed by another future railroad. The U&U equipment will be put in storage, and the track will be become bike paths.

I finally got around to actually shooting some pictures of the latest batch of turnouts I made. On a scale of 1-10 I would give these a 7. There is still a number of little things I would like to improve upon, and it would be nice to find a tidy way to cut the ties ‘ but until then, these do the job!

In review: I built each of these turnouts using the techniques outlined in the Handlaying Turnouts sections of the website, and I posted a few observations from my successes and failures in Turnout Tips.

Here’s some images!

Having finished almost all the turnouts for the layout, including one of two curved turnouts, I decided to attach one to a length of track and run a car back and forth through the points to see how they worked. To my disappointment, every time the points were aligned to route the car to the diverging track, the rear set of trucks would ‘pick-the-point’ and hop off the rails. Confused, I carefully ran assorted cars back and forth through the turnout trying to determine what was going wrong.

I discovered that the leading truck of the car would glide smoothly across the points, but as the car moved along the track, the turning of the car meant that the rear trucks angled slightly to the outside rail. The sharp edge of the wheel was actually splitting between the point and the stock rail, despite the fact that the end of the point was razor thin and seated in the notch of the stock rail. I dug out a commercial turnout and realised that area where the point met the stock rail was actually filed out quite deeply, so that the point rail was recessed deeper then the thickness of the point. Solemnly, I took each of the points I had already built and one by one, disassembled the throw bar and painstakingly filed each rail until the point rested properly.

Building a number of assorted turnouts (including several curved turnouts) I’ve developed some additional techniques which improve upon those listed on this site. I have added a page which includes these tips, and I will update it as I discover better ways of doing things.

I realised that although building each of the turnouts separately was advantageous to their construction, the slight inconsistencies in each turnout ‘ variations in angles, lengths etc. actually made it more difficult to assemble on the baseboard, so I opted to combine the switches together and build them as sub assemblies. I combined the two turnouts that make up the crossover as one unit, as well as the two turnouts and the two 90 degree crossings where the main line meets the branch unit. I am also building the curved turnout and siding on the branch line as a single assembly.

Having spent a number of enjoyable (and relaxing) evenings building turnouts, I became a little more confident about my fabrication skills. As such I started standing over my baseboard and staring at the track plan. I realised that I wasn’t entirely happy with my design, especially the small industry spur. I decided to add a run-around track, and reorient the spur to serve a small industry. Using curved turnouts on either end of the run-around track ensured that it remained a serviceable length, even with the addition of the industry spur. As well, the crossover was originally conceived as an interchange, but there was no interchange track! I added a connection between the main line and the branch line in attempts to create a more prototypical arrangement. I’m undecided if I want to make the interchange a working interchange, or simply build it using dummy turnouts.

The hollow-core door I selected was selected for its availability rather then its dimension, as it was part of a cash and carry sale at a local salvage shop. Although the hole for the doorknob had been drilled through it, the door was structurally sound ‘ certainly sufficient for my needs. Despite that, I added some framing on the underside to allow for wiring, turnout controls etc. The advantages of now having a void in which to run wires, was complimented by having some extra material to attach the future facia as well as the control panel.

I cut some 2x2s out old 2x4s I had in the house on the table saw and attached them around the perimeter of the underside of the door. If not for the 2×4′s, I would have simply purchased some 1×2 pine, or 2×2 spruce strapping. I didn’t bother to mitre the corners, and glued and screwed the lumber into the solid edges of the door. I cut some extra lumber so that I could add some cross braces after I had installed the track and the wires. I laid the door flat on the floor and added some weight around the edges to prevent the off chance of the door warping while the glue dried.

Once the glue was dry, I turned the door back over and removed the Kraft paper on which my ever precious track plan was doodled. As I imagined at least one river on this pike, I attached some 2″ Styrofoam to the entire tabletop. The 2″ foam allows me to make changes in elevation with a steak knife (2 inches of foam translates in 26 scale feet of ground) rather then a reciprocating saw, and gives the model some added rigidity. I had fully intended to use extruded pink/blue foam, however when I was price shopping at my DIY centre and explained my project to the attendant, he offered me cast-off sheet of 2″ 4×8′ white bead foam for two dollars. I didn’t argue with my good fortune. The piece of foam he gave me was for exterior use, and as such was somewhat water-proofed, containing smaller beads then the standard foam. Because of this, the foam doesn’t ‘shatter’ into snow-white shrapnel like its cruder counterpart.

I attached the foam to the tabletop using regular carpenter’s glue ‘ I didn’t have any other adhesives suitable for foam. (Solvent based glues will eat through the foam like a hot knife, giving little or no bond, and leaving you with something that looks like termites ate through it.) Again, I added some weight and gave the whole structure a few days to dry.

Once the glue was set, the combination of the bracing and the foam resulted in a very rigid footprint.

With track plan in hand, I was eager to start laying some rails. However, I was a little discouraged by the cost involved, as well as the possible modifications that would be needed to accommodate prefabricated turnouts. Looking over the meagre supplies on hand, I decided that this layout would be need to be a combination of prefab and hand-laid turnouts. I was fortunate to have a number of PECO set-track switches on hand purchased several years ago when I was going to construct a small shelf layout. The advantage of these switches was that they had very tight diverging radii, and operated reliably. Their downfall was that consequently they have a toy-like in appearance because of this sharp radius, and they have limited uses when creating yards or parallel tracks.

Reviewing my track plan, I determined that I could use the old PECO switches in the hidden staging yards, but the visible tracks would need to be hand-laid. Besides the financial advantage, there was also the benefit that I could create curved turnouts on the return loop, I would be able to build #5 turnouts on the passing tracks, and the diamonds could be made to fit tightly with the interchange track.

Undaunted, I began researching the techniques for hand-laying turnouts, and overall, I was disappointed with the lack of concise material. Fifty years ago, layout builders had to make everything ‘ and I suppose along the way the secrets of turnout construction became part of an oral tradition that I’m just not privy too. I gleaned as much information as best I could from magazines, websites and books, and developed the following method for constructing turnouts.

In order to make the process easier, I built each of the switches on the workbench, planning to later connect them together on the baseboard. I copied the particulars of my plan onto sheets of paper and used these full-size templates to build each of the turnouts.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised as to how well the switches turned out. Their reliability exceeded my expectations ‘ operating smoothly, with minimal tuning required. On the downside, despite my best efforts, they are not as aesthetically pleasing as the more expensive commercial turnouts. However, with some paint, ballast and other assorted scenic camouflages, they will likely avoid the scrutiny of the critical eye.

After spending several years looking through assorted magazines, doodling on scraps of paper, and daydreaming away hours thinking about my future layout, I realised that when I finally had an opportunity to start designing/building one, I had no idea what I wanted. I certainly knew what I liked and disliked, but when the occasion to start designing presented itself, I was lost.

Being honest about what I wanted was the first step in planning. Over the years I’ve looked over many track plans designed with operations in mind, and I’ve always admired the thoughtfulness and design quality in each. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I’ve poured hours into Kalmbach’s 101 Trackplans for Model Railroaders, in which the majority of designs are considered ‘display’ layouts (commonly featuring continuous running as the primary design element) but have equally admired the designs in spite of their ‘dated’ features. Comparing these two design approaches allowed me to realise that what I really wanted to do was disappear into my basement, work on some scenery, flip the switch, and watch trains roll through my miniature countryside. A continuous running ‘display’ layout was what I wanted.

I refined this decision by including some additional criteria. First, the layout needed to be portable, so I decided the base would be a hollow-core door (I model N scale). Second, I wanted some sort of interchange and hidden staging ‘ replacing the need for active industries. Finally, I wanted to model a freelanced modern Southern-Ontario railway, so the scenery and industry would need to reflect this.

Having established these guidelines, I started doodling ‘ with a pen and paper! I work with computers for a living, and have developed a decent proficiency with many CAD, 3D and Graphical programs. As such, I sampled many excellent layout-planning programs in search of useful planning tool, but found each type of software limiting. I just couldn’t jot down and idea without embarking on a formal plan. Pen in hand, I started to draw. Many of scribbles later I came up with a stack of designs with pros and cons, and ultimately decided on the drawing below.

Sceptical of my ability to draw accurate radii and turnouts freehanded, I refined the conceptual sketch on the baseboard. I covered the door with some Kraft paper, and began re-sketching the design using a compass and turnouts. Several hours later, and after some minor revisions, I had a full-sized plan drawn.

The plan attempts to represent and interchange between a double main-line and a branch-line. Both lines share a simple hidden staging yard, and the interchange becomes a return loop to reverse train direction. There are some flaws in the design, but I wanted to ensure that I kept the track somewhat sparse for scenic effect, so I was willing to live with minor deficiencies.