I realize a lot has been written about this subject of double crossovers, but as I was going back thru some of the posted subject discussions on various forums I was getting confused by some of the great variety of opinions and facts. I thought I might extract some of these various postings and solutions offered into this subject thread in hopes of LEARNING and REMEMBERING the best of the ideas presented. So please excuse my 'duplication' in this subject.
A number of years ago I began collecting components for the construction of my 'retirement layout'. There were several occasions were I ran across Shinohara crossovers, both single ones and doubles. My understanding at the time was that this was a premium name, so I bought them. The 4 singles were all new, and the 2 doubles were used. They were all CODE 100 rail.
Again, before I knew of details/problems with these switches I went ahead and included one of the double crossovers in my new layout plan. Its fitted between the 2 mainlines close to where the freight yard connects to those mainlines. It's 2” centerline aspect fits in nicely with my plan, so I am hoping to utilize it if at all possible, ….otherwise I would need to go back and modify a lot of my plan.
Yesterday I got the 2 Shinohara double crossovers out and put them on my outdoor workbench to do a little testing
I wired then up straight DC for the initial test. Mechanical all of the locos I tested on these switches seemed to work fine,...no derails, no point picking, etc. This was encouraging considering all the negatives I've run into on a number of forums. BUT electrically I could see there were problems,...even with just plain DC,...
a) the point rails need a more consistent contact arrangement,
b) there was one consistent problem with proper contact between the point rail and its closure rail on one leg of the turnout,
c) as I was closing up for the day, I experienced some sort of a short when I was running a nice Bachmann northern across the actual center crossing portion of the turnout (no derail I could determine, just short that affected the DCC ready board in the long distance tender...smoke).
So a couple of my initial questions,
A number of years ago I began collecting components for the construction of my 'retirement layout'. There were several occasions were I ran across Shinohara crossovers, both single ones and doubles. My understanding at the time was that this was a premium name, so I bought them. The 4 singles were all new, and the 2 doubles were used. They were all CODE 100 rail.
Again, before I knew of details/problems with these switches I went ahead and included one of the double crossovers in my new layout plan. Its fitted between the 2 mainlines close to where the freight yard connects to those mainlines. It's 2” centerline aspect fits in nicely with my plan, so I am hoping to utilize it if at all possible, ….otherwise I would need to go back and modify a lot of my plan.
Yesterday I got the 2 Shinohara double crossovers out and put them on my outdoor workbench to do a little testing
I wired then up straight DC for the initial test. Mechanical all of the locos I tested on these switches seemed to work fine,...no derails, no point picking, etc. This was encouraging considering all the negatives I've run into on a number of forums. BUT electrically I could see there were problems,...even with just plain DC,...
a) the point rails need a more consistent contact arrangement,
b) there was one consistent problem with proper contact between the point rail and its closure rail on one leg of the turnout,
c) as I was closing up for the day, I experienced some sort of a short when I was running a nice Bachmann northern across the actual center crossing portion of the turnout (no derail I could determine, just short that affected the DCC ready board in the long distance tender...smoke).
So a couple of my initial questions,
- what is the actual contact detail of the point rail to closure rail? I'm still have trouble determining it with magnifiers on?
- has there been any experimentation with a 'closure type spring' for the point rails, as in the Peco switches?