The Railroading Phoenix
New Member
Hello, I recently acquired a prewar Marx 597 Commodore Vanderbilt, and it has a single-reduction "fat-wheeled" motor, and rather than replace the original motor unit with a later double-reduction unit that doesn't have fat wheels like I originally planned on doing, I've changed my mind, and decided that I'd rather keep the original motor unit and instead modify my layout to accommodate it, at least on the main oval. However, my layout uses a mixture of O and O27 tubular track, including switches. The problem, then, is that while I know that all Marx and apparently Lionel 1121 turnouts can accommodate fat-wheeled engines, those are all for O27 track, and in order for my Commodore and any more fat-wheeled engines I may get in the future to fully traverse my layout's main oval, I would also need to get an O-gauge switch with an O-31 radius on the diverging leg that can handle fat-wheeled engines, and I don't know of any such turnouts. Do they even exist as ready-to-run items, or am I gonna have to get creative and either modify an existing switch or custom build something that'll most likely be incredibly janky?
