The heading on Publishers

The heading on Publishers musings open top car weighting is wrong, it deals with turnouts this month. The heading on the article is fine it is just wrong on this page at the top.

Thanks, fixed it.

The open top car weighting is in the Running Extra Publisher's Welcome.

D'oh!

Excellent point

Something I noticed a while back is the size turnouts we tend to use makes it not uncommon for a typical diesel to have one truck on the points and one on the frog.  If the frog is unpowered, that puts all your eggs in the iffy point rail contact.  So a point jumper can make a big difference.  And, of course, it's another great place to use resistance soldering to avoid melting the plastic ties below the points.

Low melting point solder

I use low melting point solder paste that melts at a lower temp than the plastic, so never a problem! I believe Tix solder sticks also melt at a lower temp than plastic ties.

Styrene melts at just over 200 degrees Celsius, but Tix solder melts at ~135 Celsius, the solder paste at ~140 Celsius.

December Running Extra Issue

I need the link to download.  I am a subscriber.

Tom

Tom, Please check your email.

Peco Points

I have used these before but have had a lot of trouble with them and long wheelbase steam loco's it seems that some of the heavier steamers don't like the pressed point rails, if Peco made the points with proper rail it would use them all the time at the moment it is handlaid Fastracks point for me at this stage.

Rob McLear

Aussie.

Peco Point Rails

I sure hope I don't run into this problem as my new layout will have almost all Peco turnouts, and I have quite a number of big steamers.

I thought this point rail problem was more of a problem with the Atlas turnouts?

PECO Turnouts and Point Rails

Almost all of the turnouts on my old HO modules and my test / demo layout were PECO Electrofrogs (I trashed the few Insulfrogs I had installed). When running my N&W J's and other large wheelbase loc's, I found that the PECOs were as or more reliable than any other brand turnout. I had to disassemble my HO test track because some of the rails reads had almost worn down to the web, but many of the PECO turnouts were still serviceable, and were donated to a Junior Model Railroader.

Now there are some differences between PECO HO and N turnouts (Ns do not have jumpers on the bottom so you have to cut the rails), but I am confident enough of the performance of these turnouts that I am using PECO Code 55 on my rebuilt N test / demo layout. This testing will include some Unifrogs, and yes I also run long wheelbase N Scale loc's.