Which commercially available turnouts to buy?

If your not up to building your own turnouts as in Hand laid then go with the ME for quality and reliability.

Shinohara are nice and now they have their new DCC friendly turnouts But,  they failed me in that they are not dedicated to building turnouts or Track for that  matter and for two years you couldn't find their turnouts from what I understand Track and turnouts are not a primary function of their company where ME is dedicated to the Model Railroad industry.

ME Standards and quality are unequaled in ready to run as well as their rail is recommended by everyone because of it`s constant precision in scale and standards.

DAN

Since ME offers only #6 turnouts in HO, you may find that limits your track plan significantly. (Other turnout numbers have been rumoured, but I don't believe that they are available now)

Walthers/Shinohara C83 have sometimes been hard to find, but they seem to be more available lately. Walthers C83 offers probbaly the widest variety of different turnout sizes, wyes, curved turnouts, etc.

And of course, nothing says you can't mix them on a layout.

I have had good results with both Atlas Code 83 and Walthers DCC frinendly (Shinohara) Code 83 turnouts.  I use Atlas Code 83 flex track.  Digitrax DCC.

.....that a #10 turnout would be required. Having said that, how are BK Enterprises

turnouts as far as quality and reliability?

And yes, I will forward the info relative to Walthers/Shinohara product.

Thanks.

The BK enterprises components require signficant work -- they are not a complete "ready to use" turnout (with all the ties, etc.) like the others you mentioned.

Try Railway Engineering. Steve Hatch can build you anything and the turnouts are DCC friendly and you can get wood ties if you want--just ask for both. His turnouts are dead-on, handmade, reasonably priced and work perfectly.

www.railwayeng.com

John

I know that you are asking about commercial turnouts, and many are good as throughout this post, but if I may try to change your course, with a club layout and a handful of members, I would try to convince you to try FastTracks jigs. The material costs is about 6 bucks, plus the cost of the capital at about 150. But with a club layout, you may have up to 150 turnouts, so the costs become managable.  I have been modellling for about 35 years and just this year tried the jigs, and I will never purchase anouther commercial turnout again unless it is something specialized. If I was starting over I would also handlay all my track now as well. I rather enjoy the process and find it relaxing building turnouts  True, I only have a #6 jig, and that will cover me 100%. For a club you will want more options, so buy the commercial ones as other has suggested. Also from a running and relaibility standpoint, you just cannot beat a handmade turnout, and fasttrack makes this very easy. No I am not an employee, just an extremely satisfied customer that wandered into a whole new facet in this great hobby. Sorry if I derailed this post, but just thought another option had to be offerred. Goodluck.

Steve 

With hand laid turnouts entering the discussion I thought it appropriate to mention Joe's Fugate's method of building turnouts using Central Valley curve-able turnout tie strips.

CV Turnouts ala Joe Fugate

Go for hand laid whether CV or FastTrack jigs. Price is right, and the quality and performance of finished product will surpass any commercial made turnout. I found the learning curve to be about 4 turnouts and then I was 99% satisfied with my results. (There is always some room for improvement.)

Steve Raiford

I don't know if it is still true, but a friend who models in both HO and On3 built a wye for a module from a BK turnout kit.  It was really a beautiful piece, but when I asked him about it, he told me that BK was the turnout of choice for most O-scale modelers, and he was so busy building kits for the O-scalers that he did not build very much HO product.  This conversation was probably at least 10 years before Fast Tracks came into existance, so I don't know if it is still true now.