Fine Tuning Peco Code 100

Fine Tuning Peco Code 100 Curved Switch Check Rails

Using brass shim on guard rail,..pretty clean installation.

Interesting observation about backing thru the turnout verses forward picking of the frog.

I have a bunch of PECO C100

I have a bunch of PECO C100 turnouts in my staging yard and wasn't aware that there were issues with flangeways on them. From things I could gather on the web, PECO C100 appeared to be the most reliable track to use.

It seems to me that nowadays you can't take any information at face value anymore. Meh.

Thanks for the link to that video.

When you bought Peco turnouts

When you bought Peco turnouts that were supplied with paperwork in the box they themselves said to glue .010 thou shims to the guard rails if you ran scale type wheels sets. I have shims in mine .010 thou in the older ones. These newer ones with out the adjustable spring tensioner have up to .020 thou. I also now make the guard rail longer so that the end is not almost opposite the tip of the frog. I found once I had the wheel set further over I wasn't getting the short problem as much from the two merging rails at the frog of insulfrog type turnouts.

Hope this helps Les

Thanks Les, that was very

Thanks Les, that was very interesting.

Adjustable springs tensioner: I was/am unaware of this feature?

Thicker shim: I was wondering if .015", or even .020" might be possible? This thicker profile might be self supporting as an extension off the leading edge?

Longer guard rail: I was giving that some considerations by possible letting the shim extend out from the leading edge of that guard rail. (maybe that speaks to metal shim?)

Use the NMRA guage

Just get some thin stock and use your NMRA guage to see what it takes to get the flangeway down to within NMRA standards.

@WEUSANDCORR

I don't see anywhere it says to shim the guard rails? These turnouts just come in those clear plastic pouches with a blue backing and only have basic details on the back.

Also, looking at PECO's instructions, I can't seem to find anything relating to guard rails in there either.

Is there another document that talks about this?

Thanks.

Not alone.

About ten years ago I discovered this problem on my own with my older CD 100 Pecos.  Don't remember anything about shims in the instructions.  I used 0.020" white Evergreen styrene cut into strips.  They are in a hidden staging yard so I didn't worry about appearance.

I've been using Peco medium

I've been using Peco medium Insulfrog code 100 turnouts since early 1970's. These new versions that come in the plastic sleeve do not have the same instructions printed. The paperwork that used to be in the cardboard box was changed also some time back from the original. I just went to the website which has been updated,  also with no reference to this mod. Could not find the full size printouts for turnouts there either which were very handy when track planning layout. Peco turnouts were made to run all sorts of wheels from European and British manufacturers. Deep and or thick flanges, bigger dia  etc. My initial problem was running Atlas SD24's and the RSD 4/5's they released a bit later on. Because of the small flanges they wouldn't stay on even though they were on standard according to the gauge. After doing the male thing, read the instructions last, I found out about shimming. It said if running scale wheels it may be necessary to place 010 thou shim in guard / check rail.area.

The spring tensioner was a feature of earlier turnouts that you just lifted the metal tabs a bit and you could push or pull back the spring cover  then push tabs down. It was real handy if you if you were side mounting the twin coil machines and the base also had spring. If you mount twin coil under and attached to turn out, there is another switch you could put between to change signals that had spring clips. Usually it was to much tension so you backed the turnout off

Cheers

Shim Experiments

One of the reasons I brought this subject up at this time is that I had been doing some testing on a custom double crossover arrangement that had one leg going off via a curved (dbl-curve I term it) Peco turnout. Upon exiting that curved turnout I sought for the track to enter a rt-hand turnout that would eventually feed a container port facility. I decided to experiment around to determine what size turnout this might be. Here are the 3 Peco options I was considering,..
 

 

1) Lg size Peco:
All of my locos would go thru this turnout, including the 2-10-4 Broadway T-1

2) Med size Peco:
The 2-10-4 would not go thru this without consistently derailing its first driver on the point of the frog. Several of my 4 driver axle driver steam locos also had problems here. The IHC 4-8-2 Mountain did NOT have a problem here ( I surmise that is probably due to its slight cookie-cutter flanged wheels).

3) Sm size Peco:
All steamers but the IHC mountain had problems here.

NOTE: None of the diesels had any problems with all 3 sizes, including the very small flanged 6 axle ones.

At first I was wondering if it was the 'S' curve coming off the curved Peco that might be the problem. But I had also been aware that some shimming of Peco guard rails had been tried successfully in the past,...might this solve a portion of my problem? Good time to experiment while I had this test bed set up.
 

I looked around for some plastic or metal strips I might utilize to conduct a few experiments. I found VERY limited materials either in my storage trailer, nor in the local stores. Remember I am looking for something probably .010” to .020” thick, by .040” to .060” tall.
1) Metal faced tape:
Why not multiple layers of metal-faced duckwork tape,...total failure
 
(metal tape on upper guide rail in photo, metal shim on lower guide rail )
 

2) Styrene strips:
I had some .015” thick strips but they were 1/4” tall, but then I found some Evergreen ladder strips, and some particular ones that were .020 x .040. I tried gluing these in to the flangeway of that Sm Peco (figured that if I could make the Smaller radii Peco work that would prove the effectiveness of this approach).

It did work, for all of the steamers except the 2-10-4. And the .020” thickness seemed to work also.
 

I had a problem getting the styrene strip to fully glue to the guard rail. You can probably see that its not fully bonded in its center portion. Need more careful gluing, and perhaps some better glue than the styrene bonding agent I used. I'm sure my old Tenax 7 would have done a better job. It was also tough to get the bonding solution on JUST the face between the guard rail and the styrene strip,...invariable some solution would end up on the outer side disrupting that nice smooth side.

NOTE !! I did discover something about the height of this shimming piece. When I first glued it in I paid particular attention to NOT let it be any higher that the other tops of the rails. As it turns out that was a little too low. When I popped it off and reglued it higher, it worked even better. I am now convinced this shim piece needs to be a bit taller than the adjacent rail, particularly for our very smalled flanged wheels on modern American equipment. Plus, this will not negatively affect matters as there are no portions of our locos or cars that project down this far directly adjacent to the inside rim of their wheels.
 

 

3) Metal strips:
Looking back at that video I posted early on I began to give more serious consideration to the metal shim idea. I had a .010” thick sheet of steel. Could I cut it into thin strips? I gave it a try with big thin snips, then had to reshape that little thin strip into a presentable shape,
 

I'm pretty much convinced that I want to go the metal shim route. But I was not finding a ready made strip of metal at first. Finally I have found two candidates from K&S
http://www.ksmetals.com/29.html
815020 & 815021

Both of these are 1/64” thick (.015”),...nice compromise between .010” & .020'.
One is 1/16” (.0625”) tall which would make it slight proud if its bottom edge were sitting on the tie plates. The other is 3/32” (.093”) tall which I figure would be sitting on a slight slot cut into the plastic ties/tie plates with a hand held cut-off wheel rubbed back and forth.

I purchased my shim material

I purchased my shim material from an engineering supply store here Australia. 

I have all medium insulfrogs and have had big boys, Y6b, 2 10 2 and 2 8 2 BLI's run through with no probs, So your findings are interesting. I see you have a mix of electro and insulfrog. I sand the brass so it's cross hatched and then superglue in. mines level or just under rail head enough that track cleaner doesn't catch

I sand the brass so it's

Two good points. 

Any details on your technique to get a clean superglue joint without applying excessive glue?

I guess since you are glueing them in you don't need the 'hooks' on either end?
Do you have some photos of yours??

No Peco's......

Brian, I don't have any Peco's on my layout but the guard rails look to be plastic? What about heating the guard rail up and tweaking it into position.  The guard rail looks tall enough that you could lay a metal strip against it, on top of the tie plates, (or even  cut notches out for the ties so  the strip extends down between the cribs)  heat it up with a soldering iron, tilt it over to desired  spacing...….just a thought...….. 

NMRA guage

Just to be sure, once you get an approach you like, double check the dimensions with the NMRA gauge.  It’s quite possible to have a turnout that’s out of gauge that works for some cars/locos but not others.  Checking with the NMRA gauge will make it less likely you’ll get a nasty surprise once you get more layout running and unpack more cars and locos.

With the plastic gaurd rail you could also slice it off completely and replace it with a piece of rail, bent/filed to fit properly.  It might be easier to get the right dimensions that way.  Just a thought.

K&S metal shims

I got a sample of each of these strips in, and I'm convinced that the smaller one is the one to use,...the part# 815020....1/64" thick, 1/16" tall.
 

Upon reviewing again this subject of problems with derails in Peco turnouts, I'm now pretty satisfied that the large size/radius Pecos are not so venerable to this derail problem. BUT the mediums and certainly the smalls are, particularly with steam engines. So now I am pretty much convinced that I will have to shim many of my Pecos.

I likely may have to do my 3-ways? Does anyone have particular experience with these??

"Both of these are 1/64”

Hi Brian, Did you check with a standards gauge to see how much the flangeway dimension is off? You don't want to get it too tight or the wheels will pop up when they run thru. With a minimum flangeway clearance you'll have to be careful with your rolling stock and make sure all the wheel sets are not too narrow on their back to back measurement. That's probably why Peco and other manufactures build in a little slack......DaveB

if it was me,

I'd go with a little thicker, then file it down if I proved it was too tight.  Just make sure you do the test right after installing the shim, before you've made the turnout inaccessible...

Blair

Variation in Gap?

I'm going to have to do a few measurements of these gaps in the stock turnouts,...I think I detected a variation in the gaps among the 3 different Peco sizes, and maybe in those of different manufacture dates.

And yes Blair, I thought about that situation with 'inaccessible turnouts' such as those multiple Medium size ones I plan on using in my ladders in the staging areas. 

Mass Production of Shimming

I'm getting ready to do a little 'mass production' of the shimming of my Peco turnouts on my layout,...certainly most of the tighter radius ones that my steam engines may have to traverse,...and thus that are inaccessible in staging areas. Tighter radius I am defining as the Code 100 Peco smalls, mediums, small wyes. 

I have decided to utilize .01" thick styrene material, and super glue it in place. I hope to find black styrene locally so I don't have to paint the ones on the upper decks.

As I reviewed a few of the discussions I had started on this subject of shimming, I discovered these 2 comments that I thought was very helpful,..
 

Peco guardrails

Years ago when I built my Buffalo Line I used Peco code 100 curved turnouts in a few of my staging yards for the ladder. Discovered that when backing long trains into the tracks that cars would derail at the frogs. So I measured the gap between the guardrail discovered that it was a bit too wide so I then got a small length of styrene about .010 less than that measurement. Been so long ago I do not remember the sizes. Anyway I would put the piece of styrene in the gap then using a pair of square nose line mans pliers gently squeeze between the rail and guardrail as the plastic they use is fairly soft . When the styrene spacers is tight I stop and remove the piece and the guardrail is now closer to the rail with no white styrene shim to deal with. You don't have to move the entire guard rail just the section directly across from the point of frog. Have never broken a  Peco doing this and 29 years later they are still in service with no derailments.  Nice thing is this can be done easily when the turnout is in place and ballasted !   ----------- Ken 

Re: Peco guardrails

Neat tip, Ken.  I'll have to try squeezing now that some of my styrene shims are deteriorating/loosening after 15 or so years of service.

Squeeze the guard rail over to close the gap?

So if I was intending to put a .01" shim in my gap, I would only have to move the guard rail over that amount?

I'm kind of leery of doing that on older plastic of older Pecos? Perhaps I should experiment??

I do have quite a number of curved (I call them double curved like Peco does) turnouts on my plan,..just worked out like that with a relatively small layout with lots of tracks. At first I thought I would not be using that many since the outer radius is something like 60 inches, but as I got into the full scale track planning mode, I grew to really appreciate their handiness. Being that both radi (60 & 30) were rather large I thought I might not need shims on them? Your posting has me second guessing,...

Guardrail gaps

I have a bunch of Evergreen styrene . So I found out what fit tightly in a non modified Peco . Then subtracted .010 from that and that's what I used as a spacer when I bend the guardrail. The line mans pliers I use have a fairly wide square jaw end . You only need to move the guardrail about .010 and only the portion leading up to the point of frog and the point. I've done Peco's that have been in place for over ten years and have yet to have a failure. ---  Ken 

Bending or "tilting" the

Bending or "tilting" the guardrail towards the through rail seems it might be easier than shimming, especially in N scale....  What sort of risk is there of destroying the turnout by tearing the guard rail loose? This spacing problem with PECO turnouts is a continuing issue on N trak modules, and shimming is a long-term but not permanent fix, as the shims eventually seem to work loose.

I'd be tempted to fold or solder brass strip or shim stock, , then if necessary file the thickness to the desired  thickness...   plastic will probably eventually get mashed too close, or develop a "groove" at the rail head(s). Worried a bit about the through rail moving, too...

Doesn't help the visual problem of their tie spacing, but that's aesthetic rather than functional.

If going the pliers route

If going the pliers route grab the outside of the sleeper and the check rail that way won't bend rail or rail keepers. The shim between is a good idea which I will try on a problematic one of mine at the end of my yard ladder. Length of the check rail is also a problem sometimes on older peco HO which is my scale