Turnout costs

  If you have to pay that much in Canada it would pay off to learn how to build your own turnouts or how to fix the one's that are not working. A hand built turnout only costs a few dollars for rail,ties,and spikes plus a few enjoyable hours learning the skills needed for the task....DaveB

Handbuilt turnouts

Whether Fast Tracks ( https://www.handlaidtrack.com/), Oak Hill ( https://ohrtracksupply.com/), or Joe's method of using Central Valley Tie Strips as templates ( https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/cvt-turnouts-the-joe-fugate-way-12185514), you should be working on handlaying your turnouts, particularly if you are having that many issues with commercial ones. 

Now... the original cost of the jigs is steep. I recognize that. I also happen to believe that Tim has made a _lot_ of these jigs over the years - which makes it more than a little likely that someone near you already owns what you need. The trick of finding them I leave up to you - I'm an NMRA Division Superintendent, and the AP Chair for the Division talked us (it wasn't hard) into buying a set of HO and N scale #6 turnout jigs. So any member of our division can make turnouts for the cost of the materials. Perhaps you can find a modeler local to you who already has the jigs you could borrow or rent? 

Turnouts

You can also build turnouts without buying jigs, just ties (which can be stripwood) and rail (scavenged from flex track).  I have almost 100 turnouts on my layout and have been building them for decades and haven't bought single jig.  If you only need 4 turnouts, buying commercial jigs is a pretty expensive way to go.

I have a handout for a clinic on switch building on my website:

https://wnbranch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Switches3.pdf

"You can also build turnouts

  Yeah, that's how I do it. I use old Atlas code 100 rail from flextrack bought used  and have bought bags of S scale ties at estate sales at an afford price. I learned turnout building long ago from a Jack Work article in MRR  mag....DaveB 

Rails to Trails

Tear up all your track and you can model a rails to trails bikepath!  

Turnout costs

I have been using components from Proto87 for some time. Check his website. I like his ready-built frogs, not having the skills/equipment to assemble them. And his throwbar system is reliable.

Worn out switches

I have some Atlas switches that are so old they say "Made in USA" on them, probably from the early 1990s, and still work fine. Sometimes the fat wheels we use can touch both rails at the same time causing a short, especially if out of gauge.  The track could also be slightly narrow letting the wheels touch both rails. One fix is a dot of dullcoat or nail polish on the rails just as they enter and exit the frog.  When the problem returns, reapply.

Paul

Go to Fastrack side for free printable template for turnouts

Fastrack offer numerous jig and tools for building semi handlaid  turnouts, saying is expensive or not,  is your feeling, so I will not enter in the debate.

And sure ready to run turnouts become to be expensive if you need some.

But you can also find on the Fastrack website, printable foot print of turnouts going from #4 frog to a #12 frog.

These free printable templates are extremly precise and You can use them as cheap template to build your turnouts.

On the MRH forum there are many post which show how to build precise turnouts with the Fastrack free printable turnouts foot print

Fastrack offer also free video's about "how to handlay turnouts"; they are excellent learning cursus to do build your own turnouts.

http://www.handlaidtrack.com

But if you are sure to build a lot of turnout or a minimal of 15 ones, a fastrack jig is a good option to build reliable turnouts in series in a quiet bargain price; these jigs are a lifetime investment.

.And if you go to this way, buy a crossover jig, because with this jig you can build left or right turnouts but also a crossover; Fastrack offer them with #6 number and #8 number.

Files  or a motor tool grinder are enough to prepare rails to build a turnout but Fastrack offer two magnificient tools, the frog tool and the point tool.

You don't need to buy a #6 and a #8 frog tool, buy directly a #12 frog tool, this one allow you to prepare rails for any frog from a #4 to a 12#

The point tool make in a minute a perfect point rail.

It's sure the fastrack system and offer has open the possibility to build quiet easily your own turnouts; If you look at the post many are using jigs or the fastrack method to build a turnout.

Anyway congrats for your module and good luck for his future extension.

Good suggestions - Thanks everyone!

Thanks for all the suggestions guys! But I don't have the wear-with-all to build my own turnouts..yet. I mean we can't do everything in this hobby right? However i've gone from a common rail wiring system with 10 - 15 blocks when I was 15 (47 now!!) to just a simple buss and feeder so I guess I have room for another skill! However...I do have a bag of scale sized ties given to me years ago from Bob Winterton (Superior Northern). If you look at my late addition photo of the scene on my layout, in the bottom left corner there are some of them! Bob lays his own track, which I should start out with as flex comes in at $9/per (I remember recently $3/per - dating myself), but he doesn't build his own switches. 

As for repairing them. I have CA'd the rails to the ties past the points where I stupidly cut the rail upon re-entry to the hobby 12 yrs ago now, and that was a bit of a fix. But I dug out a Tony Koester article about reparing turnouts that seems helpful. He basically tears them apart and rebuilds so that could be a good starting point in not only repair but assembling a turnout directing me to build new ones. 

Fact is..poor planning on my part as much as I love track planning. I should have laid the turnouts first, not touch them and cut the track around them! 

@ircman2003

Thanks for this. A really good option. At the end of the day though, is it cost effective? Or should I go the Full Monty and invest in another turnout?

@marc and @jeffShultz

Fast Tracks is a good option too! Thanks for that. I generally stick with #6 turnouts modelling branch lines.
I have a motor tool but I keep breaking the discs! And also, even clamping the rails, I find the code 83 ties keep breaking with the pressure. You can tell track laying isn't one of my finer skills in the hobby!!

@rjrizzo

"Tear up all your track and you can model a rails to trails bikepath!"  

No joke. I've always wanted to model an abandoned scene..although I do want a working railroad.
Pelle Soeberg who writes frequently in Model Railroader (remember that mag..speaking of $$ it's $10.99 here for a flyer sized magazine you can read what you want in an evening and with what a friend says snippets from a Walthers catalogue), anyway Pelle says he models realistic scenes tha "happens to have trains in them". Oh to make money from this hobby.

@kjd

Have you ever moved your Atlas turnouts? I have moved a few 3 times! From an original layout then I moved my yard throat back. Now I had a suggestion from my shop to just 'float' the turnouts if you want to re-use them. I won't glue them down anyway. Did they have code 83 back in early 90's with the USA made ones? Thanks for the dullcoat, I don't have nail polish fix. 

Good stuff guys! cheers. 

@Dave Husman Nice guide

@Dave Husman
Nice guide

Moving switches

My Atlas turnouts have been part of at least 3 layouts and the area in the current layout that uses the Atlas switches is in at least the 3rd arrangement.  It is a complicated junction that has been rearranged for better traffic flow. I have never ballasted them down though, they have been in staging/off scene areas.  

Maybe you could relay the Atlas parts onto new ties.  I feel your pain though, most of the Atlas flex track for my first real layout was $.99 a piece.  Maybe a new battery technology will come along that doesn't use nickel.

Paul

....

No, we can't...but if we don't do it, then we have to pay for it.  It's the tradeoff.  Either we learn to build turnouts, or we pay a premium for a turnout that works.

My local club saved about $10,000 on the new layout by building instead of buying, and we built them in place on flex track where the turnout diverting rail was cut from the rail.  Time is money, though, lots of people spent a lot of time building those turnouts and then making them better after finishing them.  Some had to be rebuilt, almost all had to be fine tuned.  We're not going back and adding frog juicers because it does make them function that much better.

Atlas turnouts v Micro Engineering

Another thing to point out about Atlas turnouts..i'm slowly replacing them as they don't have the spring action that ME has. And being a small layout I hand throw the switches. I've seen photos of lovely layouts..very realistic looking, etc but they have those awful Caboose Industry hand throws that are not only over sized (some use N scale - whether they work or not) but are not prototypical in design even if they were to scale. What I did was remove the actual throw arm and use the base to give the points strength, covering the base of the switch up with weeds and so forth, and hand throw the points with, in my case, a CN target which also draws attention to what's hiding in the weeds.

So I rescued the turnout from my bin and I'm going to give it a go. I've got another spur to reconnect where the engine doesn't actually operate over so it could be a good starting point for turnout repair. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

Brad

Fast Tracks site for Printable Turnouts

Yep, Fast Tracks has 'em.  NMRA also has downloadable templates.  Somebody mentioned Oak Hill also.  I don't know about downloadable templates from them, but here's what I recently accomplished.  Unfortunately no photos.

Our club layout has a steel mill I'm building, and I needed a turnout on a long, narrow, elevated ramp to put ore, limestone, and coke cars up on the "bins" with.  Because of the narrowness of the ramp, any "conventional" turnout  less than a #10, or less than a #6 wye, would shoot the divergent route off at too steep an angle to keep it on the elevated ramp.   

So, I used 2 Fast Tracks templates and left over Oak Hill rails and PCB and wood ties to hand build a #7 wye turnout with a #4 wye lead-in throat to the #7 frog and #7 point/closure rails.  The #4 wye template was cut 3 ties short of the frog, then grafted (taped) into position on the #7 template.  That altered Fast Tracks template was then fastened to a suitable surface, and the Oak Hill PCB ties spiked into position.  The Oak Hill rails were then soldered into position according to the Fast Tracks template. 

There was some adjusting of the Oak Hill rails to the Fast Tracks template, but only a minor amount, nothing major.  Oak Hill rails, frog, and guard rails are pre-cut for Oak Hill templates, but worked just fine.  Attention MUST be paid to where and how the point rails move in against the stock rails, depending on what you are actually creating.  Because I used a #4 lead running up to a #7 frog, filing of the rail bases and rail heads was required for the (long #7) point/closure rails to fit properly against the (short #4) stock rails.

Once all the proper rails were soldered into position on the PCB's, gaps were cut where needed in the PCB ties and rails, flextrack added to the lead and divergent routes, it was jumpered off of the layout, and the mill's SW9 switcher and ore cars successfully worked back and forth looking for problems. 

The frog wasn't quite in the best position, so it and it's rails and guard rails had to be unsoldered and moved about 3/64", the point of the from filed down from razor sharp, and tested again.  This time it passed muster. 

Yellow painters tape was slit lengthwise into 2 narrow strips, then the strips fastened to the template sticky side up.  Then the wooden ties were correctly positioned on the yellow tape on template, followed by masking tape applied to the tops of the wooden ties, so that they could be lifted off the template as a "unit" and properly positioned on the ramp on the layout.  They were glued into place last night on the ramp (ramp was smeared with white glue), and after about an hour for the glue to begin to set, the yellow tape very carefully peeled off, and the actual turnout placed into position to check alignment of the wooden ties.  By golly, it fit perfectly!  I then removed the turnout, placed the original build board onto the ties, and carefully put several bins of wood screws onto the build board to weight it down.  I'll check it this coming Thursday.

Cost?  Zero.  The Fast Tracks templates were free.  All the Oak Hill rails, PCBs, and ties were left overs.  I did have lots of kibbitzers and advisors looking over my shoulder, but, hey, some of the advice was worth the torment!

Keep the greasy side down!

@minetrain

Thank you for your detailed 'tutorial' and explaining your turnout process. The 0 cost is defintely of interest and i'll follow your instructions eventually to the letter. Right now, for me, it's 'Horse and Buggy' thinking.  

Question, i've never seen anyone put a turnout on a hill assuming it's a pretty steep grade. No problems with derailments? 

Thanks again,

Brad

The cost of "economies"

Your post is interesting because it underlines a thing many people have a hard time to understand: when you are poor, you can't afford to be cheap. You have to make wise choices. In this case, to downsize, which is a relevant idea.You can even let the old turnout there until you can replace it, the diverging route being temporarily closed.

And that brings me to another point: purchasing a cheap turnout and then a replacement one cost much more than purchasing a good one from the start. I recall doing the same thing than you years ago, buying Atlas... Then coming to my sense. I elected to purchase PECO (can be obtained at the same price as ME in Canada BTW) and to use them sparingly for more efficient design. No regrets. By the way, be aware ME turnouts aren't bullet proof. A lot of defects out of the box. I purchased about 5 of them last year for a project and found out 3 had faulty throwbar. This issue is well-documented.

Thanks for sharing your story!