turnouts....

I've had a few questions about my turnouts and how I power route them. I'll try to answer this as best as I can. First of all, most of the turnouts were built will a fast tracks jig, although a few were handbuilt with wood jigs and paper templates. The turnout control is SUPER simple, but hard to explain. I wanted to power my frogs on the turnouts, but I didn't want pay bukoo bucks for the Tam Valley Juicers or tortoises. So, I went to an electrical supply place and found DPDT slide switches for 25 cents each. To begin with, I first put a hole in the homosote next to the throw bar of the turnout big enough for the switch to fit in and I also drilled a 1/2'' hole through the underlying plywood in which I dropped the feeders from the switch. The side tabs of the switch are connected to the power bus depending on your track feeder system. For mine, the white wire is the inside rail, so the side tab closest to the side of the layout is connected to the white bus. Outside tab to black bus. The middle tab is connected to the frog. I mount the switch with wire nails and cover it with a piece of styrene. I then drill a hole in the side of the switch and fit a straightened paper clip in it and solder the other end to the throw bar. Once this is all done, I add the headblock ties and make a target to make it look more realistic. It takes about 20 minutes to build one of these.

Here's the final product. In the future I'll add more pictures that follow the construct process.