Switching in the Yard

This slide was taken for my article on DIY magnetic uncouplers. The image used in that article is very tightly cropped; this full-frame version shows off the TH&B boxcar that I painted and lettered myself (at the time, I was unaware that Micro-Trains had released a boxcar in that scheme). The RS-1 was also painted in my shop. And I've documented the weathering technique used on the Keershaw tie crane in the background. (By the way, just beind the tie crane, out of sight, is the layout's oldest detail.)

One reason I like this image is that it highlights the beauty of the old Railcraft flex track. In the foreground is Code 55 flex. Middleground and distant background are bits of two Micro Engineering Code 55 turnouts. Under the Keershaw tie crane is Railcraft Code 40 flex; you can see the transition between rail weights just above and to the right of the brakeman's head.

The turnouts in the yard received a considerable amount of special treatment. Except for the points and frogs, all of the rails were carefully extracted from every turnout; lengths of Code 55 flex were partially stripped such that the free rails could pass all the way through the turnouts. By this means the rail joints were reduced to an absolute minimum, and by the time I was done the entire yard throat was all one piece of track (an aerial view of the throat provides an idea of the complexity of this single chunk of trackwork).

Turnouts were all actuated with manual rod linkage. Long lengths of brass tubing ran from the turnouts to the layout edge, where metal pushpins were bonded to the tubing ends. T-shaped steel spring wires were fixed to the other ends of the tubes by inserting the vertical part of the T into the tube and crimping it. One side of each end of the T top threw the points, and the other engaged a microswitch, which powered the frogs. Everything was embedded just below the surface of the extruded polystyrene foam insulation benchwork.

Note that the boxcar has a body-mounted Micro-Trains Nn3/Z coupler, while the locomotive has a standard M-T coupler. The photo is not a mistake, nor does it reflect an "impossible" situation; the magnetic uncoupler article describes how they can actually function together on the same layout.

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