Have purchased some 222 Std. Ga. switches. They have an unusual track pin location. There is a pin on the center rail and a pin on the outer rail, with no pin on the opposite outer rail. The opposite rail on the opposite end has a pin. This is not the same layout as what is seen in the present 3 rail trackage. Anyone have any ideas? Please advise as to this unusual pin placement. Thanks in advance.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
For the 222 switches it makes no difference where the track pins are located, just make sure where each piece of track is connected to the switch there are three pins there. 2 to 1, 3 to 0, 1 to 2, 0 to 3.
Now when you buy 223 (non-derailing) switches that's a different story.
Ron M
H1C, to expand a little on what ron is saying,
New tubular tinplate track comes with 3 pins in one end and none in the other. After assembling and disassembling track a number of times, some of the pins may stay put, and others may come out of the original piece and stay in the other piece. So we have a phenomenon we can maybe call "random pin migration". 
The same will be true for switches: a used switch or piece of track may have various pins in the ends of various rails, but it's random and any apparent pattern is actually meaningless.
When you put it back together, you may have to remove or install pins so that every track section-to-section joint (including switches) has all three pins, one in each rail. There is a special track pin pliers that can be handy for this.
There are several reasons why you may want to replace one or more of the steel pins with insulating fiber (plastic) pins, but as ron says, that's another story. But whether steel or insulating, you want to have all three pins at each joint.
I go into all this because I think I know where you're coming from. My brothers and I grew up with my dad's 1920's standard gauge, and we set it up a couple times a year on the floor in the attic, using the old track clips to hold the sections together. We didn't know about "random pin migration", so we always had to look for a track section with a matching pattern of pins. Needless to say, this unnecessarily limited our layout plan options.
Maybe I did not make myself perfectly clear on the pin location. In the rails where there are no pins, there are also no crimp marks to retain the pins. Therefore the factory never put pins in these locations, or crimped the rails to hold pins. Maybe there was a pin layout prior to the present 3 pins at one end? Kindly advise.
Maybe I did not make myself perfectly clear on the pin location. In the rails where there are no pins, there are also no crimp marks to retain the pins. Therefore the factory never put pins in these locations, or crimped the rails to hold pins. Maybe there was a pin layout prior to the present 3 pins at one end? Kindly advise.
Like I said before it doesn't make a bit of difference where the pins are located the ONLY thing that is important is that there are three pins connecting the track to each end of the switch. There are a total of nine pairs of rails and each pair MUST have a pin to connect them. For a Lionel 222 switch it doesn't make any difference if the pin is in the switch rail OR in the track rail, BUT there must be a pin there connecting the two pieces.
Ron M
New tubular tinplate track comes with 3 pins in one end and none in the other.
The rail ends that had the pins from the factory will show crimp marks. The rail ends without the pins from the factory will not have crimp marks.
There is no "pin layout", and any apparent pattern is actually meaningless. All rail joints have pins. If you are missing some, put them in.
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
