Would someone assist and tell me the mfr and type of track this is?
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It was made by Bob Peare Engineering in the 1950's.
I love looking at those old catalogs.
@Bob posted:It was made by Bob Peare Engineering in the 1950's.
I use the same method of spring-loaded switches described on page 20 of the Peare Engineering catalog to perform reverse looping without using a switch machine. It's a tremendously reliable and easy-to-do technique. I rarely see this used in practice nowadays.
Thank you Bob and Bruce. I have some 20 feet of the flex track and two LH turnout that someone else can probably make better use out of than me.
"Inside third rail causes more confusion than any other type of trackage." There is prophetic quote out of the catalog. 
Great history and I too enjoy these old catalogs.
I have had some in O and S and it wasnt bad
That guy made some neat stuff. Those lever rheostats are cool I wonder if any still exist....
Operate switches using automobile choke cables (available for about 30 cents). Man that's old school.
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@Bruce Brown posted:I use the same method of spring-loaded switches described on page 20 of the Peare Engineering catalog to perform reverse looping without using a switch machine. It's a tremendously reliable and easy-to-do technique. I rarely see this used in practice nowadays.
Bruce, I too use spring loaded points and free floating points on dozens of switches.
About $0.10 worth of material for positive control of any turnout.
Been working for my reverse loops for about three years now.
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Tom Tee. Can you give a little more information on those spring loaded switches. Like how they are setup. I have one or two bad switches that I'd like to try it out on.
Look closely at the photo and you will see what I believe is .052" size K & S spring wire with a "Z" bend in the throw bar and it is spiked against the stock rail 7 ties back on the near side of the Ross turnout.
There is an unused "Z" bend in the back end of the spring wire as an example.
Place the spikes at a point where the amount of spring just securely moves the points against the stock rail but not so strong that it derails any pilot wheels. Check all steamers. Some pilot springs are weaker than others.
I picked up an assortment of spring wires at Nick Smith's on the first floor in the toy shop.
Disregard the yellow thumb tack, I use them to designate wire circuits at installation.
Simple.
So when the locomotive is coming one way it'll take the straight route and then on the way back the wheels will just push through the control rail and we'll just keep springing back and forth is each wheel passes through. I think I got it. Thank you Tom.
Tom, Well yes, and no. The spring wire can be placed on either side...and this particular switch in the above photo is an 11 degree wye. There are a pair of 11 degree wyes for a mid route passing siding in a rather long loop to loop 3 rail top level.
When all you are doing is cycling through balloon loop to balloon loops, returning from loop to loop you may not even need a spring. My 3 rail trains all run self managing, loop to loop using some Ross uncontrolled switches .
A switch with no motor and no spring with full floating points can just be left to respond to which ever direction the next set of wheels coming from the frog roll in. I have 52 switches with points that just float.
Due to the pattern I have of walking around with my trains I finger flip the points when I approach towards a frog point.
Having built too large of a RR for one person and being one who does not have that much time to work on the layout, I bypassed many steps just to get trains running. In the process I still have a case full of Tortoise switch machines which may or may not ever get installed.
Be careful about scheduling to do something at a later date, w/o an involved spouse that "later" may just never happen. Tomorrow never really comes, it only becomes today and because your schedule is packed full, today becomes yesterday and anything left to history frequently gets left unchanged.
One word of caution, if you elect to use full floating points, check for full point closure any time you have a work session and hammer bump on the bench work. The points can move away from the stock rail!
Also while pulling a train over sprung points do not change direction until the last car clears. Sprung points reset after each wheel set passes which would cause a........
Here is how I do it using compression springs. Same end result as Tom was explaining but using a different type of spring...
Thank you Bruce. Totally added to Tom Tee's explanation.
@Bob posted:It was made by Bob Peare Engineering in the 1950's.
If you cut the link down to just, http://www.s164.org there is a lot more interesting and informative info on that site including a 1952 Peare catalog. You will have to copy that shorter address into google and do a search then several page links to the site will come up. If you don't do it this way the site will/ may block entry. j
thank you for sharing
