Anyone here have a "fake" turnout for a siding on their layout?

ABSOLUTELY! I HAVE DONE THIS TWICE WITH GREAT RESULTS. USING WEEDS AND GROUND COVER YOU CAN HIDE ALL THE IMPERFECTIONS OR MISSING SWITCH DETAILS, AND NO ONE BUT YOU WOULD KNOW! ILL POST AN EXAMPLE SOON

No, but do have a real turnout into a fake layout.

 

A fictitious interchange with the READING RR. 

Like pennsyk4, I plan to have two switches to "nowhere" off my Class 1 main line, itself, a short stretch only good for switching, as the main layout is devoted to the short line. Those switches will have their points locked to prevent giving expensive locos flying lessons, and represent interchanges with the Mopac and Rock Island.

I have a used, beat up and broken Ross switch that I plan on using for that idea. I'll pull some of the rails out and leave the ties on the siding. Rust up those rails,and burry it in dirt and weeds. I wouldn't buy another switch to use, but since I already have a junker.....might as well use it some how. 

Yes I did it for extra parking between operating siding sections. I cut the rails on an angle to look like they tie into the feeder line then ballasted extra high, completely covered the ties, to look like sidings not used much. Once you park cars and extra engines on these sections no one ever looks closely at the switch point that is not there.

Yes, for about two years I had a fake turnout just like that, although made with Atlas track, not Gargraves.  I also had some overgrown vegetation and all around it which helped hide its fake nature.  I removed it to replace with something else but it was a great little area and the fake turnout looked great.

It might be easier to buy a old used Gargraves switch from a forum member or on E-bay.  Don

Back in the mid-90s, I built a 5x9 layout to run at the LA County Fair, joint venture between Lionel and The Toy Train Shop that I managed. Since the purpose of the layout was to demonstrate starter and medium sets, I used 042 and 054 027 track, 2 loops on the bottom and an elevated upper loop. I cut in 2 fake turnouts for accessory operation. With the larger radius 027 track and some simple landscaping made a nice low cost hi-rail layout that we let kids run.

I do have one, on the GarGraves S-gauge portion of my layout.  Only one visitor so far has noticed the fraud.

I have a fake siding with no turnout. It extends from a bumper to my imagination. I use it for a "stage" for my AF Oil Drum Loader.

No, but I can see your logic behind this move.

That is a great idea  I have an Atlas switch that has been scavenged for parts and that would be a perfect use for it.

 

Art

Sort of. On our museum layout we have a siding that uses an old Lionel 022 switch that doesn't work and isn't connected. The siding is a static exhibit of a prewar magnetic crane unloading sheet metal from a gondola behind the tinplate Lionel factory. We had lots of old junk switches lying around, and there was no reason that we would ever operate trains on the siding, so rather than use a working switch, we installed a junker. 

I have seen this used on a Xmas display in Woodbridge nj.  I liked the idea so much I have incorporated three of these for scenic and/or storage.  An inexpensive way to create interest in my opinion.

I have a long stub siding. I removed the switch for something else and just installed a bumper. No one really notices the stub siding has bumpers at each end.

I have several sidings not connected to any operating track.  If put in hard to see areas they are perfect to make a yard looks bigger and to show off more cars, locos, and such

I have a fake siding on my small O27 layout and had a switch but was having trouble pulled it out and left the track and bumper. 

I have seen this at the miniature railroad and village in Pittsburg. I plan to do this on my layout.

I had done this a few years ago on an old layout (between the Chesssie caboose and Pennsy SD45) 

 

Well, I haven't done it....yet.  But it's in my plans to do so.

 

On an earlier thread I commented that my first visit to Roadside America in PA when I was a lad in the early 1950's, I had that epiphonal experience of seeing sidings that had fake switches.  Cars parked at industries, never to be picked up.  It made no sense to someone who thrived on throwing the two levers of his pair of O-22 switches on his simple layout.  Dad explained it to me...for a big display layout, where having trains just run continuously was the only necessity to hold the crowd's interest, 'fake' switches were easy and logical. 

 

Many moons later, after achieving adulthood and moving to Meeeeshigan, I encountered the same technique at the now-defunct Train Barn outside of Portrage, MI.  But this time it made sense, gave a lot of the scenic vignettes 'purpose', and it was well done. 

 

I visited a layout in Denver a few years ago during the national TCA convention there.  There was a separate peninsula that featured a dozen or more action accessories and their complementary cars.  The actuation buttons were close by, so visitors (call us 'Kids'!....) could play.  Knowing that the car-accessory relationship can be critical...exact location of the car relative to the device, the optimal operating voltage level, etc....keeping the car permanently spotted on a fake siding can be a great idea.  I recall one person's recommendation for optimum performance of one of the most cantankerous car/accessory combinations of all, the 3656 cattle car/pen.  He had found that the vibration of the car and of the stock pen each required different voltages for optimum performance....something that, once tuned in, would certainly lend itself to permanence....or a fake siding switch.

 

All in all, I think it's a great idea and relatively easy to do credibly.

 

But, that's just MHO, of course

 

KD