Atlas O Switches and Scale Wheels

Hi Larry.

We have one down at the club and I'll run some tests Saturday. As I recall, the problem with the Atlas turnouts wasn't the gap on the guard rails, but their height. I thought I had read that they were actually too low to pick up the flange and keep the wheels away from the tip of the frog.

We have discussed this exact subject MANY, MANY times here. But, again, all you need to do is glue thin styrene ON THE TOP of the guard rails, in order to make the guard rail the SAME HEIGHT as the running rail. Then paint them to match your weathered track. 

Checked the Atlas turnout and the guard rails are way too low. You'll need to add strips of styrene to the tops as Hot Water referenced. The guard rails on Ross turnouts are also lower than rail head but not by as much.

Thanks Matt....I'll try some styrene and see what happens for me.

I agree that the use of styrene on the top of the guard rail is helpful. I also had problems with "some" cars when the switch was set for the diverging route. So I ran some tests and carefully inspected the cars that had problems. They were almost all Atlas cars, most of them early  cars. What I found was that, in a significant number of instances, the LATERAL play of one or more wheel sets in the Atlas trucks would not allow them to "follow the car and the truck" into the turnout. I don't know what the maximum amount of lateral wheel play should be, but certainly 1/8"+ is far too much. Ideally, they should be "as snug as possible and still roll freely".

Atlas sent me some replacement trucks that would not install on their earlier cars...in fact, they sent two different types and neither would fit without drastically altering the height of the car such that LARGE coupler shims would be required.....

The trucks on these cars are made of what I would generously describe as "pot metal" and several bolsters broke. With this failure mode and the failures of the Atlas couplers which resulted in my cabooses becoming a target, I have sworn off Atlas products.

I have found lateral wheel play on different engines and cars to be highly variable. I have a 90's MTH switcher that's tight as a drum and a 2013 PS3 that just sloppy. Easily ±0.125. Cars also vary including wheel spacing which should NOT be variable. Hence variable performance through switches on occasion. Although I don't like the bedside manner of his post I will take Mr. Water's advice and research past posts on the subject. I have a big expansion coming up that involves a lot of switches. Definitely some shims here and there will be required.

S