b6 Atlas Switch Jumping

Not necessarily the answer your looking for but, I had a similar issue with some Railking passenger cars over the straight section of a  Fastrack switch.

I temporarily  resolved it with some sticky foam. I'll upgrade to a more permanent fix like styrene or wood as you have mentioned. Regardless,  it works like a charm.

If sticky foam is the same thing as the adhesive weather stripping I have a lot of (and need a use for), then this is an answer I didn't know I needed haha thanks!

Atlas switches have a plastic insert that you get with the newer ones that fills that gap.  I had the same issue with the Lionel Legacy Lionmaster T1 Duplex.  The Atlas switch finally bent the roller so far that I decided to remove that one and run a tether between the locomotive and tender to share those rollers.  Only certain rollers seem to fall off the Atlas switches.

That's also why Ross switches seem so "busy" with all the extra rails and bent rails.

My same locomotive drops on almost all my Atlas turnouts, and I have all the plastic inserts installed.  The rollers falls off the center rail either just past that insert, or in the direction the insert doesn't help with.  Now that I have a cheap 3D printer, my plan is to remove all the Atlas installed inserts on the turnouts and then design and print my own that I will drop in.  I also have not turnout places that rollers off off of, like my Lionel DD35A will always drop it's rear most pickup roller off of the center rail on O72 curves.  The only thing that helped was to switch which axle had the blind driver, but then because Lionel used metal wheels on blind drivers (While MTH uses plastic.) it shorts out on any turnout's divergent path.

@sinclair when you say "My same locomotive", are you referring to the original poster's Lionel Legacy B6, a diesel, or ??

I also own a Legacy B6 and love it.  I'm in the process of deciding between Atlas O36 and Ross switches.  This thread gives me a lot of concern.  I'm not going to customize a bunch of switches.  If the supplied plastic inserts still won't allow the B6 to run reliably that I'll start bugging @RCSSTEVE to make his excellent switches in O36 again!

Timely thread.  Very, very slowly, I've started digging my locos and rolling stock out and running them on the new layout.  All Atlas O72 switches (no plastic inserts).  So far only the PT Tender cannot make it through 1 switch... it diverges fine but cannot pass straight through without the roller getting stuck.  I cannot visually see that it is any different than the other switches?  I'll check the roller this weekend and grab some weather stripping out of the shed.

Thanks for the problem Bill!  And, thanks for the answers guys...  I bookmarked this thread!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Atlas switches have a plastic insert that you get with the newer ones that fills that gap.

This was a used purchase so that explains why I'm missing this critical step.

@Ted S posted:

I also own a Legacy B6 and love it.  I'm in the process of deciding between Atlas O36 and Ross switches.  This thread gives me a lot of concern.  I'm not going to customize a bunch of switches.  If the supplied plastic inserts still won't allow the B6 to run reliably that I'll start bugging @RCSSTEVE to make his excellent switches in O36 again!

I have some Ross switches and a b6 and I really like them both haha I wanted a Ross 036 but I thought they didn't make one so I settled for a used Atlas. This is a temporary layout so it's all good. See below for the solution.

@sinclair posted:

  Now that I have a cheap 3D printer, my plan is to remove all the Atlas installed inserts on the turnouts and then design and print my own that I will drop in.

I considered this but I had an operating session with a friend in about an hour. I ended up snipping a piece of Plastruct angle iron off a long scrap piece I had. I hot glued it to the ties. Bam! Problem solved. Had a great time teaching my friend how to drive the b6 with Legacy and then had a good time running trains together.

@Dennis-LaRock posted:

Thanks for the problem Bill!  And, thanks for the answers guys...  I bookmarked this thread!

I wish I could hear people thanking me for problems more often! I used just get blamed for problems I didn't cause. "Look out kid, don't matter what ya did" haha

So basically I didn't know the new-in-the-box Atlas switches came with the necessary hardware to alleviate this issue. I solved it with a piece of Plastruct angle iron and some hot glue because time was of the essence haha