Gargraves turnouts

IMHO you get what you pay for. I had bad experiences with gg switches. Spend the $$ and buy Ross. Much better made and is not that much more expensive than gg switches. Cars will glide over Ross switches compared to the bounce on gg.

I too would say to go with Ross switches if you have any MTH engines on your layout. Gargraves switches and MTH engines are not a good mix.

 

However with both Gargraves and Ross switches check the electrical connections of the track rails as some switches don't carry power through the center rails to the other side. Gargraves have plastic rails on one side and when using them back to back will cause an engine to stall because of NO outer rail power.

 

Lee Fritz

I have a few #104 manual

they work fine.

 

They are not the ones with the flate plate points.

 

I buy what I can get a deal on.

I have over 70 Gargraves switches on my layout, running all of the different brands of loco's including MTH!! I personally have not had any issues with mine, been in use for 10 years now. Of course the Ross are probably better, but I have had good luck with my GG switches.

 

Jeff

I can only speak to my experience. I had 042" gargraves switches on our first layout in 2000 and they weren't very reliable. Lots of derailments.

I would spend the extra and go with Ross switches.

 

Over the years any area that had high traffic had the gargraves turnouts replaced with Ross.  As others have said Ross provides flawless operation each and every time.  I will say that the gargraves #100 turnouts are much better performers. 

I use  GG and Ross.

Ross on the mainline were they will get heavy constant use and a pounding.

GG for the most part are fine....some early ones less so.....but newer and current are a good deal.

I have 25 MTH locos, and some 50 Gargraves O-72 and 100" turnouts.  No problems.  Many years ago I tried O-42 and was not happy.  Over the years, they have had many styles of points.

I need 042 switches on my layout due to size of the layout, 031 is too small and not much in 036. Wish I could use a larger diameter switch but not enough room for it. 

 

Almost any brand of engine works with my Gargraves 042 switches except MTH. 

So I am going with Ross switches on my new layout.

 

Lee Fritz

My layout is an old GG construction, with a Ross Yard Set. I like both products.

 

- the GG switches - 0-100's - have always worked fine (at least as well as any model RR      ever does).

 

- I have never see any "plastic rails" on a GG switch; what does this even mean?

 

- both older (flat "plate" in the switch middle-rail area) and newer (double rails in the  

  center area) seem to work equally well - except occasionally an engine dropped a roller

  between the double-rail newer set-up; no problem unless it was the only roller in contact due to trackwork. Easy fix. Happened in only one spot with one switcher.

 

- there was some "banging" on a couple of mainline GG switches; turned out it was a loco problem, as only 2 Williams steamers (scale 4-6-4 and sub-scale Blue Goose) did it. Their roller frames were pointed on the leading edge. Moto-Tool fixed that; smoothed them.

 

- I have never noticed any problem with GG and MTH locomotives.

 

- I would build my next layout (if ever) with GG/Ross. But the shiny chrome has to go. 

I don't think the double rail version is the newest.  They're back to flat plate again.  FYI, Gargraves will furnish flat plates to modify the double rail models.

 

I have one ancient Gargraves that the curved outer rails become the center rails when thrown.

We have both versions, and they both seem to work fine. The only thing I have against the "rails" version is that the pivot point looks fragile to me. But I have not seen any of them fail either. The older Gargraves version with the blackened "flat plate" points is nothing but trouble; stay away from that one (they are no longer made, but show up on the secondary market sometimes). O-72 and O-42 switches have a very large plastic frog with a narrow channel for the flange to pass through. We have a lot of equipment which visibly climbs up as it goes through those frogs, yet this is mostly a matter of it looking (and sometimes sounding) bad. We have not had derailments in them, and we do sometimes run pretty fast through those switches. I should note that we run Lionel, prewar to present, and some K-line. We don't have any MTH locos.

 

Overall, I would still say, if you can afford it, go with Ross, but if you can get a deal on Gargraves, they will work just fine.

I have the older GG switches and after a little rail tweeking when installed they have been very reliable for over 30 years.

I had the older Gargraves switches on my last layout for over 10 years. It was a switching layout. I only had to do some slight tweaking maybe once a month or every other month. It shouldn't discourage you from buying GG, c'mon real railroads even need to do track maintanence!

 

Tom

 

- I have never see any "plastic rails" on a GG switch; what does this even mean?


On the 42, the converging rails have plastic frogs...and no pin connection.

I like MTH Turnouts...the auto selecting is awesome
But, I follow my trains, so I like to operate manually.

Ross seems to be nice, but I prefer to put my budget into the Train.
After all, when I am railfanning, I do not go to watch the track.

Early GG switches had stamped points, later issues had cast points. I have the early GG and the larger radii are okay. The 042 aren't very good. The guard rails are too far away from the rails and incorrectly placed to be effective. Lot's of derails at the frog when trains going through the diverging route. I made new guard rails to fix it and that worked, but I won't buy anymore of their 042 switches, just too much trouble.

I would test what I plan on running.  Ross looks and works great. That being said, I run immediate postwar, and the triangle of rails that serve as pickup turns Ross switches into automatic decoupling sections for coil couplers. I use Gargraves O-42 & O-72s. I did have an old stock GG O-72 that gave me problems but the newer one behaves flawlessly. On the other hand, the engine for my Hogwarts Express consistently derails on one of my Gargraves. 99% of what I run has coil couplers, so the Hogwarts runs on one of the loops without turnouts. Maybe I'll trouble shoot it someday.

Dashster, a tip of derailing.  The pilots of a few steam locos started regularly derailing on a 20+year old Gargraves 100" switch.  I found that the front wheels of one of the locos had spread apart slightly, but I also found that the years of heavy steam locos pound that switch had affected its gauge, causing the outside rails to come slightly closer together, forcing the pilot to derail on the frog, notwithstanding the presence of the guard rail.  Lightly bending the rail completely cured derailing.  I used a micrometer and found the rail had shifted 1 or 2 mm.

Yep rjr, stapleing tin rail to corrugated plastic does take its toll on a switch hence the multiple posts above on not to use the gg switches on the main line.

The plastic part is from where the track splits to the end of the rail on the curved section, and there is no track pin there, mainly 042 GG has that feature. So to put 2 042 GG switches back to back will cause an electrical drop out of the outside rails and I have put a short section of straight track(about one and a half to two inch section of straight) between the 2 switches and wired up both outside rails to the common power supply.

 

I am going to try Ross Custom switches instead of Gargraves on my new layout and see what happens. I just looked at the new Ross switches I have bought(have in storage currently) and all the rails are metal except at the frog point.

 

Lee Fritz

I don't know about that, HSCurve.  My layout is 25 years old, and many of the switches are older than that.  Having this issue with 1 of 45-50 switches isn't bad.

 

 

Layout has about 50/50 Gargraves and Ross Switches. Both are good for what they do. Gargraves is the more economical switch while Ross is the premium more expensive switch. I have never had an issue with Ross while I have had to adjust and file high spots on Gargraves switches for smooth running and no derailing. Ross are also more realistic looking as they use individual ties rather than a plastic base with simulated ties. Ross also offers power feed through while Gargraves needs to be wired.

Moving forward Ross will be my sole choice but most of my Gargraves switches have been running fine now for a few years.

Ross also offers power feed through while Gargraves needs to be wired.

To me, that's an advantage for Gargraves.  I always use switches as the ends of 3 blocks (except for one switch on a crossover, which ends 2 blocks),

 

Now if you want a real dog, pick up an old R-O-W switch.

nickaix wrote:

 

"The older Gargraves version with the blackened "flat plate" points is nothing but trouble; stay away from that one (they are no longer made, but show up on the secondary market sometimes)."

 

This statement could confuse and consequently prevent the new buyer from purchasing GG turnouts.  The batch of 100's I recently purchased have the flat black plate and have a build date on the package from April 8, 2015. 

 

Bruce

1 drummer,

   Go with the Ross and save yourself a lot of grief, if you plan on running Tin Plate go FasTrack with FT Command Control Switches.  If I only ran modern and Post War Trains I would run Ross all the way.

PCRR/Dave

   

If ross was available, and for a price I want to pay..I would consider them.
My Gargraves 100s work just fine.
As does my Gargraves track.

Thanks for the response