Switch (turn out) suggestions?

Someone might be more certain about this than I am, but I would look into the old Marx o-27 switches.

There's an article and book about making your own Marx and Lionel compatible switches over on the TCA boards. I'm thinking about getting them just to learn more about switch design.

Ross has a new Tubular switch that was built for operators like you. Why don't you give them a call, I'm sure they would know the answer.

 

By the way, I saw the switch at York and it is really nice looking.

I'm working on the same thing: old prewar Flyer locos also had the big gear on the drive wheel.  I want to stay prewar tubular tinplate rather than use modern switches. 

 

the issue is the guard rails in the switches.  The lionel 022 and 1022 switches have beefy plastic guard rails that the gear rolls up on and derails the loco.

 

lionel 1121 switches - which are actually made for "027", the lower profile rail, do not have the guard rails and will allow any loco to pass through.   it just means working a way to adapt from the 027 low profile rail to the O Gauge hi rail.

 

also, since we're talking about marx and flyer locos having this difficulty, the logical place to look turns out to be ... marx and flyer prewar switches.  Both marx and flyer made great remote switches with no guard rails that all locos can go through: they are interesting, with a pivot design which has both the frog end and the point end move when the turnout is switched.  

 

i believe these are also the lower profile (027) rail.    again, this will mean adapting the switches to O Gauge hi rail if that's what you're using for trackage, using a shim under the switch and 0-to-027 pins.  Not a big deal, i believe.   It's what I'm in the process of doing at the moment, so i don't have all the answers yet, but this is where I am with it so far.

I've got some of the old Marx metal switches.  They are O27 and the are not non-derailing.  I've read that some Lionel engines have trouble keeping electrical contact through the Marx but I haven't run them enough to confirm.