[MGates]

I put a piece of brass in the frog throat on my larger radius curved turnouts and it does do a good job preventing wheels dropping in and causing a big hop. I don't have this issue with my tangent frog castings (#4-10) but when making up a soldered rail frog on the custom stuff, I tend to err on a little extra room for the wheel sets to pass through the throat, so those brass inserts are a big help.

Nice work on customizing the turnouts!

-Mike

 

[MGates]

Of course we 'could' get away from the whole problem of wheel drop by making our switches with 'swing noses'.
Something that is used in full size, and was used by the toy train companies years ago.
However, I would think that a lot of people would think that the switch just does not look like the real thing!
Cheers,
David Leech, Canada

Swing nose frogs are one of many things I have plans to make and experiment with, particularly with some frogs I have been requested to make that would have way too long of a gap for practical use like a #14 or #16. I figured I'd test it with something extreme like that and then possibly make them in the more standard range of frogs #6-10 if the interest is there for "smooth running frogs." I have had more requests for stub switches from the narrow gauge folks though, so for now the swing nose is probably several years out from me having the time to experiment with it.

-Mike

 

[MGates]

The swing nose frog is just something to mess around with when it comes to large frogs over #10 or maybe #12. Not anything I'll be pushing or marketing, but they do have their limited place... such as an elevated live steam layout with no ballast and for whatever reason someone needs a high speed crossover.

Greg, I am slowly getting closer to making some code 332 stainless turnouts as trials. I'm thinking sometime this coming Spring. I'd be happy to send a couple for you to check out and give feedback when I do finally get around to it.

-Mike