# Peco #6 Turnout Spacing for Yard Ladder?



## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

This afternoon after work I installed the Peco #8 RH turnout for the yard lead to the new five track staging yard.

I have six feet of flex track (26"r) around the outer 24" curve of my layout and is now getting to the yard ladder.

Without a lot of remedial geometry, what length of straight section do I need between #6 Peco Insulfrog turnouts to get a 2.75" center-to-center track spacing?

How about a 3" spacing?

There will be platforms installed between tracks, hence the wider than mainline spacing.

I forgot that the Peco turnouts have very short legs and right now with all of the turnouts joined end to end I get about a 1 inch spacing. Not going to work.

Any help appreciated. :smilie_daumenpos:


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

Michael, as far as turnout itself, you could even go to #4 for ladder tracks.
Far as your problem, if you happen to have a hobby/train store in your area, you can have them make photo copies of various switches as templates to shove around on the layout... 
All in all though, whatever switches you use, I believe it's only a matter of how long the extension of the diverging track is before it makes the curve into being a stall track off the ladder, or how far apart each switch is in the ladder in order to get wider spacing between stall tracks..
Further, there are several shapes of ladders. Only one other than standard that I can recall is a 'windmill' design. You might be able to find a treatise on this here in 'search' or perhaps on YouTube under "RR freight yard types", say..


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

#4 isn't going to work for 85' passenger coaches. The turnouts are already bought and here so #6 it shall be.

I thought someone who uses Peco turnouts would know this from past experience.

Edited:

Center-to-center spacing for the turnouts is actually 2.5" and is wider than I first thought. This is plenty wide for platforms between tracks and comes out to about 20' scale feet. More than enough room.

Thanks for looking anyway.


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## riogrande (Apr 28, 2012)

MichaelE said:


> This afternoon after work I installed the Peco #8 RH turnout for the yard lead to the new five track staging yard.
> 
> I have six feet of flex track (26"r) around the outer 24" curve of my layout and is now getting to the yard ladder.
> 
> ...


Here is what I do. I draw centerlines for the tracks with the desired spacing, in your case 2.75 track centers, then you can layout the turnouts to test fit them where they will be positioned relative to the track spacings. That will show you the gap that needs to be filled to connect them. I cut a piece of flex track to fit as needed. In some cases I had to cut fairly short pieces of rail to connect track. You can add in ties later to fill in those gaps.
That's the solution.


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