# Can You Have Too Many Turnouts?



## JackTS (Sep 3, 2015)

Of course not! But I do have a question or three about the 7 turnouts I have in the attached plan. 
N scale. All turnouts are Peco code 80 Medium radius.
this is about a four foot straight away section of two parallel loops where I want to move trains to and from each track as well as pull off the inner loop track to go to a passenger station.
I was trying to avoid a crossing as I was told the electrical connections are very complicated. Are they?
All of the turnouts will be thrown manually.
The four on the left seem to all fit and accomplish the goal. 
the three on the right concern me as noted in the picture. 
Questions. If I stay with this plan I will need to trim sleepers on turnout. Any concerns? 
I was told to use insulators on the frog rails. If I connect turnouts back to back like this, would I still insulate each turnout?
Anyone see any other potential problems?


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Let's clear up a bit of terminology here. A crossing is where two tracks cross, without the ability to move from one to the other. I don't think you have or want any of those in this area. What you have drawn in your design is a crossover, where a train moves from one track to a parallel one.. I suspect your concern is with a DOUBLE crossover, which have the two crossover tracks crossing in the middle in an X configuration. Double Crossovers are not really any more difficult to wire than other turnouts. You just have to remember to treat it like 4 turnouts. However, what you have designed is much more prototypical than using a double crossover.

My chief concern is that everything is packed too tightly together. I would place a short piece of straight track in between all your turnout legs. On the through routes, this serves to allow your trucks to straighten and steady be fore moving into another turnout. On the diverging legs, it serves to both smooth out S curves AND maintain the proper distance between 2 tracks. I don't think butting the two divergent routes together maintains that separation. Definitely check the required separation between track centers there. This also solves your problem of not having enough room to throw the turnout and probably having to primaries as well -- although trimming ties is no problem long as you don't trim off the little tabs that hold the rail in place.

Also, if your station will be on that inside arc of track, you're probably going to want to straighten it out so that a station platform can be close to it. Or you will need to custom-built a curved platform. Also, as you have drawn it, there is no way for a train to get to the station from the outer track, nor for a train leaving the station to get to the outer track. This would require another set of crossovers in the opposite direction... or the double crossover piece referred to above. If you have the room, avoid the double crossover.

And yes, you will have to insulate the frog rails on all turnouts. Here is an article on how to do it properly: https://dccwiki.com/Peco_Insulfrog


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

The N scale Peco code 80 turnouts are Power Routing and have a plastic frog. Therefore
no insulated joiners are required. Those you were talking to and who said that a crossover would require
complicated wiring must have been thinking of situations where the crossover
actually is connecting the two SIDES of an oval in which case 2 reverse loops are
created and each would require special swirtchs or, if DCC, reverse loop controllers.

The link provided by CTValley insists on insulated joiners to avoid shorts when
wide wheels span the rails at the frog. I say overkill. Instead, IF such a short
occurs, simply put a tiny dab of clear nail polish on ONE of the frog rails where
they are separated by a thin plastic insulator.

When connecting two parallel tracks,
such as in your drawing, no special wiring is needed. However, since these are power
routing turnouts you may need to add track drops to your bus from the frog rails to
maintain continuous power to the layout.

The above is based on the section of your layout pictured. However, if the unseen part of your
track plan is other than a modifed oval, there could be problems. It's always best to
show the complete track plan when asking about wiring and isolated sections

Don


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

Can you have too many turnouts? Yewbetcha! And most layouts do. A little planning will have the roadmaster much happier if he/she doesn't have to keep building, placing, and then yanking turnouts when something else would have sufficed.

Any time your have parallel tracks that require interconnectivity, you will need a diverging route, and that can only be accessed via a turnout. Even if they curve, still in parallel, and turn back the opposite direction, they're still parallel. This means the wiring for both will be the same. A crossover, meaning going through two turnouts to get between each parallel track, should be wired the same way because it works in the same direction, even if the locomotive backs through it.

This is why, when I start to solder feeders to my tracks, I use the logic of which rail is closest to the closest wall That rail gets black insulation or green. Green because I don't want to cut out more black from the doorbell wire with its white plastic tube. The other rail gets red if the other is black, and the other rail gets yellow if the closet rail to the wall gets green instead of the black. It may sound confusing, but it works for me. The main thing is to always wire the rail closest to the wall with one of two colours, meaning the rail closest to the aisle gets the other. Crossover turnouts get the same treatment.


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