# Major Issues With Atlas Turnouts!



## Tom999999 (Oct 31, 2019)

As a newcomer to N scale (had an HO layout years ago). I went out and bought $ 400 of Atlas Code 80 track for a larger tabletop layout. Started laying track and the turnouts are a disaster – I get derailments about every third time the train goes through them. A couple of Bachman diesels and Bachman cars - nothing weird about them, so I assume it’s the turnout’s fault. You can actually see the cars jostling up and down and side to side as they go over the plastic parts of the turnout before they derail. A few questions and observations: 
- The turnouts are all standard #4. Do other people have luck with #4’s or is it just me? Should I scrap my track plan and redo it with #6 or #8 turnouts? Would that help?
- Some of the turnouts work O.K. The problem seems to be mostly in the right turnouts – is it possible I just got a bad batch of right hand-turnouts?
- Should I cut my losses and scrap everything and go with another brand of track?
- Tom


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

It is possible to get a bad one or even two. I got a bad one when building my railroad and replaced it with the same. The second one was fine. Never a problem with the replacement.

Sounds like either the frog or the guard rails are high on your problem children.

Take a straight edge across them and see if you can see any light under the edge. If so, you have found your trouble.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

In addition to what MichaelE suggests, you will also want to check wheels, flangeways, etc, with an NMRA Standards Guage. You can tweak the performance of the turnouts somewhat, but sometimes you just get a bad one.

It also helps to ensure that your rolling stock is heavy enough. This may keep it on the rails even through a substandard turnout.

Atlas track isn't BAD, but it's not top of the line, either. I wouldn't throw $400 down the drain, but work with what you have.


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## bewhole (Dec 31, 2016)

How old are the trains you are using??Some of the older cars do not work well on the newer track and switches.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*Atlas turnouts*



Tom999999 said:


> As a newcomer to N scale (had an HO layout years ago). I went out and bought $ 400 of Atlas Code 80 track for a larger tabletop layout. Started laying track and the turnouts are a disaster – I get derailments about every third time the train goes through them. A couple of Bachman diesels and Bachman cars - nothing weird about them, so I assume it’s the turnout’s fault. You can actually see the cars jostling up and down and side to side as they go over the plastic parts of the turnout before they derail. A few questions and observations:
> - The turnouts are all standard #4. Do other people have luck with #4’s or is it just me? Should I scrap my track plan and redo it with #6 or #8 turnouts? Would that help?
> - Some of the turnouts work O.K. The problem seems to be mostly in the right turnouts – is it possible I just got a bad batch of right hand-turnouts?
> - Should I cut my losses and scrap everything and go with another brand of track?
> - Tom



Tom;

Unfortunately you are not the first, and won't be the last, to have serious problems with Atlas turnouts. They are at the low end of the quality scale.
That said, there are things you can do to make them work better. The advice you have already gotten is very good. I agree with MichaelE's suggestion that you may have gotten some turnouts that were downright defective. That's perfectly possible. However, I doubt Michael's suggestion that a frog, or guardrail, is too high. While anything is possible, frogs are usually too low on nearly all commercial turnouts, not too high. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen, just that it's unlikely.
Guard rails are typically either even with, or slightly below, the height of the running rails. Their flangeways though, are typically too deep, and too wide. I suspect that is more likely to be the cause of the problem than too high frogs, or guard rails, but I can't rule those possibilities out either. The straightedge test he recommended should tell if they actually are high, or not.

As CTValley recommends, you definitely should invest in an NMRA track/standards gauge. They only cost about $12 and you can order one at www.modeltrainstuff.com With the gauge, you will be able to check about six different critical areas on the turnout, and fix any that need it. The same gauge will also let you measure the "gauge" of (distance between) each set of wheels, and also the flange depth of the wheels.

As bewhole says, some older N-scale cars, and locomotives, came with deep, oversize, wheel flanges which N-scale modelers nicknamed "pizza cutters." They are a problem on Atlas code 55 track, where they hit the oversize spikes Atlas uses on their code 55 track. However, even if you do have those, deep-flanged wheels, it shouldn't matter on your code 80 track and turnouts. The code 80 rails are high enough to work with either the older, deep-flanged, wheels, or the newer, shallow-flanged, type.

Most commercial turnouts come with flangeways that are both too wide, and too deep, to meet the specs in the NMRA gage.*
The excess width can cause derailments, and the excess depth lets wheels fall into the too-deep frog flangeway, and then be pulled back up when they hit the frog point. This may account for some of the "jostling up and down and side to side" your cars are doing. Adding weight, as CTValley suggested, might help, but setting everything, including the depth of the frog's floor, to meet the NMRA gauge's specs, will likely eliminate the actual cause of the jostling altogether.
More seriously, the wheels, or the turnout, or both, may be out-of-gauge, which can cause the wheels to climb up the rails and derail. These are two of many critical things you can check with aN NMRA gauge.

The file"Improving Atlas Turnouts" attached below, explains some of the problems inherent in the Atlas "Snap Track" turnouts. Some of the early pages are aimed at the HO-scale version which has a very tight (for HO) 18" radius curve built in. We N-scalers have a nice broad (for N) 19" radius curve so you can skip those first pages if you like. Starting on page 8, you will see photos showing how the NMRA gage is used to find problems and what you can do to correct them.These same problems and fixes apply to N-scale Atlas turnouts as well as the HO-scale ones.

While a number 4 turnout is a fairly sharp one, I don't think switching to # 6 or #8 turnouts is itself a direct fix. Somewhat coincidentally, it would work, but only because you would probably be buying a different brand of turnout, which was better made, not directly because of the change in frog# alone.
A larger frog# is still a good thing however. Some longer cars and locomotives may have trouble going through a #4 turnout. (Due to the much gentler curve in the Atlas N-scale turnouts, this is less likely on an N-scale Atlas turnout than on the HO-scale version, with it's sharp turn.) Micro Engineering's excellent turnouts, for example, only come in #6 right, and #6 left. If you were to switch to them, the biggest improvement would be the change to a better brand, not just the increase in frog number. 

The file "All about turnouts" gives a lot of information on different brands of turnouts. If you decide it's not worth your time and effort to fix your Atlas turnouts, you other option would be to replace them with Peco, or Micro Engineering turnouts, both of which are much better quality than Atlas, and work reliably right out of the box. (The only thing I have ever had to fix on a Micro Engineering turnout was to slightly widen the guard rail flangeways to match the NMRA gauge. This only took a minute, and the turnout has worked flawlessly ever since.)
The downside of course is the high cost of "cutting your losses" and having to pay for the new, better quality, turnouts.
That's up to you, but I agree with CTValley's suggestion that you try fixing (at least one of) your problematic Atlas turnouts before investing a lot more money in replacing all of them. You may find that the fixes aren't all that hard, and they will certainly save you some money.
By the way, Atlas "Snap Switch" turnouts have a unique geometry. No other brand, or even Atlas's own "Custom Line" ** turnouts, will be an exact fit. You will need to remove some track near each turnout and install short pieces of flex track. That's easy enough to do, but it may be a factor in your "fix, or replace" decision.

*So why do commercial turnouts come with flangeways that are too wide and too deep? My guess, (and it's only that) is that the manufacturers want to accommodate slightly out-of-gauge wheels, and deep flanges. That makes things sloppy. I build my own N-scale turnouts with frogs that meet NMRA standards for flangeway width and depth. This makes for very smooth, reliable, tracking through the turnouts.

** I don't think Atlas offers custom line turnouts in N-scale. It is an option in HO-scale though.


good luck;

Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos:

View attachment Improving Atlas turnouts pdf version.pdf


View attachment All AboutTurnouts rev 4.pdf


View attachment How I scratch build turnouts new(8).pdf


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## Loconut (Nov 7, 2019)

*N scale Atlas turnouts*



Tom999999 said:


> As a newcomer to N scale (had an HO layout years ago). I went out and bought $ 400 of Atlas Code 80 track for a larger tabletop layout. Started laying track and the turnouts are a disaster – I get derailments about every third time the train goes through them. A couple of Bachman diesels and Bachman cars - nothing weird about them, so I assume it’s the turnout’s fault. You can actually see the cars jostling up and down and side to side as they go over the plastic parts of the turnout before they derail. A few questions and observations:
> - The turnouts are all standard #4. Do other people have luck with #4’s or is it just me? Should I scrap my track plan and redo it with #6 or #8 turnouts? Would that help?
> - Some of the turnouts work O.K. The problem seems to be mostly in the right turnouts – is it possible I just got a bad batch of right hand-turnouts?
> - Should I cut my losses and scrap everything and go with another brand of track?
> - Tom


Very poorly made. I switched to using Peco track and turnouts and have zero problems. Can back 30 or more cars through a peco turnout without any trouble.


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## Mixed Freight (Aug 31, 2019)

Tom999999 said:


> As a newcomer to N scale (had an HO layout years ago). I went out and bought $ 400 of Atlas Code 80 track for a larger tabletop layout. Started laying track and the turnouts are a disaster – I get derailments about every third time the train goes through them. A couple of Bachman diesels and Bachman cars - nothing weird about them, so I assume it’s the turnout’s fault. You can actually see the cars jostling up and down and side to side as they go over the plastic parts of the turnout before they derail. A few questions and observations:
> - The turnouts are all standard #4. Do other people have luck with #4’s or is it just me? Should I scrap my track plan and redo it with #6 or #8 turnouts? Would that help?
> - Some of the turnouts work O.K. The problem seems to be mostly in the right turnouts – is it possible I just got a bad batch of right hand-turnouts?
> - Should I cut my losses and scrap everything and go with another brand of track?
> - Tom


Chances are extremely good that most of the problem lies with your Bachmann equipment. All Bachmann track is under-gauged, and to run properly on it, all Bachmann locos and cars are under-gauged to match. And to compound matters even worse, Bachmann quality control on their N-scale wheel gauges ain't all that whippy to begin with.

I work on N-scale locos and cars for my local hobby shop, and one of the biggest problems I run across is Bachmann stuff constantly derailing on Atlas track. It's ALWAYS because the Bachmann stuff is under-gauged. Whenever I re-gauge wheel sets on their locos and/or cars, it eliminates all problems rolling through Atlas switches.

Like a few others have said, get yourself an NMRA track & wheel gauge, and start checking and adjusting wheel sets on everything. You'd be surprised in what a difference that having the proper wheel gauge can make!:thumbsup:


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Mixed Freight said:


> Chances are extremely good that most of the problem lies with your Bachmann equipment. All Bachmann track is under-gauged, and to run properly on it, all Bachmann locos and cars are under-gauged to match. And to compound matters even worse, Bachmann quality control on their N-scale wheel gauges ain't all that whippy to begin with.
> 
> I work on N-scale locos and cars for my local hobby shop, and one of the biggest problems I run across is Bachmann stuff constantly derailing on Atlas track. It's ALWAYS because the Bachmann stuff is under-gauged. Whenever I re-gauge wheel sets on their locos and/or cars, it eliminates all problems rolling through Atlas switches.
> 
> Like a few others have said, get yourself an NMRA track & wheel gauge, and start checking and adjusting wheel sets on everything. You'd be surprised in what a difference that having the proper wheel gauge can make!:thumbsup:


Interesting. That must be an N scale problem, because I have a lot of (HO scale) Bachmann rolling stock and locos and they're fine. Or maybe it's their older stuff, because they have really improved their quality in the last decade.


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## Mixed Freight (Aug 31, 2019)

CTValleyRR said:


> Interesting. That must be an N scale problem, because I have a lot of HO-scale Bachmann rolling stock and locos and they're fine. Or maybe it's their older stuff, because they have really improved their quality in the last decade.


N-scale problem? Yup - you betcha'. Because I not only own Bachmann N-scale stuff, I also work on a lot of it. Trust me, they have a real conundrum going on with their N-scale stuff. It would no doubt cost WAY too much to change all their track molds to comply with NMRA standards, so they just plain don't do it. Their Spectrum N-scale models have a choice - either run good on virtually every other manufacturer's N-scale track, or run good on their own track. Fortunately, most all of their N-scale Spectrum models (that I'm aware of) seem to run good on all other manufacturer's track because they're usually properly gauged. But if any of their stuff doesn't say "Spectrum" on it, forget it. It's probably gonna' be under-gauged.

HO-scale problems? Never hear of any. Their HO-scale stuff must be fine, because I never hear of any problems with it.


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## mutt.rescue (7 mo ago)

There was a MR article several years ago where the author recommended REMOVING THE FROG completely on Atlas N turnouts. Search for. I would emphasize checking the "check gauge" distance between flanges on your rolling stock with NMRA tool. Easy to move wheels to correct.


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## jwalsma78 (2 d ago)

MichaelE said:


> It is possible to get a bad one or even two. I got a bad one when building my railroad and replaced it with the same. The second one was fine. Never a problem with the replacement.
> 
> Sounds like either the frog or the guard rails are high on your problem children.
> 
> Take a straight edge across them and see if you can see any light under the edge. If so, you have found your trouble.


My problem has been a persisitant melting of my switches. I have replaced 3 in the last three months and 5 total.I dont know if its the slider switches or something else. Just wondering if i should replace all my switches with other types of switches.


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

jwalsma78 said:


> My problem has been a persisitant melting of my switches. I have replaced 3 in the last three months and 5 total.I dont know if its the slider switches or something else. Just wondering if i should replace all my switches with other types of switches.



This is a classic reason why we call track switches turnouts and not switches.(electrical)
Your not the first one to do this nor the lase one.  

Now to the problem. 
What is melting the turnout or the side mounted switch machine?
If it's the switch machine than the problem is the activation slide switch was held too long.
Those Atlas slide switches are famous for sticking and melting things.
The cure for this is to install a Capacitor Discharge Unit in the power supply for the
slide switches. This only gives a short burst of electricity from the slide switch to the switch machine.

Here is one but there are others available that may be cheaper.








Peco HO/N PL35 Capacitor Discharge Unit


Peco HO/N PL35 Capacitor Discharge Unit




www.modeltrainstuff.com





Magic


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## thehousewizard (2 d ago)

Well I'm thinking I should replace the sweitches with a different type of switch. Get rid of the stock slide switch


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Magic said:


> This is a classic reason why we call track switches turnouts and not switches.(electrical)
> Your not the first one to do this nor the lase one.
> 
> Now to the problem.
> ...


Honestly, while that will work, it also costs as much as a turnout does. I'm thinking a better solution is just to upgrade to higher quality turnouts / switch machines.


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## GTW son (12 mo ago)

I'm going with @Mixed Freight suggestion of Bachman equipment being the majority of the problem, not all but the problem.
I started with a Bachman starter set, won't go as far to say it was a train wreck but it was extremely frustrating and that was on an oval with an inner loop so two turnouts.
Got rid of all Bachman years ago.
I use Atlas track and turnouts which perform well except for one turnout....my nemesis....my theory is the turnout moves micro-millimeters until disaster strikes. That being said it does preform well for weeks then looses its mind for a few days then well again....go figure.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

thehousewizard said:


> Well I'm thinking I should replace the sweitches with a different type of switch. Get rid of the stock slide switch


housewizard; (wasn't he a TV doctor? 😄)

The guy who started this thread, back in 2019, said he was melting the coils of his Atlas "switches" (turnouts)
Are you having the same coil melting problem, or some other glitch?
Atlas "Snap Switch" turnouts are not so hot, but they can be modified fairly easily, to cause few derailments, if that's what you're dealing with. The files below explain how.

The coil meltdown he had is caused by applying current for more than a second. Usually this is a case of holding the "blue button" of the furnished Atlas sliding control down too long. Sometimes the Atlas control shorts internally , and we had one case where the guy was using the wrong type of Atlas control, (an Atlas "selector" which is not a momentary button ) A circuit called a "CPU" (Capacitive Discharge Unit) makes coil burnout impossible.

Traction Fan


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

jwalsma78 said:


> My problem has been a persisitant melting of my switches. I have replaced 3 in the last three months and 5 total.I dont know if its the slider switches or something else. Just wondering if i should replace all my switches with other types of switches.


jwalsma 78:

Are you planning to replace all your track switches, or all the electrical "slider switches" that control the track switches, or both?
Model railroaders prefer to call track switches "turnouts" to avoid confusion with electrical switches, which are also common on model railroads. Like the "slider switches" you mentioned. Those are actually a combination of an electrical slide switch, and a momentary pushbutton. As you may know already, a normal slide switch is a type of on-off switch. Slide the handle one way and it turns power on, and keeps it on, until you move the switch handle back to the other position. The Atlas "blue button" turnout control does slide one way or the other, but no current flows until you press the blue button down, and that should be only a quick tap.

The coils burn out because current is applied for more than a second. The most common reason is human error. The person simply holds the blue button of the Atlas control down too long. However, sometimes the Atlas blue button control itself shorts internally. Rarely, but it has happened, someone uses the wrong type of Atlas control.
We had one person write in who had wired his Atlas turnouts to an Atlas "selector" control. That "selector" is intended for applying track power to different blocks of track, not for operating turnouts. Its green switches are normal slide switches, with no pushbutton feature. They apply power permanently, until they are turned off. Obviously that long application of current will fry the coils very quickly. There is a circuit called a CPU (Capacitive Discharge Unit) which prevents coil burnout altogether. A turnout control called a Stapleton 751D contains a CPU and is also a much higher quality control than the Atlas blue button.

Another common problem with Atlas turnouts is frequent derailments. This can be cured with the information in the files below. 

If you decide to replace your turnouts, Peco is an excellent brand. They sell their switch machine PL-10 separately. It snaps onto the bottom of the Peco turnout. They also make a side mount machine. Peco turnouts are very reliable manual turnouts right out of the box. An internal spring holds the point rail against the stock rail without a switch machine.

Traction Fan


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