Atlas C55 Turnout Failures Increase

[John]

I am starting to see more failures in my older turnouts, especially my #7s. Most of mine are at least as old as the product line, having purchased around 100 of them. 

The problem is that the closure rails are loosing their electrical connectivity.  I suspect there is a problem around the frog area.  I'm seeing this in around 10% of the turnouts. 

The turnouts are installed on the layout, glued down, and ballasted in most cases.  So fixing them is difficult.   

An example of the failure points are shown here

http://gulflines.blogspot.com/p/wiring-atlas-c55-turnouts.html

[bobdobbs]

I concur.

It seems that there are small metal jumper strips embedded in the ties that power electrically isolated parts of the turnout, there are small "nubs" that contact the bottom of the rail.  These connections fail from corrosion dirt, etc.  I have put small shims of flat phosphor bronze (like material used to power n scale dcc friendly motors) between the offending tie and rail bottom to provide contact.  This seems to work.  I have also had 4 of 5 turnouts points just plain fail at the point they are attached to the turnout, where the point pivots.  I also have had point rails just snap ,maybe 1/4 to 1/8 of an inch from this attachment point for no apparent reason.  It does not correlate to how many times the turnout is switched.  Very disturbing.  Maybe if they ever produce these again, these issues will be corrected.  Needless to say I am an expert at replacing Ballasted and wired #7 switches on my layout....

[Chris333]

If my old larger N layout didn't have Atlas C55 turnouts I would probably still be working on it. And now my door layout has hand laid.  Hope the new ones are better...

[ednadolski]

It seems that there are small metal jumper strips embedded in the ties that power electrically isolated parts of the turnout, there are small "nubs" that contact the bottom of the rail.  These connections fail from corrosion dirt, etc.

Another possibility is the electrical bond breaking due to expansion/contraction/flexing over time.

Very disturbing.  Maybe if they ever produce these again, these issues will be corrected.

I wouldn't hold my breath, unless it is really affecting sales.   That's not to dis on the mfrs, just sayin' we have to be realistic about what model manufacturers can produce.  Commodity products are not likely to be over-engineered, esp. when the bulk of them have finite service lifetime.

Ed

[bobdobbs]

I don't have to hold my breath I have stockpiled plenty of spares

[CBQ Fan]

I just ordered a bunch of code 80 switches to replace older ones I have with the same issue.  Some of these are pushing 20 years old or more so I can't really complain.  Plus for some this is the third or maybe fourth layout.

[MEC_FAN]

John,
I've also had  that problem on a few turnouts which I fixed by adding a feeder.  But a bigger problem for me has been the frogs going dead. I've powered almost every frog on the layout and probably 25 out of 300 have failed. So I've soldered a feed directly to the frog. This only seems to be happening to turnouts that are ballasted, so I believe there is a corrosion problem between the soldering lug and the frog, really anoying! Another thing I'm losing plating on the point rails and frogs from years of track cleaning.  Some turnouts lost the plating very quickly while others have held up pretty well so we use caution now when cleaning track.

John

[robert3985]

I'm surprised at this problem.  Atlas really blew it with the design of this turnout, and I'm sure that their #5 and #10 will experience the same problem eventually. 

I don't use any RTR turnouts, but if it were me, I'd remove one of the ties under the closure rails, and insert a PCB tie, soldering it to all the rails crossing it and gap it so that the appropriate closure rails were always the same polarity as the adjacent stock rails.

The problem would not be removing a little ballast from between two ties, but removing the tie "spacing" tabs under the rails. I made a tool out of a cheap (less than 10 bucks) Harbor Freight Tools woodburning iron by grinding an X-acto #11 blade so that it fit under the rails and both melted and cut the spacers-between-ties.  Works great!  It's how I made soldering new rail feeders to the base of my already laid track a lot easier.

Here are a couple of photos:





Then, just paint, weather, re-ballast a little.  Not too difficult I'd think, and the dead rails would never happen again...especially if you use Superior No. 30 Supersafe Soldering Flux, available here: http://www.ccis.com/home/hn/  and put three or four "splots" of gap-filling CA into the gap between the bottom of the PCB tie and your roadbed...spritzing with Accelerator to support the tie since it's thinner than the Atlas plastic ties.

After the first one, I think it'd go pretty fast.

If I were going to continue to use Atlas turnouts, I'd make sure I did this to each of them before laying them.

[Mark W]

I just replace the point and closure rails completely as one solid rail and reinforce the frog lead as necessary.



This could be done on a laid/ballasted turnout quite easily.  The hardest part would be replacing a few ties with PC boards, but a tool like Robert made would make it pretty straight forward. 

[mmagliaro]

I used all Atlas code 55, most #7's on the layout I currently have.  These are NOT that old, all being bought and installed over the past 3 years or so.

I noticed these problems even as I was checking and preparing the turnouts for their initial installion.
It wasn't at all uncommon to find dead frogs and dead rails from those wonky bronze jumper strips, not to mention the point rail
hinges.  As a result, I bypassed all of them with fine wires soldered underneath before I even put the turnouts in.
I even have fine flexible wire soldered across the point rail hinges (going from the fixed rail to the moving point rail)
underneath.  At first, I wasn't doing this.  I was only bypassing the point hinges.  But after about the 3rd
frog contact failure and 1 or 2 dead diverging rails, I started doing it before putting a turnout into the layout.

What I mean by this is that it isn't an "if", it's a "when" a certain percentage of these on any given layout are going to fail
and require replacement or one of the clever in-place fixes already described herein.  If you have any more to do, I'd suggest
bypassing all those strips before you install.

[OldEastRR]

Or you can use ME code 55s!!! Any contact problems with them are resolved easily...

[Kisatchie]

Or you can use ME code 55s!!! Any contact problems with them are resolved easily...

That's what I plan to do.


Hmm... I plan to stuff
myself with bananas
today...

[jpwisc]

Or you can use ME code 55s!!! Any contact problems with them are resolved easily...

If only ME made #7 and #10 switches. Off to Fast Tracks I go...

[mmagliaro]

I somewhat disagree about ME turnouts being a total solution to this.
I used them in the layout before this one - all ME #6 code 55.

They did not have the problem with the bronze jumper strips powering the diverging rails.
But they certainly had issues with the point rails going dead because of the rail joiner style hinges.  I wired jumpers across
all of those and powered the point rails via the microswitch that operated on the turnout throw.

There were also many cases where the ME point rails were too narrow in gauge, causing engines to climb up and out of
them, just like the Atlas turnouts.  It was not as severe as the Atlas units, but was frequent enough that it was an
"installation procedure" : jumper the hinges, check and file the inside faces of the point rails to correct gauge.

If I had it to do over, I honestly would not use either one.  I would pay for the jigs and go Fast Tracks.  In the end, once you get good at making those things, it seems to me that the actual amount of hours you end up spending is less and the results are better.

[ednadolski]

I just replace the point and closure rails completely as one solid rail and reinforce the frog lead as necessary.



This could be done on a laid/ballasted turnout quite easily.  The hardest part would be replacing a few ties with PC boards, but a tool like Robert made would make it pretty straight forward.

Seems to me that when things reach this point, it may be better in the log run to start with hand-built turnouts.  The advantages of RTRs seems to diminish if you have to re-work them in-situ in order to restore basic, reliable operation.

The riveted/hinged point heels are another weak area on the Atlas TOs.

Ed