Large Scale Central

12" Gauge Switch Diamond... Very Cool!

Track and Trestles
#1

We were very lucky to be invited over to a friend’s 12" gauge railroad over the weekend. He has a great layout on 12 acres with some really cool track work. This includes points switches without traditional guard rails on the sides of the frogs, (see the frog in the pic) stub switches, one 3-way stub, and of course this really cool switch-diamond! I’ve never seen anything like this, and I just had to share.

There were 2 locos there to pull happy riders around. One was an 0-4-0 and the other a 2-6-2. Both very nice machines, and their size was just impressive. It was a great day and a very tempting into in to ride on scales…

#2

That piece of track is cool. “hey we have a switch in the way of where we need to go, what to do?.. Well just go through it” I can see the scratching of heads and then the light coming on.

To make matters more interesting it goes through at an angle.

#3

Them narrow gauge guys will try just about anything.

#4

That’s neat. It looks like there is a piece of rail missing in the diamond but it’s just leaves on the track

Different

#5

Did anybody else notice; there are no guard rails on that diamond?

#6

Bob Hayes said:

That’s neat. It looks like there is a piece of rail missing in the diamond but it’s just leaves on the track

Different

Yup Bob, I even tried to wipe a bunch of them away before I took the picture but they were just falling so fast.

David Maynard said:
Them narrow gauge guys will try just about anything.

Heh, that’s about it David. That crossing really allowed the track plan to work well though. I don’t know what he would have done without it. For the record those were both based on standard gauge locos. There was talk about future plans for a narrow gauge Heisler though, and at 12" gauge that would be 1/3rd scale!

David Maynard said:

Did anybody else notice; there are no guard rails on that diamond?

Yeah how about that! but there wouldn’t be much room for them had he built them. It ran flawlessly and smooth all day. It’s part of the normal trip around.

#7

It is hard to believe that this would even work with out guard rails !

{David Maynard said:Did anybody else notice; there are no guard rails on that diamond?}