Don Watson said:
Ray,
Nobody has mentioned the relatively new LGB 1800s. I don’t know what the radius equivalent is but they are certainly wider than the 1600s. I have 2 of them on my layout and have had no problems with them.
Doc Watson
They haven’t been mentioned because their radius is 2320mm/91.34". If it would help, I could post a picture of how all the mentioned items literally stack on top an Aristo Wide radius turnout.
But understanding basic geometry should actually suffice. 
No doubt the LGB 18000 are a nice turnout, but when redoing a modular layout, one needs to be mindful of the size of components, whereas on a permanent layout, not usually a problem.
Trains Li now has a great selection of turnouts etc.,Had Trains Li current product line been available years back, I would have used some of their items on the new club modules, very nice stuff $$$$$$!!!
Can I post pics here that I have in My Pictures in My Documents on my computer??
You’ll have to load the pictures to a server, like the FreightShed here, or Photobucket , Yahoo, or any one of a few others, then post the address of the picture in that little icon with the tree in it above the “reply” window.
And the geometry looks like this
The Aristo Wide has a 18º radius segment, the 4ft from from the others are 22.5º, the large LGB is 15º.
Yes I mix and match any of those when I do track plans, but a little of this and a little of that is best done when using flex track. It isn’t like cooking!
It looks like, with some work, any of those could be fit in by adjusting the surrounding track a little.
Ray, I hope you aren’t going to toss those Aristo switches. I am sure someone could make them work, at least for staging tracks or something.
David Maynard said:
It looks like, with some work, any of those could be fit in by adjusting the surrounding track a little.
Ray, I hope you aren’t going to toss those Aristo switches. I am sure someone could make them work, at least for staging tracks or something.
The way I would do it: shorten the diverging leg to get a fairly smooth transition to the track that is down, short of that your almost asking for kinks and/or make-up curves that are tighter than the 5ft rad.
With the large rad LGB turnout one could move it down a bit - relative to the existing Aristo position, shorten the diverging leg and one would have a nice transition curve through the turnout. Yep, it will depend on what follows on that diverging curve. AND most of all it depends on how much work one wants to do in any case.
Joe Rusz said:
Ray, Elmmasian has an Aristo turnout fix on his site, I believe. Did you check that?
Greg had the shim on his web site, but decided that he would rather pull the picture/discussion rather than give me due credit for its conception/design.
Here it is on George Schreyer’s technical tips page. (George does credit me with the design.)
“Todd Brody found that he could reface a damaged plastic guard rail by bending a 1/64” thick by 3/32" wide brass strip around it as shown in the photo. He found specific instances where this improved tracking. Note that brass strip is usually die cut such that the edges on one side are rounded and the edges on the other side are sharper. The rounded edge should be the one facing the wheels."
Actually, this was not to fix a damaged guard rail (note the turnout is brand new in the photo), but to improve the tracking through the turnout, which it apparently does.
That looks like a useful idea .
I may need that , mixing different wheels from varying sources . That is if ever I move from my armchair .
Mike
Dwayne Weyrich said:
Handlay…
Yep, the biggest advantage of that method is: if it doesn’t work properly one knows exactly which butt needs kicking errrr I mean who did shoddy quality control e.g didn’t decide on a standard and stuck to it and/or found it more work than expected and decided it was “good enough”.
OTOH
(http://www.rhb-grischun.ca/P1a/Berguen25_s.jpg)
Is that piece of brass meant to work like a spring ?
Mike
Not a spring, I don’t think. The few that I have done, I shaped them so they were tight and I used thin double sided tape to hold them in place and when I did the tape, I had to go to thinner brass shimstock because of the tape thickness.
The intent is to move the outboard wheels/flanges away thus move the inboard wheels from the frog point to prevent the inboard wheels from snagging the point.
I did get this suggestion from George Schreyer’s website and I thank Todd for this info from back when!
OK , thanks , that makes a lot of sense .
Thanks Bob .
Mike
When I did my comparison of Aristo wides to LGB 16000, I found that on the thru line, the LGB was about 2 inches short, and about 1/4"short on the divergent line which I think is very doable. Bear in mind that the Aristo wides that I have in stock are the newest versions and the LGB 16000s that I have are used and are LGB 1600s from the mid to late 90s. Not sure if either had size changes over time. I still have a lot of both L/H, R/H and several crossovers all used but very reusable. I still have several LGB R1s but the LGB threeways and double slips have been sold.
I’ll do an inventory so I know what I actually have, possibly some of you could use some.
Check in the for sale or trade section for my LGB turnouts etc.
http://www.backyardrailroaders.com/tips.html
On the webpage above you will find my article on fixing AristoCraft Wide Radius switches correctly, quickly and easily, the way they were supposed to have been made in the first place. It is the first article in the list. Enjoy. Cheers everyone.
All of these fixes address the frog and the guard rail check gauge.
For me, this really was not the problem. My problem was running into the diverging route facing point. In this case the switch can easily be split or a wheel can climb the end of the point rail resulting in one truck taking the wrong route and thus causing a derailment. This happens because the point rail does not nest properly with the stock rail.
With careful application of a Dremel grinding tool to both the stock rail and the point rail can be reshaped to correct this condition. Stan Ames provided me with details of how he does this early this summer and was contained in a thread here.
I applied his fixes and they cured all my facing point derailment problems. I also replaced the frogs and tried styrene guard rail shims. My shims were too thick and caused binding so I removed them. Cars still get through fine without the shims.
John Le Forestier said:
http://www.backyardrailroaders.com/tips.html
On the webpage above you will find my article on fixing AristoCraft Wide Radius switches correctly, quickly and easily, the way they were supposed to have been made in the first place. It is the first article in the list. Enjoy. Cheers everyone.
I wish I’d seen that 7 years ago.
I’ve already tried the shims, fixing the point so it lays against the side rail better, making the flange way deeper, etc. Some of those things have helped but the problem I keep coming up against is the over-tight gauge.
A flat file through the offending area can often fix an over-tight clearance. Also, if you are having a problem with only certain rolling stock/motive power pieces, check their wheel gauge.
If you decide that you would rather change to LGB 1600 series turnouts, and I certainly couldn’t blame you, you could make the following changes.
The AristoCraft has an angle of 18 degrees whereas the LGB is 22.5 degrees.
So shorten the outer curved rail of the turnout (but inner rail of the actual curve) by 3.63 inches and the inner curved rail (but outer rail of the actual curve) by 3.75 inches. This would reduce the curve to 18 degrees, but the rail ends up being cut right past the frog and that’s probably not the best idea.
3.85 inch straight section making up a filler piece would then take the curve back out to where the A/C had it. A 1.25 inch straight section filler piece would go between the straight trailing end and old straight section.
I just looked at several of the new Aristo wides that I have and did see all of what is mentioned on backyardrailroaders. Perhaps Aristo should have made left and right frogs. I do recall having to do some of the same repairs to several Aristo wide turnouts. I recall filing the angle cuts sharper and removing some material from the frogs to get better alignment and reduce the narrowing gauge.
We still do have some derailments while backing trains into the yards. I used 8’ diameter track to lead into the yards when I should have used 10’ diameter. Most of the members have shortened the couplers on their rollingstock and backing when all the couplers are at their shortest causes some problems.
I also looked at some of the LGB 1600s that I have and I see some similar disparities. Although the LGBs did work, but when the three axle engines came along, the 1600s had to go. At least with the Aristo wides, the frog and rails are removable, whereas the frog on the LGBs is molded along with the ties and not removable.
