Folks;
I hope this may help someone with a similar problem that caused my own creations, but first a little levity. I had a dear friend, Kent Womack, who had been a locomotive engineer for the Virginian Railway. Kent used to say to me, “Davy, the one thing on the railroad that always works is a derail!”
I remembered Kent’s wise saying when I needed to solve a problem with the garden railway I used to have at the back of our yard. I had one siding that sloped downgrade toward its switch no matter how much I tried to correct the grade. I just couldn’t allow a car to slowly roll into the switch and foul the mainline! The solution was to cobble up the derails shown below from scraps of Plastruct “H” and “L” beams. plus a few bits of straight styrene. A little work with a razor saw and some small files will make a credible derail. The yellow paint is optional, but it makes the derails easier to see. When a car rolls slowly towards the switch, the derail will put the first wheelset on the ground, and that usually stops all forward motion. (As in the second photo.)
I also made a more fancy derail to use with a siding at train shows, This derail has a built-in toggle switch that cuts power to the siding when the derail is engaged.
Hope this may help somebody, David Meashey
