Jon,
I’ve always been interested in this safety pin idea, since Tom first presented it to the internet world of large scale track enthusiasts, many moons ago.
I guess this question should go to Tom, The “less than a dollar” bag of Wally World pins, are these brass safety pins or are they chrome coated spring steel or what?
The Aristo Craft turnouts spring over and come back, but the LGB 1600 turnouts spring over and stay at the new position. Jon, is this what you are trying to achieve?
The KVRwy has all LGB 1600 turnouts on the permananetly layed row. The exception is the portable live steam track, that is all Aristo Craft track and therefore has the AC turnouts.
Protypically, I guess the spring points that swing over and comeback are more realistic. But, I’ve gotten use to the LGB 1600 style that swing over and stay. I use these on the inside portion of the KVRwy and like the “Timesaver” portion that you’ve seen, they are operated by your finger. Boy, that would sure slow the “Timesaver” down, if you had to throw each turnout. On the outside portion, I just remove the switchmachine, this allows the points to float in the ballast. They stay where you put them and are held there by the ballast. This came about because of failure of the switch machines, outside. I was orignally going to put hand throws on, like the IPP&WRR or a commercially made turnout control like Llagas Creek, but found it was more workable to just leave them float.
Now, because of the number of turnouts, whatever I do would be a major undertaking. And I guess it would introduce a new learning (or relearning curve) to take the time to throw the turnout more protypically. Of course in reality, that is what I want to do, be more protypical. I don’t know if I have the patients to move that much slower in creating or resolving a switching situation.