In my first post on the modular fiddle yard design I mentioned B8 turnouts had been chosen for the fiddle yard. There is very good reason for this which I can now show.

For several weeks I have been working on a few designs for 2mm finescale flat bottom turnout construction fixtures. I started off with Templot to create the turnout drawing then imported this into Autocad as a DXF. This is where the fun began as I had to change some sleeper spacings in order to incorporate a 'hidden' moving sleeper to change the turnout. While this is nowhere near accurate, it suits me and removes the headache of soldering thin wire to the switch blades, feeding them under the baseboard surface and connecting to some sort of operating unit before it even connects to the motor to change it!

The above is what I came up with. Some of you will notice it looks like a carbon copy of a Fast Tracks turnout fixture. This is no coincidence as after speaking to a few firms based in the UK I soon realised it would cost from £150 per fixture and all they would do is create a part from my drawing. The risk going down this route was my drawings may not be as accurate as I thought despite my best intentions. I then spoke to Tim Warris of Fast Tracks and he said there would be no problem converting my drawings into proper working fixtures but he would require a sample of rail to ensure the tolerances were perfect. This was sent off to Canada and two weeks later I had a package with my four turnout fixtures, a 'Frog Helper Tool', No8 and N010 frog/switch filing block and a 'Stockaid' tool to file away the foot of the flat bottom rail:

While not cheap, I know these are exactly what I wanted and have been tweaked by the guy who produces these for a living to North American prototypes. These tools will likely last my whole modelling life and hopefully produce hundreds of turnouts.

They are designed to work in exactly the same way as their American counterparts in that you have several key copper clad sleepers which slot into the machined pockets, the flat bottom rail slots into the grooves ensuring the 9.42mm gauge is maintained perfectly to allow you to solder the rail onto the copper clad sleepers. Once this has been completed you can proceed with removing the turnout from the fixture:

The next stage involves a laser cut sleeper base which I have also designed from the same drawings as the fixtures. The few I have at the moment were samples created by Tim Horn and look fantastic but I have since edited the drawing to take the laser kerf into account. This sleeper base is glued to the bottom of the rails:

This leaves you with a working turnout and all that is required is a few cuts with a jewellers saw to isolate the frog from everything else so it can be switched. The photo above looks really rough as it is a test turnout and I went a little crazy with my rotary tool while removing blobs of solder from the PCB sleepers. In future I will use a lot less solder and fill the isolation gaps in the PCB sleepers before painting to ensure all the sleepers blend in.

This photo shows how much different the turnout is to an American one which is usually created with Tim's fixtures and looks miles better than the Peco Large radius code 55 turnout. The turnout I have built here is a B8 and will be the smallest turnout I will use on any layout. My other fixtures allow me to build C8, C10 and D10 turnouts too so I'm well covered for the future.

The lighting isn't great but you can just see the subtle overhang of the class 57 on the curved road of the turnout. This is acceptable to me for a scenic section but I will likely use B8's exclusively in my fiddle yards.

This turnout was a rush job but I reckon if I take my time and am careful with the solder I can build a whole turnout in around an hour. I have ran a few wagons and locos with 2mm finescale wheels through this test turnout and they are as smooth as silk. There isn't a bump over the frog and the travel over the switch blades is flawless - Something I never quite managed building by hand!

I am currently waiting on an order of rail from the 2mm Association shop which should hopefully arrive tomorrow. If all goes well, I will be demoing these fixtures and tools on the DEMU/Scottish Modellers stand at Model Rail Scotland over the weekend. If you fancy a little look come and have a chat.

Cheers

Martin

(NB: I have no connection with Fast Tracks other than a happy customer)