Hi,

I decided to have a go at one of these - a simpler one than the one decribed elsewhere here. My aim was not to have a certain distance between the parallel tracks.

As we know the track pieces 24172 are just too short to fit in between the turnouts and the 24188 just too long. So two 24188 need to be shortened to a <u>final length of 176.0 mm</u> each piece being 88.0 mm. The superfluous 12.3 mm was sawed out from the center of the 24188 track pieces (a standard hachsaw was used). The track beds of the to halves were glued together with "Superzement S30" (Vollmer). Additional angle plastic supports (white pieces in the picture) were glued on the underside (might not be necessary). Finally the installation of jumper wires. Soldering of the track ajoining ends found to be not necessary. They are perfectly aligned. Also the plastic trackbeds will probably melt anyway.

Parts used:
2x 24711 slim t/u
2x 24712 slim t/u
1x 24640 crossing 24.3 degree
8x 24071 70.8 mm
2x 24188 188.3 mm
8x flat connectors from kit 74995
4x wire (2x red and 2x brown).

Optional additional parts:
4x 74490 el. t/u mechanism
1x 60830 k83 decoder (my choice)
or
4x 74444 digital t/u mechanism kit
or
4x 74490 el. t/u mechanism
4x 74460 inbuilt decoder.

The result:

The underside:

Hi: Always the professor I have a basic question: what problem exactly does this nice piece of engineering solve? I clearly am mystified at the reversal of the red and brown leads in the straight tracks in between the turnout! Thanks, and excuse the ignorance.--MM

Why doesn't M make something like this? It would be a neat idea.

Benny,

any thought of doing this without the 24071 pieces? it needs some re-work (cutting off the ballasts) but it could be done in a more compact fashion.

Mario

I have a freeware program (Windows) that you can use to determine the fewest pieces of track to make up any length.
You can also enter the length in terms of an angle and offset - useful when inserting lengths on curves or at angles to shift track by a certain amount

Download it from http://layout.mixmox.com/1/calc

Yes, it has been done by a german Prof. Andreas Weigand and it was referred to in a thread here some time ago, but I can't remember which one (wish list for 2007 or 2008 perhaps), but I downloaded his pdf sheet with detailed work description and pictures. His aim was to have 64.3 mm between the tracks as for R3 to R4 or R4 to R5.

I think that logically you should be able to drive all 4 turnouts using a single k83 output pair - i.e. as a single turnout.
Trains have to either cross or go straight so there are only two 'modes'.

if you use Viessmann decoders, each decoder can be supplied with its own power so if you get one of those next time you need another module you may be able to save the other pair.