09 March, 2009

TT layout - part 002 (custom crossings)












During planning of the layout I realized, that I want to have almost in scale (just not having long enough space) a real railway station. Suprisingly the Zurich Stadelhofen city centre station fits into my layout just from the side under the planned main station. So I decided to compose the Stadelhofen into my layout. During planning and measurements I found, that the standard TT Tillig rail components and turnouts do not fit the scale size of Stadelhofen - the rails are much closer together than what offer the standard turnouts.

So the only option I had, was to build the custom crossings myself. I needed to have one crossing between two rail lines on right side and a single crossing, but in turn on the left side. For the crossing I used 2 straight switches EW2 and 2 curwe switches IBW, left & right. Standard distance between 2 rail lines is 43mm, but in Stadelhofen this is as low as 32mm. Using standard components, I could use either DGV combined switch, having the standard 43mm distance or 4 switches with a crossing between them, but this would lead into an even bigger distance. Both cases would lead also to shorten track length in the station.

With help of thin diamond sawing micro wheel I cut the 4 switches and saved the cutted parts for later use. with a steel knife I cutted the plastic sleepers in the way that all 4 switches will fit together, while keeping the correct rail line positions between the opposite switches. They will be later connected using the parts saved after cutting. When all 4 pieces fit together I glued them via plastic sleepers. Then I cut and sanded the rails to fit into the place - see the photos for reference. The edges needed to be sanded and some of them also isolated by glueing between them plastic strips. After glueing together all was sanded to allow smooth wheel movements across it. The last thing to do was to insert guiding ribs, made of ABS plastic strips 2x0.75mm. I used only Loctite 401 fast glue, everything is OK, after several weeks of traffic.

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