WOOHOO! Good weather = time to build

[Gary S]

Gary, just a "heads up" with an easy fix for Atlas turnouts. I don't remember the exact size shim needed, but it will be somewhere between .005"-.015". Since atlas guard rails are part of the plastic tie casting, you can cut a sliver of the appropriate size styrene and glue it to the guard rail to close up the gap. The guard rails grab the inside edge of all wheels opposite from the frog and should help eliminate derailing over the frogs.

Russ, thanks for that tip. I'm going to monitor the atlas switches and see if they need that fix. Some of the "bump-bump" I have seen when a car goes over an Atlas turn-out may very well be because of the wide tolerances... allowing the occasional wheel flange to hit the frog point.