hand laid dual gage turnouts

The Weyerhaeuser Mill B complex in Everett on the Burrlington Northern is now served by both narrow and standard gage spurs, thanks to some recently-completed partial-dual-gage hand laid turnouts. A standard gage Micro-Engineering #6 turnout is visible below the three new turnouts, for comparison:

It always sounded scary to me to hand lay dual gage turnouts, so for decades I made do with buying the old Shinohara dual gage turnouts and using them. But there was an area on the Burrlington Northern, called Weyerhaeuser Mill B that "needed" both standard and narrow gage service, and the only way to get to it would be for the dual gage track in Delta yard to cross the (curved) mainline on a hand-made standard/dual gage diamond crossing. I thought about this for about 15 years, and then several months ago bit the bullet and constructed it. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, as covered in an earlier blog post.

So, suddenly the Mill B area was opened up to dual gage service. Since it's a freelanced railroad, and I was still afraid of making a fully dual-gage turnout, I decided to peel off the narrow and standard gage tracks in separate turnouts, so we would be able to spot and pick up cars using the appropriate gage locomotives. This seems easier to build than a full-on dual gage turnout, so that's what I did. The photo above shows the three partial dual gage turnouts - two with the narrow gage peeling off to the left, and one with the standard gage peeling off to the left. The dual gage branch line is still available through the complex, and (sometime) in the future I plan to run it around to Bayside yard to provide service to the freight house, the ice house, and a produce company. We all need someplace to spot those nice new Blackstone reefers, right? :)

Here's a shot of one of the partial turnouts under construction:

You start by building a regular narrow gage turnout, and then add the standard gage rail on the side. For peeling off the standard gage track, it's little more complicated, because of needing a second frog, 

so here's a shot of that one under construction:

Then, you cut gaps in the printed circuit board ties, wire the now-isolated frogs up to "frog juicers", paint the ties and rail, install ground throws, polish the rail and vacuum the whole mess, test it one more time, and voila:

I couldn't be more proud of this, since these are the first track switches I've ever scratch-built. The nominal minimum radius of the curve is 20", but with the frogs it seems sharper than that in spots. So far, though, the Blackstone K-27's make it through the complex without derailing, as well as a 60' standard gage flat car that I tested. I haven't tried an Alco C-636 yet, and am not optimistic, but fortunately this is not mainline track and there would be no reason to put a six-axle diesel in there.

Here's an overview of the track complex from the other side, and how the dual gage crosses over the standard gage BN mainline. Those Thrall-door boxcars on the siding are just itching to get spotted at the mill!:

Now all we need is ballast, ground cover and roads, and the scene will be complete. Not to mention replacing the "stand-in" Mill B building with something that looks more like the real thing. Another time - the important thing is that now Mill B can supply the narrow gage mines with timber, as well as receive logs from the narrow gage logging camps! Let the fun begin! Let's not wait another 15 years! :(