Kato #6 turnouts

[Mlminto]

Can anyone explain to me why Kato would make two kinds of turnouts (#4, #6)?  I have some #6 turnouts that, when going in one direction seem to maintain track power fine, but when going back to the single track it came from, my loco's stop due to getting no power feed.  I'm sure others have asked this and you experienced folks know what I'm talking about; thanks for any info.  Mike

[cteno4]

The two different points are different radius on the diverging rail, #6 are 718mm radius and the #4 are 481mm radius. You can use the #4 are for places you need to fit turnouts into a tighter space, but being a tighter radius some trains (especially larger ones) can pick the point at times unless you tune the point by making some little pockets in the track for the blade ends to nestle into.

 

the points are both power routing (on the #4 you can turn off the power routing) in that when power is being fed in from the entry end (end with only one track) the power will be routed to the outgoing track that the point is switched to. So is switched to the outgoing straight thru position power is routed to the outgoing straight track and none to the diverging (curved) outgoing track. if point switched to diverging track (the curved track) the power is only routed from the incoming track to the diverging track (none to the outgoing straight track).

 

what this means is you need to try to feed your power outside the points from the incoming side of the points, not the outgoing track ends), not from within (on the outgoing track sides). Basically this lets you have a track that is a stub end off the divergent of a point (or a passing track) off of a mainline loop you can leave a train on it and as long as the point is switched to the mainline loop the train will stay parked with now power. When you want to run it you switch the track to the stub track and it then gets power and you can move it onto the main line, switch the point to the mainline and run the train in the main line.

 

make sense?

 

are you using dcc or dc?

 

jeff