Dual Gauge Woes

When last we met the TCS decoders out of the newly acquired Atlas GP7's had been removed and sent in for repair. They have been repaired and returned and I'm happy to say they are now working flawlessly. They have been hauling freight in and out of Clarinda as scheduled (meaning, whenever I feel like running a train or two).

The HO scale decoder came in and was installed in the Mikado. It is working great as well. The decoder out of the Mikado is in the Geep and is also working great. I've also picked up a couple of other steam locos, an AHM 4-4-0 in V&T livery named Reno, and a Rivarossi 2-4-0 in Beauford and Moorehead paint, at a train show and picked up some rolling stock to match it. I haven't decided if I will repaint the 2-4-0 for the holiday railroad or not, but I'm certainly considering it. I may or may not put DCC chips in those two, at this point I haven't really decided.

So moving along, I am anticipating some N scale dual gauge construction soon, so I got the Fast Tracks fixtures for that purpose. Today I attempted to build the first one.

I failed miserably.

Well, maybe not miserably. It is together and works, except for the fact that there isn't a throwbar installed and for the life of me I can't figure out how to attach the standard gauge point rail on the double rail side to the throwbar. There is plenty of room to attach the narrow gauge and shared rail points, but that standard gauge rail, because there is so little room to get the soldering iron down in there, won't heat up enough to melt the solder.

On a similar note, the guard rails for the standard gauge between the dual gauge rails is also nigh unto impossible to install, and for the same reason.

I'm having to figure out all of this as I go because there is absolutely no direction on the Fast Tracks site for N/Nn3, and using the HO scale dual gauge turnout guide pictured above has the narrow gauge stock rail (#3) going in before the standard gauge point rail (#4), which once again doesn't leave enough room to solder it to the throwbar. So that means I will have to do something different.

For my next attempt I will build the dual gauge side from the outside in. On the dual gauge side of the turnout the standard gauge stock rail (#1) will  go in first, then the standard gauge guard rail (all of them are labeled #13; the HO template shows two of them but the N scale one combines them both into one), then the standard gauge point rail (#4, which is formed from the same piece of rail as the narrow gauge stock rail past the points). 

Paper will then be used to isolate the stock rail from both the point rail and the throwbar, and the point rail will get soldered to the throwbar. After that, and only after that, the narrow gauge stock rail that runs past the points (#3) can go in, and that should get all the necessary parts in between the standard and narrow gauge stock rails. The tricky bits past that point are the many pieces of the dual frogs. The rest of the build went OK, so I'm not expecting any problems from that.

I think I can salvage my first attempt by removing the standard gauge stock rail and soldering everything in before reinstalling it, but that will have to wait until I feel like torturing myself again.