shim a tunout

Collyn

Member
is there anyway to shim a turnout that is already laid. I have noticed it is tilted fairly badly and the trains have been having some difficulty on it. It is not ballisted yet
 

Nomad

Active Member
I would try wooden door shims. The tip is paper thin, you could wedge it under the switch to level it, cut it off, then spike it in place.
Loren
 

UKSteam

New Member
Collyn
Prior to shimming check you have not just pinched the track down to tight with your trrack pins < or spikes depending which continent you reside on :) >
Failing that back the pins off slightly using the sharp blade end of a flat screwdriver and use a short piece of paper tucked under the sleepers (ties) of the offending section. I used the card packaging off of a couple of Peco packages I had. Gave em a quick flick over with some paint to hide the whiteness of them prior to ballasting, and they made excellent "a few thou' " thickness shims to bring all the track to the same height. Got it all running nice and smooth with my most cantankerous cars, PUSHED through by a loco to really test it all out and then llightly tapped the pins back down again.
Final check was fingers run along track tops to feel any misaligned (heightwise) rails and the old fashioned eyeball at track level v1.0 :)
 
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