Marklin Track Plans With Straight Switch Signal Turnouts

Trackwork
We used sectional track to speed tracklaying. The newer all-in-one-style sectional track snaps together quickly and includes plastic roadbed. The molded roadbed resembles the crushed rock ballast used to hold ties in place on real railroad track. Unlike flextrack or traditional sectional track, no ballasting is necessary – although we found that adding a layer of appropriately colored ballast to the shoulders adds realism and takes little effort. Several companies make all-in-one track, including Atlas, Bachmann, and Life-Like, Märklin (not compatible with 2-rail operation), and Trix.

After considering our options, we decided to use Kato Unitrack. This track features good-looking roadbed and robust joiners for solid mechanical and electrical connections between track pieces. Unitrack turnouts are made in no. 4 and 6 sizes and feature hidden built-in switch machines. These machines have a design that's unique to Kato and requires a constant-voltage DC power supply. Kato also makes a DC converter that connects to the AC terminals of a power pack. In either case, you'll need only one to power all the turnouts on your layout.

Hiding the switch machine under the turnout is clever, but the machines can be damaged by water or liquid glue when making scenery. We made sure to keep our turnouts dry and had no problems.

Opening the packages and organizing the pieces took more time than laying the track. To make sure everything would fit properly, I snapped all the track together and, according to David's plan, set it in place temporarily.
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Knowing exactly where the track would go allowed me to mark the locations of the power feeds. I removed the track, drilled small holes in the tabletop for the feeder wires, and installed several Kato no. 24-818 terminal UniJoiners. Terminal joiners take the place of standard joiners and are easy to use since they have feeder wires already attached.

The standard joiners attached to the track can be removed with a plastic tool that Kato packages with terminal joiners. The track sections have a molded plastic ridge in the roadbed behind the joiners. To make room for the wires, I broke away the ridge with needle-nose pliers before clicking the new joiners in place.

Kato's terminal joiners have a blue wire and a white wire, and I was careful to be consistent in keeping the same color wire going to the same rail all around the layout.

It's possible for the end of a rail to ride over a joiner when connecting track pieces (see the middle photo), so I checked each joint by sliding a finger along the rails – the track is correct if the joint feels smooth. Finally, using dabs of PL300 construction adhesive, I glued the track in place.

We thought the assembled track looked a little too manicured to be realistic, so Cody Grivno, Terry, and I applied Kato's no. 24-039 ballast to soften the shoulders of the roadbed (bottom right photo). Working on a few inches of track at a time, we poured on the ballast and arranged it using a soft brush. Then, using a spray bottle, we misted the ballast with a 50:50 mix of rubbing alcohol and water. When the ballast was wet, we used an eyedropper to flow on Woodland Scenics Scenery Cement. – Carl Swanson

Testing the track plan before gluing anything to the layout is a good idea. To get started, Carl pieced together the entire layout's worth of track to test the fit.

Be extra careful that the rails are properly seated in the rail joiner when connecting track sections. This photo shows a rail that has ridden up on top of the joiner, which will be difficult to fix once the track has been secured.

To make the wire connections nearly invisible, we used Unitrack terminal joiners with the feeders already attached. Carl drilled holes through the layout surface, fed the wires through the holes, clipped the feeder joiners to the track, then glued the track in place.

We softened the sharp edge of the Unitrack's roadbed profile by adding Kato's matching ballast. As shown in the photo, the ballast gives the roadbed a more-natural appearance, blending it into the surrounding scenery by removing the sharp, straight edge.

Marklin Track Plans With Straight Switch Signal Turnouts

Source: https://www.greatesthobby.com/get-started/bbrj-part-2

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