As a long time reader and lurker on this board, I have not made many contributions, but I enjoy and learn so much from the many contributers. And now I have a point to make - just letting off steam, I guess.
Recently I expanded my layout and put in an Atlas curved switch (72 and 54) because it served my purpose in as much as the width of my table is only 60 inches. I anticipated some enjoyment and satisfaction from running trains through the switch, but that is not what I got. The front wheels of my steamers shuttered and jumped off the track when using the 54 R of the switch. It is not a sometime problem, but an always problem. The switch looks great, but shouldn't the switch do more than look great. If I file down the points or make some tother adjustment, it will probably work. BUt my point is, why should I have to do this? For the price of the switch, shouldn't the manufacturere do this before the consumer buys it? Why must I make the adjustment? And the instructiokns to the switch are no better because they tell the consumer that trains will have trouble running through the switch due to its length. As the kids say, what's with that? Nothing will come of this note, but I feel better letting off some steam. Continue posting, guys. Folks like me enjoy reading the contributions

I feel your pain! Atlas switches, for those of us who invested in them, are disconcerting to say the least. And my real beef is that Atlas O will do nothing about the crummy switches they sold until they fail...and apparently they will fail...and by that time they have already been installed and/or ballasted into a layout and have to be removed, destroying scenery.

And what about the fact that MTH Premier and Lionel Scale sized steam engines stall out on 072, 5, 7.5 and wider switches, because of roller contact problems and the distance between hot rails on these switches.

quote:

And what about the fact that MTH Premier and Lionel Scale sized engines stall out on 072, 5, 7.5 and wider switches, because of roller contact problems and the distance between hot rails on these switches.

Not to sound dumb, but that happens with my 0-72 switches too! Virtually non of my traditional OR scale locomotives will cross them without stalling out! This is infuriating as these things, even though I only have three of them, were expensive as heck. Is there anything one can do about it?

I am having the same problem with all my Atlas switches and may have found a solution. I have one especially troubling area where I have two 072 switches back to back. My longest engines won't run through without stalling but a shorter one does? The shorter one is a Lionel 10 wheeler steam engine that we have installed a jumper wire between the engine and the tender pickup rollers. We are next going to try a jumper wire between the rollers on my Lionel Dash 8 to see if the same thing happens. If that works too, then it will be installing wires on all of my engines. Maybe it isn't just a switch problem?

Pardon the stupid question, but what is a "jumper wire" and what do you do with it?

Gdm60,

Life is too short to be disappointed with a hoby. Trash the Atlas switch and go to www.rossswitches.com. You can get manual, remote with the DZ1000, or with the DZ2500 in the same 072/054 configuration. Don't be afraid to call them at 1-800-331-1395. They're great on the phone and have helped me with my rookie questions.

I have Atlas track and they marry up to RCS easily. Just cut off the locking tab on the track and use the Atlas track connector that came with the track.

Atlas didn't even answer my last email.

Good luck, have fun!

John
TCA 05-59325

BTW, I bought mine on the OGR buy/sell board for half price.

John,
People like to collect certain trains and train equipment, for some of these people getting rid of the Atlas switches might be pretty hard. I agree however and as far as I am concerned I stay away from Atlas switches because of the constant problems with them.
NASA/Dave

Quite some time ago, I also posted on problems I was having with the Atlas curved turnout. Not a single modern vintage steam or diesel engine of mine would go through it without some sort of problem. Someone (sorry, I don't remember who) had responded with the design of a custom machined part that had solved all his problems. After some thought, I decided to solve my problem by removing all of them from my layout and rearrange the track so I did not need them. Very disappointing as they look great. IMO Atlas O priority is on the appearance of their turnouts, and place a low priority on fixing functional issues that so many of us have.

This is a sad commentary on a company we all respect for so many well engineered products. However, all of these comments are true regarding these switches. I have 35 of them on my layout, designed and built before these issues surfaced and now I am frequently frustrated by these problems.

I have had to run jumper wires to the switches from known points on the layout where track power is strong. I use my meter to test where the signal disappears on the switch, then run a wire to the point and solder it to the side of the offending rail. Unfortunately, soldering to nickel silver is not very effective with conventional soldering equipment and sometimes that is quite frustrating.

At one time Atlas offered to replace the offending switches free of charge but I did not take them up on the offer in order to save my sanity. Having to change out all those pieces, re-install new ones, wrestle to fit them into tightly fitted track still in place on both ends of the switch (ever try to force that?), then pray the new ones were better (not confident of this) is not a recipe for happiness in my 3-rail world. Don't ever use them in a yard, it will drive you either insane or to drink, believe me.

I also don't relish spending another $1,000 with Ross to replace them, and then fit them in the track plan with slightly differnt end-to-end dimensions than Atlas. That idea is an engineering challenge that "is an insult of with which I will not put" (Winston Churchill).

Thus, I am in a conundrum of Atlas's manufacture, making do with a poorly designed product with a half-a---- fix.

Peter Bowler, Akron

Peter

I have had no problem soldering to Atlas NS track. I use a 100/140 Weller iron and radio solder. On the black rails I drill a small hole and insert the wire through it, makes a very secure joint. I have Atlas O54 switches. Most of my steamers will not go through the switch without a big clunk as if it is falling off a ledge. I wish I would have spent the money and bought Ross switches. Gargraves track mates pretty easily to Atlas. I think Atlas track is the best on the market,my previous layout was GG and I had problems with it.

Dale H

Stop messing around. Remove the switch and return it if you can, or sell it.
Buy another switch, Ross or whatever, and chalk up your loss to experience.

Atlas makes great locos and rolling stock, and nice looking track, but their switches are more trouble than they are worth.

Now, a bunch of people will post how they have nothing but joy with their Atlas switches, and there must be something wrong with us if we're having problems. Don't bother. There are enough people reporting problems to show that it's an Atlas problem, not ours.

I have been as hard as anyone here on Atlas switches, specifically over their very inadequate electrical design.

But in some fairness to Atlas, they make a wide variety of switches, and there is a huge variety of equipment out there spanning sixty years in age and Beep to Big Boy in size... in an industry where the dominant players don't speak to each other and can't even agree on common coupler dimensions, let alone something as complicated and tradeoff-ridden as track and equipment standards. Expecting anyone's switches to work with everything out there, out of the box without adjustment, strikes me as a little on the un-realistic side.

Still, Atlas' continued apparently-willful ignorance of the electrical issues, and mechanical issues if there are repeated problems with a specific part (I have not seen this myself, just electrical issues), really does rankle. If they at least appeared to be trying to improve things, it would buy a lot of goodwill with me, and I suspect most O Gauge operators. (They did try once, replacing the molded-in wires with the present external weenie wires... that was a start, but didn't fix the problem.)

Whenever this all gets too annoying for me, I just go spend some time (and money) on one of my other hobbies... old cars, R/C airplanes, the house. Helps keep the train world in perspective.

Ed

Best thing to do is pull all the wires, except for common ground wire
rewire and reconnect electrical head center rail, ATlas cut it (this is the big issue)and the metal doesn't solder. The connecting wire is about 22-24 gauge and probably is melted if you have run multiple engines on the block. Doubt it survives much over three amp draw. The first derailment that shorts fries this wire.

I've opted to do classification yard with Ross.

The jumper wire is just a wire that is connected between both pickup rollers on the engine. It doesn't seem like it should be neccesary but on the first engine that we tried it worked great. The shorter steam engine that it is on just crawls through all my Atlas switches and doesn't stall anywhere. We had checked electrical continuity on all the rails through these switches and they were fine but the engines still stalled while going through them.

I am not defending Atlas switches or engines as I have had more than my share of problems with both. I am of the current opinion that the wiring and pickup roller spacing on my engines is more my problem than the Atlas switches. Why my Atlas diesel won't run on any of my switches without sparking and shorting out is another problem. I love the appearance of all the Atlas products but their quality and reliability have been sorely lacking for me. I know everyone on this forum swears by Atlas engines and I believe your comments, but that has not been my experience unfortunately. My Atlas diesel is forced to sit on an unpowered siding for looks.

quote:

This is a sad commentary on a company we all respect for so many well engineered products.

If this well respected company were to do the right thing, they would issue a recall and offer to correct the problem before their well respected customers have to be aggravated by their poorly engineered products.

If the problem is only that of a needed jumper wire I fail to comprehend a grave situatioin.

Granted, few planned to add jumpers. But we are constantly doing "this" and "that" to tune up our efforts. Folks, the sky is not falling. In fact after the first couple of jumpers you will feel so much more accomplished. You may even go on to add some electrical do dads from which your fear of the unknown held you back.

Reread the Dale H. post a few back. That man seems to have a healthy attitude.

In all honesty, disregarding ego, is our workmanship as perfect as we expect of others? I know when I mess up the realistic graciousness of others is a fresh breath of air. One of the reasons that are cited for the acceptance of peoples problems frequently reflects on the overall pattern of that individual's (enity) generally conduct.

WOW, you just saved me from making a big stupid and expensive mistake. Thanks goodness for this forumn.

Sam

I wonder if anyone from Atlas O reads this board??
If so, maybe they would comment on their switches??
GP

I will throw in my two cents here. Sure, it is real easy now that we know what the problem is. However, many of us built our layouts long before we knew there was a problem. Years ago I purchased quite a number of Atlas switches and built my layout. Scenery completely done, ballasted, weathered rail, etc. Then one night we are running the trains, and suddenly an engine dies on a switch that is has taken 100's of times before without a problem. I spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure this out. Imagine it happens again with a different engine on another switch. Is it my wiring? The engine? It comes down to it must be a switch. Oh boy, I replace it with an new Atlas switch. 3 months later another one goes. Phone calls, ripping out sections of the layout etc. Eventually, they all stop working. I figure out the problem, not the exact problem, but know it is the Atlas switch. Now, my entire mainlines must be ripped out and redone. I replaced with Ross. I really like Atlas stuff, the company and their dedication to doing rolling stock and motive power in a prototypical fashion. This is constructive criticism. It did not ruin my life, but a bit frustrating yes. The people lucky enough to have this information and if they have the soldering skill can now purchase Atlas turnouts. But that does leave an awful lot of people out of the equation, does it not?

From Tom Thorpe

quote:

Reread the Dale H. post a few back. That man seems to have a healthy attitude.

From Dale H.

quote:

I wish I would have spent the money and bought Ross switches.

We're not talking about the workmanship of a hobbyist or modeler, we're talking about the products of a for-profit enterprise. Either they deliver value or they don't. These are products that retail for $50 to $150 dollars.

I'm glad you can be gracious with your time and money. After spending the money, and more time fiddling with switches than running my layout, I have run out.

I've had my share of switch problems over the last 50 yrs and I suspect anyone who has been in the hobby that long long has experienced the same thing. Problems are to be expected like it or not. I don't know how many switches Atlas sells in a year but I'd bet that defective units to the customer is less than 5%. That's not bad for a $100.00 item. The last computer that I bought I had to return twice in a 6 month period so it's just not the lowly Atlas switch that has problems. As far as Atlas recalling their switches - it's not going to happen and I don't expect them to. I know the pain of tearing up a good portion of a layout to correct problems but that's part of the hobby. If we want everything to run smooth for years and years perhaps were in the wrong hobby. That's just my take on things.

I guess my problem with the Lionel 0-72s is that they have never worked properly at all. The stalling and outright shorting, particularly on one of the units, was apparent from Day One of their use.

Wild Mary,
What have you done to fix your Atlas switches?

I have started to build my layout (which is planned as all Atlas) so I am very interested in this thread.

It seems to me that most of the problems are

1) Failure of the switch to carry current from one leg to another

2) Stalling engines due to roller pickup spacing not working well with breaks in the center rail.

As far as 1 goes I would never count on a switch to transmit electricity. On my old layout I wired jumpers to all legs of the switch. Of course these were Gargraves switches that had all legs isolated but if I can't see the wire I don't trust it to carry current.

For 2) it seems like this is a problem endemic to wide radius switches. Even on the Ross website they say you may need to wire relays up for their longer switches.

Are there other major issues that I haven't touched on?

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by tom thorpe:
If the problem is only that of a needed jumper wire I fail to comprehend a grave situatioin.

Granted, few planned to add jumpers. But we are constantly doing "this" and "that" to tune up our efforts. Folks, the sky is not falling. In fact after the first couple of jumpers you will feel so much more accomplished. You may even go on to add some electrical do dads from which your fear of the unknown held you back.

I believe you are over simplifying the soldering of jumper wires to AtlasO track. The heavy rail sucks heat from the soldering gun at an alarming rate, before you know it plastic ties are starting to melt.

quote:

ut I'd bet that defective units to the customer is less than 5%.

With the center rail beng cut at head of turnout about two inches down (jumper wire) and the fact that this rail can not be soldered (its a alloy of a different nature), well I call that 100% defective.

Gentlemen,

For those of you who haven't hooked up your Atlas turnouts, or who are considering buying them because you think they're cheaper than Ross, let me post a little economic lesson.

I just went to the Atlas web site for this info. For the turnout in question, O54/O72 but in NS, a plus for Atlas, the price, with switch machine was $72.95.

The price list I just received from RCS for the same turnout, although not with NS rails, BUT with the DZ1000 switch machine is $74.95.

I fail to see where there's a saving with Atlas on this switch. The DZ is a better machine, in my opinion, AND I consider my time to rewire something which is touted as plug and play worth one heck of a lot more than $2.00.

I will admit that a fair number of the RCS are at the $74.95 price point, and suppliers do discount Atlas, but I'd rather forgo a couple of pieces of rolling stock, and have a layout that's operational to my satisfaction.

Just my $.02 worth.

John
TCA 05-59325

A big AMEN, I have been a faithful Atlas O customer since the 96-97 intro-
but lots of switch problems. I am in the process of building a large layout,
and the power drops out,on what is suppossed to be a newer version switch.
Now I have to pull the switch out completely,and try to do the research
from the forum to soder or whatever,so the dang thing works. s
And I have also had center points just plain come out.
I tryed Gorilla Glue this past weekend,so far it's holding !

How about a recall program, Atlas O ?

John

I purchased Atlas switches because I had Atlas track. Price was not a factor in my decision. I was just trying to save a little work and avoid alignment headaches. I did not know their switches would be plagued with problems. After mating some Atlas track with GG and Lionel tubular I then only realized it was not a big problem.

Dale H

quote:

The front wheels of my steamers shuttered and jumped off the track when using the 54 R of the switch.

What ever happened to the original question/problem of this thread. He did not say anything about the electrical properties of the switch. It is a DERAILING problem. I don't have any answer but I do have a question. Do your engines go thru regular O54 switches and O54 curves OK?

quote:

the price, with switch machine was $72.95

The problem with that argument is that you are using MSRP. Atlas switches can be had for the $30 range from internet hobby shops. Try to get a discount on Ross switches.

I've asked Nor... er, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, about his many Atlas switches and he says he has no problems with them. I only have a few but I have had no problems either. Not with derailing nor electrical. But I am not foolish, I don't expect a switch to forward the electrical power. I run feeders to all three legs. I have heard that if you park a loco or a lighted passenger car on them you can burn up the underside jumpers but I have not had that problem either.

Where ever you have two or more switches in a row of any make you run the risk of stalling locos account of the roller spacings and the dead rail spacings. I would not try to install crossovers or yard leads without relay switched feeds to the rails between the points and the frog.

The trick to soldering without melting nearby things such as plastic ties is too use a BIG soldering iron or big soldering gun (my preferred method). You need a lot of heat FAST to heat up the immediate area you want to solder so the solder flows and you can remove the heat source before the heat has time to flow along the rail to the ties. With small soldering irons/guns you'll melt all of the switch ties to a puddle of plastic before you get the rail hot enough to melt solder (if you are ever able to). Heat sinks clamped to the rail on either side help to.

Wyhogg

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Wyhogg,

quote:

I believe you are over simplifying the soldering of jumper wires to AtlasO track. The heavy rail sucks heat from the soldering gun at an alarming rate, before you know it plastic ties are starting to melt.

I just tried to solder to a piece of Atlas track I had lying around and I didn't have any problems. Maybe it wasn't quite as easy as soldering to gargraves but I didn't melt any ties.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Al T:
Wild Mary,
What have you done to fix your Atlas switches?

Nothing yet. They're waiting to be installed on my new layout when we have our retirement home built in the next two yrs. But you can bet they'll be rewired before installation.

In response to the original question which was why the large steam locomotive keeps derailing on the O54 route of the switch, the answer I can only conclude is that the locomotive requires 072 minimum radius trackage. Without a MFR and Model Number of the locomotive, I cannot be certain if that is your only problem. In the past, I had purchased some "Curve within a Curve" O72/O54 switches in hopes of "squeaking by" with my Lionel 2-10-4 Pennsy. The engine didn't like the O54 route and the tender disliked it even more with its centipede like trucks. I simply could not use the switch. That was not Atlas's fault but rather the outcome of my "expieriment". I can only suggest to those who do not currently own but may, even remotely, someday purchase large steam engines, that you do not, under any circumstances wander into anything less than an O72 minimum radius on any track work, regardless of MFR.

With respect to the "stalling out" problem. In the recent