Turnout (Point) operating unit

This is a functional unit designed to operate the switch blades of a hand-built turnout in HO, OO, EM or P4. The unit is designed to be operated by a servo or slow acting point motor. Two versions are available for 16.5mm gauge track HO/OO and for 18-18.83mm gauge track EM/P4. Multiple options for the tiebar itself are included to give a distant between the connections to the switching rails of 12mm (OO) and 14mm, 14.5mm and 15mm (EM/P4).

Assembly is straightforward. The holes in the tiebar take two short lengths of 2mm brass tube which go through holes in the baseboard to terminate below the level of the switch rails. For a typical 6mm ply baseboard with a layer of cork underlay something around 20mm is about right. You may need to open up the holes in the tiebar with 2mm drill depending on how the tolerance of your print comes out. While the lever will pivot and operate the tiebar with out it bushing the pivot hole with another short length of 2mm tube and then feeding a length of 1mm wire through the two main parts will give a more 'engineering' solution than just allowing the plastic parts to rub against each other. You will probably need to open up whichever hole at the end of pivot arm you choose to use to take the wire linkage to your servo.

The connection to the switch blades is made with a length of ~.9mm wire is bent into an 'L' shape with the short part of the L ~3mm long and the long part long enough to feed through the full length of the tube. The short section is bent over so that it will sit in the side of the rail (see photo).