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Fleischmann v Peco Points
John seeks advice from experienced model railroaders and asks:
“My wife and I are building a 15ft X 9ft HO layout to represent Swiss/Austrian theme. I have used to date some 65 meters of Peco 100 track and 30 points. Problem is that some of my dozen Fleischmann steam locos of various vintage will not run over these points [insulfrog] Is there any way I could ‘doctor’ the reluctant points. Thank you for any advice.”
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I have had that problem with Peco points, I’ve found Hornby points don’t do it.
Older rolling stock has bigger wheel flanges which foul the newer points.
Possible solutions:
1) Buy old second hand points which have deeper frogs.
2) Grind down the rims of the offending wheels (I have done this on one old Triang loco).
(Very slow and tedious if you can’t remove the wheels.)
3) Examine the points under good magnification to see if it is possible to deepen the frog slots without destroying them. Try using a dremel fitted with a thin grinding disk or circular saw blade (depending on whether you need to remove metal or plastic).
Do the locos stall, derail, or what? Trix (UK) solved the derailing decades ago by producing a universal point that would allow course and fine scale wheels to run through without derailing or stalling.