At this point your ties should be sanded, re-painted/stained (top only), and the tie-plates glued in place. I was realizing that you will need both proto photos and your turnout to determine just where these locations are. Since I’ve never worked with tie-plates, I don’t know how they handle special situations, such as the two rails close to each other as happens at both ends of the frog.

The next step is to unsolder the “spacers” (if used) on Michelin/Peco/custom turnout.

The only thing that you will need to change on the Michelin/Peco/custom turnout is the "throw bar" (unless already done on a custom build), that connects the two rails that actually get moved to change the route. You will need to narrow the distance between the rails mounted to this by 4mm (45-41).

Carefully lay the turnout rails in place on the tie-plates – you might consider tacking them down with a few drops of CA or a sticky-type adhesive. Hopefully the tie plates were carefully aligned earlier so there won’t be any problems now.

The rails need to be spiked – through the tie-plates. I suggest you find an online model railroad source in your language that discusses this. There are different sizes of spike, although this usually impacts the length more than the thickness. There are special pliers made for inserting the spikes, and then pushing them completely down, although this may be an unnecessary luxury as you are doing such a relatively small amount of spiking.



You will want to model the “switch stand”, as shown in the original photo. It is up to you if you want the ability to actually “throw” the switch or not, but since you have a working metal turnout – vs. a static plastic one, there is no reason not to have it working. Although Armor35 includes this in their “switch” kit, I think you’re better off getting one through a model railroad source, mostly because you would be using so little of the Armor35 kit. There are many varieties of these available in Europe, and they haven’t changed much since WW2 - except on modern high-speed main lines where they are automated. Folks in other parts of the world will have to investigate if these are available locally, or if you will need to order it from Europe. You will need to figure out how to connect it to the throw bar on your turnout.



This is an example of the hard way to throw a switch.
I actually have no idea what they’re doing here. Perhaps the switch rod is malfunctionuing - the two guys look like they are trying to keep it aligned so it can move freely. I have no idea what the guy with the shovel is doing - or trying to do (probably with the wrong tool).

Switches are trouble in winter when they can get frozen, and sometimes on important main line tracks there are permanently installed heaters so that cannot happen. Now you can install the connecting Trumpeter track. You will want to check the rail height next to the turnout first, and either sand or shim the Trumpeter track as necessary to match the turnout.

The Trumpeter track comes with simulated “ballast”, the gravel used to keep the ties in place. There are many different brands, sizes, and colors available. You want to buy a size that is close to that simulated by Trumpeter – you might even find something appropriate in a craft shop, or perhaps even kitty litter ;-) You can paint it with the same color you use for the Trumpeter, or select the paint for Trumpeter based on the ballast color you select for the turnout.

The traditional method of securing ballast is to first spray it with water mixed with a little dish soap, which will help the glue mixture to flow through the pieces (capillary action). The glue is half water and half white glue – often Elmers in the U.S., or anything similar. This is applied with an eyedropper. Let it dry overnight.

Paint all of the rails.

Your 1:35 turnout project should be complete. I’m happy to try to answer any questions, but it might also be helpful to find a model railroad contact in your area.

This is how I would do this if I wanted a switch to use with 1:35 plastic track; other approaches are welcome.

While doing some searching for Gauge 1 resources, I came across the website for a gentleman in the UK, Cliff Barker, who produces and sells track components. The molded sleepers wouldn't work for 1/35, as they have molded-in chairs for 45mm track, which is wider than Russian broad gauge at a scale 1575mm, but the rail, fishplates, individual chairs, machined switch blades, cast frogs, and various other hardware that would eliminate the need to buy and disassemble a prebuilt switch for parts.

He certainly has a wide range, but it's not cheap and I'd suggest determining the actual quantities/prices of all that you'd need. I think real wood ties look better anyway, and you can make them to be a perfect match in stock (cross-section) and spacing to whatever plastic straight track you use.

I think the major benefit of stripping down a switch is that all the rails are pre-cut and finished to what you want, and you might be able to find an older one (maybe even Peco) for a reasonable price - say one of the blokes going from code 200 to 180 ;-)

The frog, blades, and possibly the rail chairs are the only three components you'd get from him, though; you can get rail elsewhere, ties are easy enough to scratch, and if you go with spiking the rails, those are cheaper in bulk from other vendors.

It also occurred to me later that, depending on your skills, it might even be easier to use a 3D modeling program to do up the rail mounts, frog, and blades and send them off to someplace like Shapeways to have them 3D-printed, particularly because for static plastic models we don't need the strength of metal for the blades and frog. I'm going to have to look at the design diagrams for frogs and switches and see if that could be a viable solution for the pieces -- and uploading the models to, say, Thingiverse would allow others to have copies made at need.

Which doesn't address a need now, but it's something to think about for future projects.

No doubt things will improve relatively rapidly, but my experience with Shapeways is that current technology leaves the surface with an excessively rough texture - containing echos of the layering process. Trying to refine it results in removing detail.

You can easily make (non-functional) blades by filing common rail stock, and I think you'd be better off making a rail-based master for resin-casting the frogs. I suggested recycling the RTR/custom turnout because it would save a lot of tedious work - especially if you only need one.