MER Clinic: Making Turnouts DCC Friendly

A common design of some commercial turnout have both points tied together with a metal tiebar. If a metal wheel running beside the open point should bridge the gap between the stock rail and the open point, an electrical short occurs. If you are switching the frog polarity with contacts on the switch machine, e.g. Tortoise, the frog polarity may switch before the points move away from opposite stock rail, causing a short. These shorts make the turnout unsuitable for use with DCC. This clinic shows how to modify the turnout to electrically separate the points from the frog.

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