Tortoise Turnout machines

[faithie999]

I had never bought a Tortoise machine because of the high price (I'm painfully cheap).  however, I found that ModelTrainStuff.com has 12-packs for about $170.  they often have a 10% off coupon code that covered a little more than the shipping.  I installed the first 2 today and they work great.  I'm glad I bought them.

ken

[Alan]

Years ago I got insanely lucky. Hobby shop going out of business sold me 72 Tortoises at $9 each. It was their entire inventory of them.

[darryl.trains]

Last year one of our club member and myself were checking out the many boxes under the club layout. I found about 10 or so of them with attached hardware/brackets.  Our club had no need for them so I am the proud owner now.  I never got around of using any of them but I might find a use someday? I actually like old twin coil switch motors on the top of my layout. Just too old to get under the layout !!!!! Oh the pain just thinking about going under..    TOF in Yuma

[trainman605]

I have 20 of them on my HOn3 layout, all work great and no problems to date. I did have to use some of the Tortoise mounting brackets where I could not mount the switch machine directly under the turnout, they do come with the mounting bracket for the machine and a special bracket that mounts under the turnout for operation of the turnout. I did use model airplane servo tubes to run the cables in to a remote location, works great, just takes a little adjusting to get the cable centered to the turnout and the switch machine. Personally I don't care for the snap type of switch machine, too hard on the turnouts, especially the more delicate ones used in my HOn3 layout.

trainman