Peco Bullhead Turnouts announcement

Delivery of the highly anticipated PECO Streamline OO Bullhead Large Radius Turnouts is imminent, so we are now inviting forward orders.

For those of you who may not be aware of the legacy that the hobby in the UK has to deal with,  it will help to explain why this new track system will be popular with some model railway enthusiasts. In the UK, proprietary model railway rolling stock is produced to a scale of 4mm to the foot (OO scale), but runs on HO scale track, hence the reason behind our track needing to be 16.5mm gauge. Because of this, PECO have always considered it best practice to compromise on the scale and spacing of the sleepers, in light of the hybrid scale/gauge of the track, and therefore the sleepers are proportioned to be more visually acceptable. However, there has been an enthusiastic demand in recent years for a prototypical track replicating British Railway practice, using bullhead rail, but with sleepers proportioned more closely to 4mm scale. The result has been the new PECO Streamline “Bullhead” range, strictly OO scale in all ways except the gauge, which has to remain at 16.5mm in order to accept the models that will be operated on it.

Key features to highlight include:

• Wider sleeper proportions, set at a spacing appropriate for 4mm scale.
• Bullhead profile nickel silver rail.
• Fine rail chair and bolt detail, fine wood grain effect.
• Solid, machined point blade.
• Nickel silver check rails.
• Unifrog format.
• Compatibility with all existing OO/HO Code 75 turnouts.

UNIFROG – these new turnouts, like all other PECO turnouts, work straight out of the pack without modification. However, the frog tip itself is a separate unit that can be “powered” (that is, switch the polarity according to the route selected) in conjunction with a changeover or micro switch, making use of the factory-welded wire attached to the frog tip.  Unlike electrofrog turnouts, the modeller does not have to break any wires underneath the turnout to isolate the frog unit, nor bond across from the stock rail to the point blade, or even use insulating joiners, so is far easier to use as a result. These new arrangements lend themselves to being especially DCC-friendly.

It is worth mentioning here that due to the unique shape of the rail profile, it is not possible to manufacture these turnouts in the usual semi-automated manner, by a process known as “insert moulding”. Therefore the turnouts have to be mostly hand-assembled, which is reflected in the higher retail price compared to a standard turnout. Because of the hand-built nature of this product there will be longer lead times involved to replenish stock if the demand is high.

SL-U1188 PECO Streamline OO Bullhead Turnout Large Radius R/H
UK SRP inc. VAT £32.50

SL-U1189 PECO Streamline OO Bullhead Turnout Large Radius L/H
UK SRP inc. VAT £32.50

We already have flexible track (SL-108F) and rail joiners (SL-114), available in the range so these new turnouts will kick-start modellers to really get on with their next new layouts!

It’s worth mentioning here that the rail joiners for bullhead rail are really quite special, incorporating bolt detail: you can really see that the bolts are square in profile, and all set at different positions, just like the real thing!

With PECO Streamline OO Bullhead, we have taken
track detail to a whole new level!

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