Best N Scale Turnouts

The ratio works exactly as it does in HO: a number 2 diverges sharply in a very short space, a number 4 is a common general-purpose compromise, and a number 6 is longer and shallower. Kato N Scale Number 2 Electric Wye Turnout is a number 2 wye specifically for the tightest N scale junctions, such as a yard throat with no length available at all. Kato N Scale Number 4 Remote Right-Hand Turnout at number 4 is the sharper, more common choice for yard ladders where length is short and speed does not matter. Kato N Gauge Electric Point Number 6 Left at number 6 is the better fit for a main line, where a train taking the diverging route at speed benefits from the gentler angle.

Not in the same way. Kato Unitrack turnouts are a different design from the Electrofrog and Insulfrog HO turnouts sold by Peco and Atlas, and the built-in switch machine handles polarity switching internally rather than requiring the modeler to wire frog polarity by hand. That is part of what the Unitrack price premium buys: less wiring risk, at the cost of less control over the details compared to a hand-wired HO turnout setup. See /compare/electrofrog-vs-insulfrog-turnouts/ for how that tradeoff plays out on turnouts that do require manual frog wiring.

The table below lines up the four Kato Unitrack turnout products covered on this page against the number that decides where each one belongs on a plan.

N scale locomotives carry fewer pickup wheels than HO equipment of similar type simply because there is less room inside the shell, which means momentary loss of contact crossing a turnout frog is more likely to visibly stall the train rather than just flicker the lights. Picking a turnout number that matches the location, a gentle number 6 where a train takes the diverging route at speed and a sharper number 4 or number 2 only where space genuinely has no alternative, reduces how often that stall happens in the first place. Sound in N scale already means a speaker small enough to be a little disappointing, and a locomotive that also stalls on every yard turnout compounds the frustration.

Put the gentlest geometry the plan can afford wherever a train regularly moves at speed through the diverging route, which in practice usually means the entrance and exit to a passing siding on the visible main line. Save the sharper, cheaper geometry for locations where trains are already moving slowly anyway, such as a yard throat or a spur into an industrial building, since a locomotive switching a yard is not trying to hold mainline speed through the divergence in the first place. This is the same number 6 on the main, number 4 in the yard logic that applies in HO, just scaled down to fit N scale benchwork.