Routes through turnouts and slips
A turnout, a double slip, and a three-way all carry several paths through one body, but only one is set ("thrown") at a time. The planner lets you choose which — and that choice drives both the electrical check and what the rail overlay paints.
Setting a route
Select a switchable piece and the Inspector's Route control lists every route the piece carries:
- A turnout shows its two routes.
- A double slip shows all four — the two crossing diagonals and the two slip diagonals.
Click a route to throw the piece that way. The same options live on the right-click → Set route menu, which also works across a multi-selection: pick a route and it applies to every selected piece that has a route by that name, with a badge showing how many are already on it.
Routes read by their real catalogue names — a Hornby turnout shows "Normal" / "Left", a Märklin slip shows "Cross1" / "Slip2" — so the label matches the piece in front of you rather than a generic "Main / Diverging".
A diamond crossing has no route to set: both its tracks cross and stay live at once, so it carries no Route control.
What the route changes
Setting a route is not just cosmetic — it changes the electrical model:
- Polarity. The routes a piece isn't carrying stop conducting. A double slip set to one diagonal no longer connects what's wired to the other, so a slip in a reverse loop reports the short only on the route that actually closes it. (See the Polarity & Wiring overlay.)
- The rail overlay. With polarity shown, only the active route's rails are painted, so the picture on the canvas matches what's electrically connected.
Saved with your layout
The chosen route is stored per piece and travels with the layout — saved to your account, written into a .trackplan export, and restored on load. Pieces saved before routes were named still open correctly; their old setting maps onto the piece's first or second route.