Question about switches/turnouts

No.

I know that they have them in the real world. The track for the horse-draw streetcar on Main Street at Disneyland works just that way. In fact, there is no mechanism for it to operate any other way. Cars approaching from the front always go to the right.

Gary

Maerklin. (three rail/stud contact system) The 'problem' with 2 rail systems is that the unused point is at the opposite polarity to the wheel that would deflect it, so a short circuit occurs in the situation you're envisaging.

Greg.P.

It's not a reverse loop, it's just coming thru the turnout traveling the opposite direction trying to force the switch over. The only short occurs when the engine derails. Allot of times the engine makes it thru just fine, it's the lightweight cars that tends to ride up onto the rail instead of forcing their way thru. It's really not a complex mechanism to implement, I'm surprised it's not commonplace.

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We called them slip switches back then. I liked 'em.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

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Never heard that name used that way - this is a slip switch:

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Nice, but that pricing is a killer. :-O As far as I can remember, they were fairly ordinary looking turnouts, allot like they look now. There were just little springs inside that let the sliding part (I know zilch about the terminology now) move without the switch actually being thrown. No matter what position the switch was in, you could manually manipulate the little sliding part with very little resistance, just enough spring pressure inside the switch to push it back to where it was supposed to be when you released it. So when a train went thru, the switching rails moved right over. Once the train wheel was thru, it would simply snap back to the original switched position. Very simple, very failsafe.

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You're thinking of a spring switch.

In that situation you need a light over center spring on your points tie bar so that the loco pushes the points across and they snap to stay there. If electrified this would require a solenoid with a very light movement. It is quite practical to do.

Alternatively you could arrange common rail contacts so that the solenoid is automatically thrown by the train approaching the frog of the turnout in question. This is probably a better solution than having the loco/train wheels drive the solenoid. HO is really too light for non-powered vehicles to individually fight a reliably sprung turnout.

Greg.P.

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"Slip switch" is a term already used for slip switches.

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Yep! I forgot...old age at work.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

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"Sprung ..."

I remember them i the modeling world being called "spring switches" rather than "slip switches"

Anthony Fremont skriver:

Besiders Märklin at least Fleischmann and Roco makes it.

Klaus

"Anthony Fremont" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

You can get the effect of a spring switch by building your own. Take the switch machine off an Atlas turnout, and place a spring on the throwbar, so it forces the points closed. Use a rapido coupler (N scale) spring or maybe a motor spring for the spring. You want something strong enough to move the points back in to position, but not so strong they don't move.

Puckdropper

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And you've both forgotten how to snip :-).

The best way to get a light spring to give a relatively constant pressure over 'X' length of movement is to use a longer spring so that the percentage change is as small as possible. This probably dictates an under baseboard mechanisim. Under basebard gives one the possibility of using levers. I used a small brass tube vertically into the baseboard as a pivot point and an 'L' wire as the lever. The position of the spring end on the wire was controlled by two pieces of ball point inner tube just tight on the wire so I could adjust the leverage and spring tension to optimum. Once that was found I locked the plastic tubes in place with a drop of instant glue.

You say tomayto, I say tomahto....

Greg, please keep in mind that English railway (railroad) terms are not international.

Odd fact: In the early to mid 1800s, the British preferred "railroad" (or "rail road") and the Americans preferred "railway." The preferences switched sometime in the later 1800s.

Putting two nouns together tends to give them (nearly) equal prominance. Putting an adjective in front of a noun tells us the noun is modified.