Slip Switch Track

"Gregory Procter"

describe "turnouts", a

AFAIK, UK railwaymen still call 'em "points" and North American railroaders still call 'em "switches".

It's only the model press and model railroaders that seem to call 'em "turnouts". And non-operating staff on railways.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

I never presume anything when it comes to usenet. Some users only know how to get here, read and post. You would be surpised at some of the things people have done. A while ago, one fellow was in the middle of a flame war with three other people and he posted his phone number and wanted the others to phone him.

So I never presume anything and always feel it is better to warn someone and have them say "I know that". Than it is to have someone do something dumb and pay for it.

In the UK, freight trains didn't/don't carry a switching crew with them.

In the Good Old days, each station provided the ground crew for switching at each station. A "Goods Train" crew consisted of a Driver, Fireman and Guard. Three men only.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

You may well be thinking of a "model railway" as an inanimate object. John Allen took his model into the dimension of operation as well as just a visual representation of a railway. Those of us who have built more than one model railway have almost certainly built one that failed to achieve what we set out for it to be in one sense or another. Allen's layouts were presented to us as fulfilling the original requirements and in doing so encouraged many of us to dream bigger dreams and to build better layouts. Allen also told us why previous layouts didn't give the satisfaction they might have and thereby allowed us to avoid some of the pitfalls he discovered. If John Allen were alive today, I'm sure he would be taking full advantage of the vastly better models that are available over the counter and the Gorre and Daphetid would have gone through another half dozen metamorphoses.

Regards, Greg.P.

I believe that was an NMRA started convention. Switches are electric switches for throwing turnouts. Turnouts are pieces of railway track that branch into two lines and are controlled electrically by switches.

On the Southern Railway (US) we referred to them as either turnouts or switches. Use was indiscriminate. A replacement "switch" rode to the jobsite on a specially constructed "turnout" car.

Go figure................F>

Ok! *8-D

Paul

Bother!

Well, buying a "set of points" in a model shop might result in a smaller package than if you ask for a "turnout". Asking for a "switch" might result in anything from a list of goods known as "switches". Probably operating staff of railways rarely go to the railway shop to make the full size purchase.

Regards, Greg.P.

In NZ the crew is now down to two men only - they are the switching crew in many cases.

:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To the NMRA when the railway already has a term that all railroaders use.

"Switches" they are, and "Switches" they will remain.

If you want to call something by a name, call electrical switches, "toggles".

Like those weird hand signals the NMRA created rather than using railroad hand signals.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

If you purchase a set of points in North America, you have something to install into your automobile's ignition system. If you go to the hobby store/model train shop and ask for a switch, you will have to clarify whether you want a track switch (turnout) or an electrical switch (toggle, rotary, etc.). If you ask for a set of points a member of the staff will, most likely, refer you to the nearest auto parts store. If you ask for a turnout, you will probably get what you want.

It's a legal fiction. XYZ Railroad" goes bankrupt, reorganizes as "XYZ Railway" - thus keeping its identity while shedding all its fiscal responsibilities.

We in the hobby are just lazy. We can't even get out of our armchairs, much less be bothered to distinguish "railroad" from "railway"

Don't bother to reply via email...I've been JoeJobbed.

Who's fighting?

Not me...

Don't bother to reply via email...I've been JoeJobbed.

Well, not exactly. A current CSX employee, who has been around and knows of what he speaks (and is certainly a member of the operating staff), told me that the "switch" is the moving part of the "turnout" (I could have this reversed)

Don't bother to reply via email...I've been JoeJobbed.

Who mentioned auto parts?

We're talking railroading, or at the least, model railroading and every railroader and or model railroader should know what a "switch" is. It ain't electrical, unless you say "On/Off Switch". Plain ole "switch" to a railroader is something that you go "throw", or "get", or "line" plus, I'm sure, several more local terms.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

The railway vs. railroad is more from the early days of railroading where English financiers provided a bit of the money or English ancestry people named the railroad. Even the mere custom of saying railway vs. railroad could have been the source of the naming. Eventually, the old names fell by the wayside and the new names tended to be railroad as this was the way Americans are talking about their railroads.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works every time it is tried!

Howard R Garner wrote in news:xYRlc.64$ snipped-for-privacy@fe39.usenetserver.com:

Be sure to chain any bottled gas cylinder to the wall or to a really stout workbench. Be sure to leave the top on until you have the cylinder chained or strapped to the wall. Knock the valve loose and you have a rocket on your hands. I saw the aftermath of one that went through three cinderblock walls and took off across a field. Also, don't forget, as another poster mentioned, that these gases displace oxygen and can make you dead pretty quickly in a confined space.

I did. A set of points is something for your automobile.

(snip)

If that's the case, then what's the correct name for a point/switch/turnout (strike out whichever term/s you disagree with) where the controlling mechanism is either mechanical (rods and linkages) or manual (whacking your finger into the middle of the track and changing the alignment)?