Turnouts

The Atlas "Snap-Switch" could more accurately be described as a No. 3 1/2 curved frog turnout. Thus it has two differences to a No. 4 turnout - the frog angle is a little sharper, and the diverging route rail though the frog is part of a continuous curve, rather than being a straight. Take a look at the explanation on the NMRA standards page at:

the HO recommended turnout dimensions As the standards show, there is no standard for the length of the straight track section in a turnout. Atlas chose to make the Snap-Switch and No. 4 turnouts 9" long for compatibility with the rest of their track system. The Atlas No. 6 is 12" long, again to be compatible with the standard 9" straight with a 1/3 straight. Other manufacturers can and do choose other lengths. The practical considerations are that you want a couple ties with "spikes" to hold the rails in place beyond the end or the points, and you want enough rail beyond the frog to accommodate a rail joiner, and better a soldered rail joiner without melting plastic frog parts. Geezer

If you're asking 'cuz you need this info for layout design or planning, I suggest you borrow one each of all the items you might need (including straights and curves), and photocopy them. Heck, make a bunch of photocopies. You can then test out track plans full size by shuffling pieces of paper around.

HTH

"Turnout(s)" is a word propagated by the model press to distinguish between electrical switches and railroad switches. Real railroaders call 'em "switches" and would look at you real strange if you called them "turnouts" and probably walk away mumbling "F*&#@*g Foamer!)

-- Cheers

Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Not so. The textbook "The Elements of Railroad Engineering" by Raymond (copyright 1908) and revised by Riggs & Sadler (copyright 1937), from well before there was much of a model press, title their chapter on the subject "Turnouts". Their usage is that the moving part of the turnout and directly related is called the "switch", and the assemblage of the "switch" plus frog and guard rails and other rails comprise a "turnout". The switch may be a split switch employing points, or a stub switch, or other designs such as the Wharton safety switch. This same terminology is employed in the 1958 Bethlehem "Mine and Industrial Trackwork" catalog where they offer complete preassembled "turnouts" for sale.

I will grant you that most RR rule books refer to the complete turnout as a "switch". This suggests that perhaps the word to use to avoid having railroaders 'walk away mumbling' depends on whether one is speaking to operating department or engineering department personnel. Maybe we should call 'em turnouts when we buy 'em or build 'em and install 'em on the layout, but call 'em switches when we run trains over 'em? Geezer

"Geezer" <

I was talking about what real railroaders call switches, not some book written by a some "civil engineering" suit calls them.

A real railroader, ones that work on the trains, in the yards and build and maintain the track call 'em "switches". Period!

-- Cheers

Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Roger T. spake thus:

Well, I think "Geezer" has a point there: the geeks what builds 'em can call them "turnouts", while those who actually run iron over them will call them "switches". OK?

"David Nebenzahl"

No, the geeks that design them can call the "turnouts" while those that build 'em and run iron over them call them "switches". :-)

I run a model railroad, I'm not a suit, so they're "switches". :-)

-- Cheers

Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

and being an Aussie/British modeller, I call them points

some good ones have been made here too

and some not so ............

Steve

Manual rail diverters with a magneto-motive or pneumatic option !!!

Cheers Mr., graphics !

mindesign spake thus:

Now *that* makes no sense whatsoever: "points" are a part of the switch, so why would you name the whole the same as a part?

Same reason you yanks call yourselves "Americans"?

Not to belabor this, but I am curious. Did the British or Australians, in the early days of their RRs, ever use stub switches? If so, were they called "points" even though they had none? And is a gauge separation or gauntlet track turnout with no movable points still called "points"? Geezer

Just another example of our nations being separated by a common language.

Common usage for operating employees in Australia was to refer to switches as "points", or a "set of points". Per-way blokes often refer to them as "leads and crossings". I don't know about other states, but here in NSW "turnout" is now the preferred term, for precisely that reason, to avoid confusion.

Switch machines are still referred to here as point motors, and the act of manually operating them is described as "winding the points".

AFAIK "points" was the model railway term as used in model railway catalogues after WWII. (I don't know about pre WWII as I wasn't around then)

Greg.P.

I guess I have partially answered my own question - after pressing "Send" I remembered an old book I was given as a child. It is "Early Railroad Days - Prints from the Collection of American Steel Foundries" (this company sought out 19th century original lithographs to use on their annual advertising calendars, and late in or just after WWII issued a 'coffee table' book with perhaps 4 dozen color reproductions of these old prints). One of the prints circa 1839 is titled "Entrance to Locomotive Engine House Camden Town" which shows an early British 2-2-0 leaving the engine house and approaching a stub-type switch. What is unusual is that the rod from the switch stand clearly connects to the 4 rails leading to the frog, rather than to the two rails approaching the turnout as in a typical U.S. stub switch. This could be an error by the artist, except that he also detailed the foundations upon which the four rail assembly could slide from side to side, the tie rods between the 4 rails to keep them in gauge, and the chairs that rigidly mount the 2 approach rails to their sleepers. Geezer

I don't know about the UK, but there were small numbers of stub switches used very early on in Australia. What they were called I have no idea!

"Geezer"

No UK passenger carrying line used stub switches, they'd be "illegal".

"Gantlet" with no points doesn't have a name 'cause it's not a switch(point).

-- Cheers

Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

Greg Procter spake thus:

No, because either one of those terms makes sense; it would be like calling us Yanks "Missourians" or something.

"David Nebenzahl" <

No, you should be called "Usaians" or something other than the original name of the continent.

By adopting "American(s)" you denied the Canadians, Mexicans and the peoples of the Caribbean islands, including Cuba, the use of the continental name as a collective noun. To be called an "American" implies that someone is from the U.S.of A. which Canadians, Mexicans, peoples of the Caribbean islands and Cuba strongly object to.

Rest of the world, please note the foregoing, which is why we now prefer the continental name of "North America" and "North American" to describe the peoples who live here as we are definitely NOT Americans.

-- Cheers

Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway