Railway terminology - frog

Surely you mean Morse ...

Nick

Reply to
Nick Leverton
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American/Canadian usage for what the English call a "crossing." Over here, a crossing is where two tracks cross each other other. The supposed derivation is from its appearance, which vaguely resembles centre of the bottom of a horse's hoof, which is termed a frog. But why this part of the horse should be called a frog escapes my otherwise insightful mind.

Have a good day, Wolf K.

Reply to
Wolf K

Where two or more rail line cross each other is called a "diamond crossing", or "diamond" for short.

A "Flat crossing" in the UK I believe.

Reply to
Roger Traviss

Ummmm.. the only time there are +ve AND -ve wires crossing is where there is a trolleybus and tramway crossing.......

The overhead is usually +ve on a tramway, the rails being -ve (hopefully at zero volts!)

-- Ian

Reply to
Ian

Wonderful. Get her to tell all her stories to said younger relative.

Reply to
Graeme Wall

Particularly if cast with a 'web' between the Vee of the crossing for strength?

Google threw up a suggestion, that the whole cast crossing (complete with the four necessary stubs of rail) resembled a frog in mid jump...

Paul

Reply to
Paul Scott

Yes, she went on to explain that as well. We ran into a little difficulty with the youngster as describing the pull device as being similar to a Loo chain did not work.Most youngsters have never seen a high level cistern. She went on to say that on one occasion she was in bad books with the driver and others.. Forgot which route she was working ,leapt off platform pulled the switch over. Driver unaware she had done so went the way they were going and the de wired booms damaged the Overhead and brought the service to a stop.

A main problem she mentioned was when a dewirement happened invariably a traffic queue built up behind,and often the first vehicle behind was so close that it was very awkward to extract the bamboo pole without getting vehicles behind out of the way . ISTR that a couple of systems hung the retrieving pole on the side above the lower deck windows to get over this. Rope retrievers* as used elsewhere never really caught on here mainly because the ropes would have to be long enough to clear the rear corners of the top deck of most British buses and the dangling loop would have been a hazard in itself. Hull I think was the only British system to use them on double deckers.

*some more elaborate retrievers had/have a mechanism that sensed if a boom had risen too high probaby as a result of dewirement automatically reeled the boom down to minimise further damage.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

First time I've met her. The other half had a bit of a family gathering . I had wanted to ask her about pushing the buses around on the Christchurch Turntable for a while. She had done so but not very often as her main routes were on the west side of the town. I was corrected on the term shoes on the boom ends, Bournemouth staff called them heads. You tube has some good quality footage of the Bournemouth system and she enjoyed seeing some scenes from the 60's. Best job she ever had was the statement. Oh and Bournemouth still isn't part of Dorset and will never feel it is despite what the powers that be say was another.

G.Harman

Reply to
damduck-egg

And record them. Buy one of those cheap digital recorders, then burn her stories to disk. Make copies for all your friends'n'relations. Go to the local museum, and find out if they have an oral history project. If not, offer them the CD, and suggest they stray one.

And above all, have fun!

Wolf K.

Reply to
Wolf K

FWIW whilst TPTB would still say it's a part of Dorset, since 1997 Bournemouth has been a unitary authority so the 'foreign power' that is Dorset County Council doesn't hold any sway in the town these days!

Great stories. In however many years time, I wonder if any of the railwaymen and women (or indeed other public transport workers) on here will refer back to their current job as the best job they ever had? I'd hope at least a few will.

Reply to
Mizter T

The best railway job I ever had, Guards Inspector for Wimbledon Park and Clapham Junction and the worst Chief Revenue Protection Inspector Southern Region

Reply to
Pat O'Neill

...and make sure you record them for future generations - and in more than one format!

Reply to
Dave Jackson

:o)

You'll know the bus spotter from Basingstoke then !!!

-- Nick

Reply to
D7666

:o)

You'll know the bus spotter from Basingstoke then !!!

-- Nick

Oh yes indeed. ;)

Reply to
Pat O'Neill

:) I've known him for years, back to late 1970s.

-- Nick

Reply to
D7666

Trolleybuses were before my time, but AIUI "power and coast" arrangements were quite common. Newcastle certainly had some. The principle was that the default lie for the frog was the busy route, and in that case drivers would coast through the junction. If the driver wanted the "branch", power would be applied before the junction over a short OLE section that was normally dead; the current in this section would energise a solenoid that would move the frog to the "branch" setting. On the Newcastle system, there were signs at such junctions saying "Power off for [main route]. Power on for [branch route]".

Reply to
The Gardener

Sheffield Tramways had them too for controlling leading points but there was at least one place that defeated such arrangements being on a steeply rising gradient.

Reply to
Phil Cook

Ummmm.. every time there is a diverging or converging junction of a pair of trolleybus wires, the positive (or live) wire has to cross over the negative (or neutral) one. The crossing has to be insulated from one or both of the wires. This is equivalent to the frog or common crossing on an "insulfrog" model railway point.

Reply to
MartinS

It was the other way round on the Bradford system (specifically at Saltaire roundabout). The driver going straight ahead towards Bingley would approach the point with power on and maintain power through it, while the one turning right to circle the roundabout would be coasting or braking in order to take the turn. I think there was a sign reading POWER with a straight ahead arrow, and there was a mechanical repeater arm to confirm the switch was set correctly.

The Toronto trolleybus system, which was abandoned in 1993, used a passive system. There were detectors on both wires just ahead of the frogs, which were activated depending on the angle of approach of the bus (straight or partially turned); this determined whether the the right or left trolley head contacted the detector first. It worked quite well in practice, except where the wires diverged in advance of an intersection, in which case there were frequent dewirements or "splitting the switch". Vancouver, at least in the congested city centre, used and presumably still uses power/coast switches.

Reply to
MartinS

Troo. I confess I didn't make that obvious situation clear!>

Reply to
Ian

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