SWITCH vs. TURNOUT- an answer for Doneldon

[Jim Banner]

FOR ANYONE WHO'S READING THIS: Why are we so careful to call track switches "turnouts" and electrical controls for turnouts "switches" when we call switching layouts "switching layouts" but not "turnouting layouts?" Or am I just picking a fight?
                                                                                                                          -- D

A fair question and one that needs to be answered from time to time to remind new people about old terminology.

Talk to the railroaders who buy and lay full size track work.  They will tell you that a switch is part of a turnout.  A whole turnout consists of straight and curved stock rails (the outside rails that go right through), a frog (where the inside rails meet and cross,) guard rails (to prevent derailing at the frog,) point rails (that move side to side to direct traffic to one route or the other,) straight and curved closure rails (that connect between the point rails and the nearest end of the frog,) and extension rails (that connect to the other end of the frog.  The switch consists of the movable point rails, the switch rods (that join the point rails together to keep them in gauge and to make them move at the same time,) a mechanism of some sort for moving the points, and a throw rod to connect the mechanism to the point rails.

Now talk to train crew and ask how they send a train one way or another.  They will tell you they "throw the switch."  They do NOT throw the turnout!  It takes a large crane to lift a turnout, let alone move it, but a man can move the point rails using a switch stand, the levers in a switch tower, or an electric motor driven switch operator.  The latter can be activated to throw the switch from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Bottom line, the track appliance that comes in a neat package is properly called a turnout.  The part of it that you see move is properly called a switch.  When you are building your layout, you install turnouts.  When you run your layout, you throw switches.

Jim

[richg]

Ok, Dudes and if any Dudettes here.
Copy the text into a Word Document and store it in your PC.
Refer to it as needed.
Never can tell how long some threads will stay here in the forums.
I see the question, every so often in some of the forums I belong to.

Rich

[Doneldon]

Jim-

Nicely done! And to think I was just trying
to be a wise guy.
                                  -- D

[Jerrys HO]

Ya got it all wrong. It's hurry up and press the button before it derails. Now thats modeling.

[jward]

hunt is right. on the railroad we always reported the switch "lined and locked" when we were through with it. but we had to ask permission to "open up" when we needed to use the switch. both of these refer to manually controlled switches on a main track, permission didn't need to be granted within the smaller yards to use any of the switches, but if there were more than one crew in the yard you did have to co-ordinate your moves with each other.

[Jim Banner]

"Throw the switch" is commonly used.  Nonetheless,  technically you do not "throw the switch" you "line the switch" of a turnout.

Or is it perhaps " 'lign the switch," a contraction of "align the switch?"

Jim

Yet another set of terms, much loved by Digitrax and used by a couple of ex-dispatchers of my acquaintance are "thrown" (off normal, set for the diverging route) and "closed" (normal, set for the mainline.)

Jim

[Doneldon]

WOW.

[NarrowMinded]

Sure wish My Great Uncle Robert H. French was alive. I'd ask him, in 1914 he was granted a patent for the "Automatic railway Safety Switch" that he designed, Im going to see if I can dig up the patent papers and see how it reads.

NM

[tac]

Of course, in the USA and Canada you can call them what you like.

Over here in the UK, where they were invented in fust place, they are called 'points' - derived from the point of the track at which the divergence occurred.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund 

[jward]

yeah but on your side of the pond everything goes by a different name.

[Doneldon]

jward-

You know,you're absolutely right about naming things. Why, even their citizens have a different name -- English.

                                          -- D

[NarrowMinded]

Nice research Hunt, Now I don't have to dig through all my boxes, Of coarse I should find them and frame them anyway.

NM

[Doneldon]

Are we carrying this a bit too far? I asked a silly rhetorical question which Jim appropriately used as an opportunity to do a little worthwhile education but now we've had an extensive and detailed discussion about "switch" which is moot at best. It even looks like a feather or two have been ruffled. I'm not sure why that is; I, at least, don't see any challenges.

Newbies and old hands alike use "switch" to mean both the electrical device and the whole turnout. And that's okay. We're careful about it here for clarity's sake, not because we're unaware of the vernacular meaning of the term. Let's face it: it's the vernacular which is the understood meaning, not something from patent papers a hundred years old. This is supposed to be fun. Let's not spoil it by splitting such very fine hairs.
                                                                                               -- D

[Doneldon]

As I mentioned, it seems a few feathers have been ruffled,
but I'll be darned if I can figure out how. I suppose they
sometimes get ruffled from the inside out!
                                                            -- D

[railsider]

Was it not the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland who said something to the effect that words mean exactly what I think they should mean?

Language is funny that way ... just like a caterpillar, it's always moving and changing, through time, through space and from one professional group to another. You say to-mah-to, I say to-may-to, and all that.

Trucks, lorries, carriages, vans, points, switches, turn-outs, gizmos, whatchacallits ... the list just goes on and on.