switch trains or switcher trains.

[newfiegod]

fairly new at this hobby and i was at the hobby store today and one of the sales  guys mentioned a switch train......can someone please fill me in to what this  is?

[SteamGene]

It could be an actual train being pulled by a switcher - as opposed to a cut of cars pulled by a switcher.  Or it could be a local term for a transfer run - which is moving cars from one yard to another. 
A train, by definition is a motive power and marker lights - so if you have an 0-4-0T and you hang a red lantern on the tank, you have a train.  But a  2-8-8-2 shoving 150 cars up the hump in a hump yard you have a cut of cars under power.
Gene

[Woody Elmore]

A switcher or switch engine was a smaller engine with no lead or trailing wheels. They were used to move cars around in a yard. They usually didn't wind up pulling a train. Their small wheels meant they couldn't go very fast.
Today with huge hump yards the switchers can be regular sized locomotives modified for switching.

Of course on your home railroad you can have a switcher pull your crack passenger train if you so desire.


A track switch, or turnout as some people call them, is used to divert trains from one track to another.

[Dr EMD]

To the general public / non railfans, anything that is railroad related is a "train". A box car sitting on a sliding is a train, a locomotive by itself is a train. The rails are called train track, and on and on. People think "train" is an adjective instead as a noun.

Usually I don't try to correct in what they are saying, I just let them talk and I'll save it for a later discussion on a fan trip (where I can talk to people at my level)..

[newfiegod]

thank you woody.....good explanaion!!! GREATLY APPRECIATED

[SteamGene]

To add on to what Woody said, in the early days of diesels there were also diesel switchers.  In fact the first diesels were all switchers.  They began in the 30s and continued into the 50s when railraods began to buy the GP (General Purpose) and RS (Road Switcher) to be used both as a switcher and as a road engine. 
Gene

[RAM]

switch engine is any engine that they choose to switch with.  The Santa Fe had many 2-8-0s and small 2-10-2s that were yard locomotives.  They did not have the markers lights or the number boards that  the road engines had.