Has anyone tried modeling one. I found one who did.
http://www.gmrrc.org/Photos-JPEGs/Mike_OBrien-JPEGs/Gantlet-Track-joke-620.jpg
What am I looking at? Looks like a smaler gauge track inside a larger one.
It’s called a gantlet track. It was used in places where two tracks were needed but the geography was such that for a short stretch two tracks wouldn’t fit. It was most commonly found (although it was never common) on bridges and in tunnels, where the cost of widening the bridge or the bore might not have been fesable due to cost or other factors. It main drawback is pretty obvious - two trains can’t get past each other on a gantlet track!
Dave, I believe it is spelled GAUNTLET with a U. Spacemouse, it is a special track arrangement that was occasionally used to pass 2 tracks through a narrow obsticle such as a tunnel or bridge. The only real advantage to a gauntlet is that it has no moving parts. Instead of 2 switches, with points and frogs, it simply consists of 2 frogs.
Gauntlet–makes sense now. Clint Eastwood movie was pretty poor though.
The derivation of gantlet is from gauntlet, and both terms have been used for the track arrangement. See Dictionary.com, and type in “gantlet.”
Got me on that one.
No, it is spelled GANTLET
No, it is spelled Gantlet or Gauntlet.
This picture is not a gaunlet, it is a trainwreck track. When that train gets to the bottom of the picture it is going to derail. The third rail from the left side should have curved off to the left, not the right. The far right side should have curved off to the right since it came in from the right.
DeSchane,
Gauntlet or gantlet is a form of punishment in which a person is forced to run between two lines of men facing each other and armed with clubs or whips to beat the victim.
Gantlet is the railroad term and gauntlet cannot be substituted for gantlet.
Hence the ‘JOKE’ part of the file name of the picture. Although it would be a bit more obvious if they had used better depth of field…
–Randy
That’s gotta be hand-laid track. I wonder how much the guy cussed himself for not running anything on the track until AFTER it was scenicked? I bet that was a major eye-opener when the train got to the near side of the tunnel.
Mark C.
That train, she is gonna derail!
I was looking at the photo too for some time before I realized that it was laid incorrectly.
- Ryan
FJ&G,
Prove it! Running a gantlet-gauntlet is the same thing. The reason it was called a gauntlet-gantlet track is that it is a dangerous piece of track work to run across. If somebody says “Hey, my Funk & Wagnalls Collage of Railroader’s Dictionary says A Gauntlet track is spelled G-A-N-T-L-E-T”, I will aqueous. Until then I hold firm in my agreement with Brunton.
However, you certainly may hold firm in your conviction that I am wrong.
Mark
I don’t care how you spell it - it was ment as a joke.
Bob
I always thoughgt it was gauntlet
note the image name… [:D]
Paintshop
Very amusing[:o)][:o)][:o)][:o)] The low angle fools you at first.
Enjoy
Paul
There are a few gauntlets around nowadays, such as near the Roselle Park station on the NJT Raritan Line, where gauntlet track is used to allow freight trains to clear the station platforms.
There’s a picture of the gauntlet track w/ freight on this pagehttp://www.thebluecomet.com/crlvline.html (search for “gauntlet track” on the page), but the picture isn’t all that clear - you can just make out 2 rails of the 4, 1 spaced to the left to shift the freight train away from the platform…