I was watching a TV show on RFDTV on the Cincinnati Lake Erie Line. I was wondering how they switched switched tracks as they are embedded in the roadbed? I have always wondered and my interest was once again peeked by the show. Any one out there that could explain this to me?
Basically in street trackage they did have a moving point (usually just for one rail rather than two like a normal turnout). The motorman or conductor had a long metal shaft about like a broomhandle with a sort of “key” on the end that they could put into the switch apparatus to manually turn it. Normally the moving parts of the switch were below road level, and to throw the switch they had to reach into a small hole or opening.
Here the moving point is on the right. You can see it’s not very big and doesn’t have to move too far.
In some streetcar systems, they were set up in such a way that the cars had a hole in the floor so the motorman could stop over the correct spot and throw the switch ahead of him without getting out of the car.
When possible, they often used “spring” switches so say when going from single-track (in the middle of the street) to two-track (one track going each direction, along with the flow of traffic) that the cars would always be moved to the right side track as they approached, but a car coming back from double to single track could go thru the switch even though it was thrown against them.
Thank you for the information.
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