I was wondering: those switches buried in the road surface of a street or industrial area, how are they thrown? Do they have switch stands beside the road and connect to the switch under the road surface or what?
Some do.
More often, the switch stand is a “low-mount” type, and is housed in a steel plate box on one side of or even between the rails. The top of the box is usually flush with the roadway surface, and hinged so the train crew can open it to throw the switch when needed.
Another alternative is a “tongue & mate” type of switch. The “inside of the curve” piece is a casting that looks roughly like the point part of a turnout frog - two flangeways with an “island” in between, just with a much shallower angle than a frog. The “outer side” is also a casting, with a very wide space for the flangeway. In it is the “tongue”, which is a heavy rectangular steel bar about 1" thick, 2" or so high, and around 10 or 12 ft. long, which is pivoted back at the heel of the switch (kind of like a swinging door in your house, only much shorter !). Those are usually moved with a simple steel rod, and held in place by a rectangle of metal that is dropped into the flangeway on the side that is desired to be held “open”. I’ll see if I can find a photo or diagram of same and post a link to it here.
There are also trolley switch variations, but I’m not as familiar with those.
The aggravation, derailment, and maintenance factor for these things is about 2 to 5 times that of a normal switch, in my estimation - at least the derailed wheels usually stay up on the paving and don’t drop down very far, so they’re easier to rerail. All of these are also great fun whenever it rains, and especially when it snows or gets below freezing in the northern areas. [:(] Then, too, there’s the critters who think those spaces make a good shelter - snakes, skunks, etc. [(-D]
- Paul North.
Correct me if I’m wrong PAul but on the ICATS, in northern Indiana, the crew has to eyeball the switch points to make sure he will go in the right direction. The throwers are located in the groung under a meatal pate.
Yep, that’s right !
On PRR street trackage the bar used to pry over the switch point was called a switch iron. Nothing fancy-any old pry bar would do. The trolley men used to call them switch sticks.
The steel block used to keep the point in place was called the plug. I don’t think the trolley switches used plugs, the ones I remember had a sort of toggle action that when the point was pryed over part way it would snap over into position. AFAIK the trolley type switches could be run through without hurting anything, but running through a plugged switch would bend and twist the point.
I faintley remember something like a electric relay sending a signal to the track telling the switch where to throw. Maby not.
There was a thread about that not long ago - depending on how it was set up, the motorman either had to interupt the circuit between the overhead wire and the track, or not, depending on which way he wanted to go.
Obviously a non-electric railroad doesn’t have that option, which means they have to use manual control - ie, some type of lever.
I suppose it would be possible to remotely control such switches using radio, which is already done by the railroads.
Evening Lar-Bear! ( just joking) So I guess I wasn’t just day dreaming.
You should always look at your points. I dont really even use the targets anymore, unless they are a long way off, and even then just as a indication of the way the points SHOULD be lined.