I have been involved with trains since the second grade and had never heard the term “Turnout” used until I started reading GR in 1998. Which term do you guys use?
Makes no difference really. The term “switch” is more correct, the term “turnout” was created in the indoor model RR world to differentiate between a RR switch and an electrical switch. Now in the garden, it depends on if you have powered rails or not as to which term you would use I suppose. Not that it really matters because the phrase " [censored] the train derailed at the switch" is seldom mistaken to mean that the train ran over a 12v DPDT electrical switch which would have no buisiness at all being on the track, let alone in such a position as to derail an 80lb train.
[oX)]
I usually just use switch, since I have to explain track components to other people. Becomes a habit I suppose!
Points refer to the blades at the bottom of the switch, the baldes, if you will.
I said switch, due to that was the term my dad taught me at a young age.
I normally use switch. Many towns here on Delmarva Peninsula are named for switches located nearby. As in “Walston’s Switch” Haven’t ever heard of “_____ Turnout” as a town name! Oh, how bout Minnie Pearl’s “Grinder’s Switch”?
I had figured that turnout was a phrase brought over from Europe. I know a lot of our friends from the isles call them points, but to me the points are the ends of the movable part of the whole switch unit that move to direct a train from one set of tracks to another!
Switch has always worked for me.
Most people understand switch but not many understand turnout.
Bud[8D]
at last you Americans have done something right, not much mind you but Iguess it is a start.
You have actually recognised that their are opinions and terminology in the English speaking world outside your own, which is pretty isolated.
I am taliking about the use of the word "points’
Rgds Ian
Yes, Ian, we sometimes screw up and recognize there is a world out there. Why just the other day I was in the garage checking on my gudgeon pins with a torch when I noticed my battery earth wire was loose. I also noticed my mudguard was rubbing on the pannier so I used a red coloured fibre washer as a spacer to fix it, but the tyre was flat by that time so I gave up and watched the match on the telle.
[oX)]
Jack,
What Ian isn’t telling anyone is the distinctly different language Downunder. [;)][:o)][;)]
Now, I’m not referring to his writing style - that is a completely different ball game! - but rather to the distinct lingo in Oz, not to mention the distinct dialects. You start up there in Queensland - he isn’t even far enough north to qualify as unique, too close to the NSW border - and work your way south to Tas and then west to W.A.
I’m a telling you I was surprised they didn’t have an ear-tuning shop at major railway stations for the tourists.[:o)][}:)][:)][:D][:D]
BTW guys, I call it a turnout. Years of belonging to operating groups have taught me that it will always be the incorrect switch that gets thrown.[;)][:)]
We only do it to confuse people [:-,]
Now that is a switch, I had a poor turnout for my openhouse. [:D]
Not being from the British Empire for more than two centuries, points are the moving part of the track divergance device being discussed.
Of the remaining choices, I use them interchangably.
The difficulty with the word switch in a modeling context is, there are also electrical devices that go by that name, so turnout is perfered.
For real railroading in North America it’s just a switch.
Hi all
Switches them things on the control pannel you know them things you control the railway with.
Sets of points them things that allow the train’s to change tracks.
[:-,]
Stone the crows can’t you people speak English[}:)]
Yes we speak a different language Down under [:0] its called English
[swg][swg][swg]
regards John
Any way you cut the mustard, we all seem to muddle through and get our trains round the track once in a while. Yours might run through the points, somebody else’s through the turnout, and mine through the switch; but isn’t it odd that they all do the same thing? I like the term divergence device, but it does take a long time to get out as the train is approaching it and you are trying to get the grandson to throw it, er, switch it, or, turn it to the other track, ah, point it in the other direction!
just don’t fall asleep at the switch; however else things may turn out.
As a former employee of the NYNH & H RR we always called them switches.
Ron
[:)]
Points.
Yes, well on this side of the pond we speak the American dialect of English. Some terms need translation.[swg]
Bogies, sleepers, wagons, carriages, vans, points, etc.
points