I’ve been involved in the hobby since at least the sixties and I remember Lynn Wesott articles of the time such as a railroad that grows, a favorite of mine.
I believe that it was at that time that MR started using the word ‘turnout’ for switches with the often quoted ‘so that modelers don’t confuse these with electrical switches.’ I hear this chestnut even until this day.
Yet, switches are laid on ties and we aren’t confused imagining silk father’s day gifts are under the rails. Switch have frogs and we don’t image Kermit on the rails. We have railroad cars and don’t image Fords and Chevys on the rails. Cars have trucks but we do not image pickups or semis under the cars. Locomotives have pilots but we do not expect to see Snoopy in WWI flying regalia on the front of a locomotive. The British have bogies and no one imagines the star of Casablanca in this instance.
And, ‘prototype’. Yes, I understand the quest for a good name for what are models are based on, but prototype just isn’t it. A prototype is more of a pattern, a mock up, or a test model, a one-off usually hand-made contraption to prove and idea before production. More loosely, it can be a standard.
So, what do you all think about calling a switch a switch as I believe the prototype does (er, the railroaders do)? (at least that’s what I hear them call them).
And, what is your idea of a good, solid word for prototype?
In fact, the real-life railroad (the prototype) does call them turnouts, at least the full structure with the diverging path. The moving part within the turnout is the switch. The operating employees usually say switch, the engineering department (like us when we design and build layouts) often says turnout.
I have dozens of prototype documents from many different railroads and different eras that use the word “turnout”, from track engineering diagrams to employee timetables.
If your delicate sensibilities are offended by the use of the word “prototype”, just say “real-life railroad.”
Why people show up on an Internet Forum and feel they are compelled to try to change terminology that’s been in use for decades is always puzzling to me. But you’re not the first and sadly you won’t be the last.
I would think the distinction between switch and turnout was made because, with DC blocks, you use a lot of electrical switches and a written direction of “get a few switches” could be interpreted either way. Today, it does seem a bit odd since they aren’t as necessary. If neckties were used heavily at some point in model railroading, I’d imagine we’d see a distinction between those and the things that hold the rails in place. Just a thought.
I hope I don’t further confuse the issue, but I’ve always heard that the physical piece of trackage referred to as a ‘turnout’ by both modelers and actual railroad personnel. The act of operating the ‘turnout’ being referred to as ‘switching’, which is activating the ‘turnout’ rail to allow a train to ‘switch’ onto another track.
I know, it’s confusing. In MRR terms, the ‘switch’ is the button that controls the ‘turnout’ or even the direction of a train.
And if you think THAT’S confusing, think about it in terms of a musical instrument known as the ‘Keyboard’. Back about 200 years ago it meant any instrument that was played with fingers on keys. Organ, Clavichord, Virginal, Harpsichord or Piano. Now, it not only means those weird electronic thingies pounded on by Rock musicians, but also what I’m using right now to ‘type’ this response.
Things don’t get simpler, these days, they just get a little more confusing. [:-^]
Anyway, if this helps at all, I press a button and ‘switch’ the ‘turnout’ on my MR. [%-)]
My son is a railroad Engineer and I know a number of others who work on the railroad. cuyama is correct, the real railroad calls the whole assembly a turnout, the “switch” is the moving points, throwbar and switch stand.
The “switch” is the main concern of operational personal, but the track crews and engineering department deal with turnouts.
If we are going to “rename” things, then we also need to stop referng to electrically isolated sections of model track used in DC control as blocks. Block is a signaling term and the boundries of such do not correspond with the boundries used for track sections in cab control.
I personally, along with Paul Mallery,have already adopted the term “track section” for electrical sections used in cab control.
But I surely understand when others call them blocks.
I don’t see any problem using the word “Prototype” in “model” railroad jargon it is actually what should be used if I’m reading the definition correctly. But then again who really cares? Us model railroaders all know exactly what we mean when we use the word same goes for turnout. I corrected as a very young lad by my uncle who was an Engineer on the D&H and then retired from the Erie Lacawanna that a switchmen moves or turns the switch on a turnout" because I used to call the whole contraption a switch. It’s one of those things you tend to remember when your childhood hero/idol who seemed like he was 10’ tall and drive the biggest train in the world and made Superman look like a sissy tells you.
As per Wikipedia:
In the field of scale modeling (which includes model railroading, vehicle modeling, airplane modeling, military modeling, etc.), a prototype is the real-world basis or source for a scale model—such as the real EMD GP38-2 locomotive—which is the prototype of Athearn’s (among other manufacturers) locomotive model. Technically, any non-living object can serve as a prototype for a model, including structures, equipment, and appliances, and so on, but generally prototypes have come to mean full-size real-world vehicles including automobiles (the prototype 1957 Chevy has spawned many models), military equipment (such as M4 Shermans, a favorite among US Military modelers), railroad equipment, motor trucks, motorcim a doodie facenes, and space-ships (real-world such as Apollo/Saturn Vs, or the ISS).
The class one I work for everyone calls them switches and that is how they are refered to in training classes in all departments. I think if I told my brakeman to go stand at the turnout he would look at me funny!!!. I believe the Union Pacific calls them turnouts. I know CSX and NS call them switches.
Not really. As you pointed out yourself, the same word (e.g. “pilot”) can mean different things in different contexts.
A pilot is one thing in the airline industry, another thing in the railroad business, a third thing in the television industry and a fourth thing if you work with gas appliances.
Prototype and turnout has reasonably clear meanings in the context of model railroading. In American English. If those meanings are clear to you, then the words work well enough. If not, ask.
If I was speaking Norwegian, a turnout/switch would be called a “sporveksel” (“track changer”). And “RR ties” would be called “slippers”, which presumably is a Norwegianized spelling of the British term “sleepers”. The people who built our first railroad were Englishmen.
Doesn’t bother me that different contexts can have different vocabularies. Or that the same word can mean different things in different contexts.Or even that the same word can be used in different ways even within the same context.
Like e.g. how “prototype” can mean both “the first/initial (in a production run)” or “the original (that I am trying to model)” in the context of model railroading.
Up to you if you prefer to just roll with the punches and use the terms most commonly used within the context of American model railroading, or whether you want to don a suit of armor, get an old mule and go charging at windmills - the former is most efficient, the latter is most amusing
i am hesitant to touch this one with a ten foot pole. i wrote a long winded reply to this very subject sometime back, calling on decades of railroad experience and some guy, all with the best of intentions, took me to task by quoting chapter and verse from dot, fra, company rule books etc. he was correct in his defense of the use of the term turnout but i said that i had never run through a turnout, dropped off to get the turnout, or made overtime because of too much turnouting to do. i thought a turnout was something like the crowd at a funeral or wedding.
it really doesn’t matter but it is fun to play with words. until we merged with the PRR, i thought a cabin was something uncle tom lived in.
NYC called trains, PRR programmed trains, and the IC listed trains. what difference does it make just so long as everybody gets to work at the same time?
and in closing remember the CB&Q referred to their passenger trains as zephyrs. zephyr is an antique term for flatulence. which reminds me of the time our yard crew tore up a crossover or something while making a delivery to the Q and their superintendent called me up on the phone raising cane and said "that big four outfit must be dumbest bunch of blah blah blah etc. etc. i said, “yeah, we’re not too bright but at least we never named a passenger train after a phttt”. well, he must have studied english lit since he told my boss that i was vulgar and insulting and i was back pulling pins for a month. it was worth it.
Prototype. It means the original, the one from which copies are made. Your definition is just one of several. I get annoyed when it is used as a verb (“I am prototyping the ATSF.”) although the dictionary has that meaning.
The whole switch/turnout debacle get churned up about once or twice a year. Who cares? Everybody understands what is being said.
Prototype railroads use the term “turnout” as well as “switch”, although they aren’t the same thing.
Oh great, thanks grizlump. I’m a Q fan and I love the flatulents…er…Zephyrs. I am NOT going to tell my wife about this story cause she does not need any more ammo about me in that area! And in keeping with the spirit of the thread, The Q engineers ran motors in the later years vice locomotives and the conductor worked from a waycar.
Several historical videos I have say that Zephyr was the Greek God of the West Wind, so it’s easy to see how the name became associated with flatulence.
Maybe we could settle the argument between usage of “switch” and “turnout” by calling them “That there thinig-a-ma-jig.” [}:)]
Turnout is an engineering term. In the Conrail Engineering Standards Manual (MW4?) it is referred to as a turnout. Switch is the operating department term. In the Rules of the operating department it is generally referred to as a switch, (although I recall turnout listed in the Definitions section).
Inexpicably, the Engineerig people refer to an unassembled turnout as a “panel switch”. (Like a switch kit in model railroading).
Dispatchers and Signal Maintainers generally use the term switch referring to interlocking switches.
In 42 years of railroad service, in engine service and operating department supervision, I mostly used the term switch.
I have no problem with the following: the appliance, or unit, is called a turnout. It allows a turning out from the main line or axis of revenue. The part that effects the diversion, the movable component, is the switch.
