Someone asked me: “why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?” It got me wondering why we model railroaders use the noun “turnout” for a “track switch.” I’ve heard the excuse that we don’t want to confuse a track switch with other kinds of switches, such as electrical switches. That’s a lame reason!
Model railroaders don’t use the term “turnout man” for switchman, nor “turnout machine” for switch machine.
Real railroaders and Webster et. al. use the noun “switch” for what model railroaders call a turnout. The real world defines “turnout” in the transportation context as a widened space in a highway for vehicles to pass or as a railroad siding."
Someone please kick me the next time I use “turnout” when I mean “switch.”
the gathering of persons who come to an exhibition, party, spectacle, or the like: They had a large turnout at the meeting.
2.
quantity of production; output.
3.
an act of turning out.
4.
the manner or style in which a person or thing is equipped, dressed, etc.
5.
equipment; outfit.
6.
a short side track, space, spur, etc., that enables trains, automobiles, etc., to pass one another or park.
7.
Ballet. the turning out of the legs from the hips, with the feet back to back or heel to heel.
8.
Railroads. a track structure composed of a switch, a frog, and closure rails, permitting a train to leave a given track for a branching or parallel track. Compare crossover (def. 6).
My Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, 1970 doesn’t have definition 8. Maybe in a couple of decades we’ll be using terms like turnout man, turnout machine, and turnout stand.
Just checked the internet dictionaries. While Wikipedia and Random House include definition 8, American Heritage and Mirriam Webster don’t. Doesn’t look like model railroad “speak” has completely infiltrated general usage yet.
[#ditto] So I have learned and adopted since joining the forum in 2005.
It makes perfect sense, Mark. The whole shebang allows the turning out of the current track. The mechanism is a "switch.’ The switch comprises the throwbar and point rails since they actually change the configuration of the “turnout” to accomplish the intended function.
-Crandell
P.S. - besides, what to we call a Double Pole Double Throw turnout…I mean, switch if we have to call it something else in the hobby?
OK. If the Department of Transportation uses the term “turnout”, I’ll accept it as a legitimate railroad term. I have even found a reference to “turnouts” in SP common standard plans of switch (track) diagrams (as in “center siding for double track, trailing point switch” and “…facing point switch”). However, “switch” was ubiquitous, and “turnout” mentioned but once.
“Turnout,” comes from the civil engineering side of railroading, referring to everything you’d find inside the blister pack if you bought an Atlas #8Switch.
“Switch,” (“Points,” to most of the rest of the world) refers to those parts of the above assembly that can be moved by throwing a switch lever. This is of interest to the operating side of the house - folks who would probably refer to a spade as a shovel and couldn’t care less what Engineering or Procurement call it.
Sooo… Why have I never heard anyone refer to a, “Slip turnout,” (single or double?) Tiz a pozzlement…
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with hand-laid specialwork)
First off you have to define in what context you are using the terms on the real railroad. They also use the terms for various things.
Railroads do not refer to the whole assembly as a turnout (at least not the class one railroads in the western half of the US). The whole assembly is referred to as a "switch’ by the operating department. The engineering department considered the "switch’ as just the points and associated hardware. If you go to a prototype track components company and order a ‘switch’, you will get just the points. You cannot order a “turnout” from a prototype track components company.
A turnout is the curved track on the diverging side of the switch. If you read a real rule book it may speak of a speed restriction through the “turnout”, that’s what they are talking about, the curve or S curve past the frog.
So both switch and turnout are used on real railroads, though not interchangeably.
This comes up every year or so on the various groups, is argued for a while, comes to no definitive conclusion and then dies back down until next year. So if you miss the discussion this year, don’t worry it will come back around again.
I heard turnout was more of a modelers term. Since we use electrical switches to throw our switches, it got confusing which “switch” someone was talking about.
Thank you, Nick. I was nearing the end of a long reply, pointing out that fact–when our apartment building experienced one of those inexplicable split-second power outages that shut down my computer, wiped out the clock on the VCR/DVD player, and reset my clock/radio/alarm to flashing “2:55pm, 2:55pm, 2:55pm”–and wiped out ten minutes’ worth of typing! The clock/radio/alarm was easy to fix: just press the Clock Time button and push the Minutes button pnce, to get it to the correct time. The VCR/DVD player was the usual, complicated mess of Up button, Down button, Right button, and Enter–while time speeds by, forcing more button-pressing.
When I powered up the computer again and went back online, I discovered I’d lost my entire reply, since it hadn’t been posted, and rediscovered a phenomenon I discovered the other day! That time, I’d clicked on Reply and started typing when there were only two replies listed, and when I finally posted my reply, I found I was the first reply on Page 2! This time, I’d started when there were only a couple or three replies, and when I finally got back, several people had covered the technicalities of “Turnout vs. Switch” thing.
If I remember correctly, Model Railroader, with Linn Westcott at the helm, had decided that the best way to avoid confusion between track switches and electrical switches was to use the textbook “Switch is the movable part of a Turnout” nomenclature. (Westcott also came up with the term “Q scale” for 1/4"=1’, since true O scale is 7mm=1’ [ know, it doesn’t actually track: Metric and English measure systems!].
I grew up with the term “switch.” I didn’t hear “turnout” until about five years ago. In fact, my old American Flyer remote switches had the name “electric switch,” as opposed to “manual switch.” In the interest of clarity I use “turnout” when confusion may arise because real electrical switches are in the context, as in “Switch A provides control for Turnout 1.” This happens more frequently in model RRing than in railfanning on 12 inch = 1 foot scale.
“TURNOUT” is merely a substitute word for “switch” in ‘model RR’ jargon despite sub-definitions or justifications for it’s existance.
An electrical ‘switch’ diverts direction - point A to B - same as a RR one. COMPLICATED turnouts (Single and Double Slip) are still referred to as “Switches”.
How many different English words are there to refer to ‘female’? (Careful).
If your nose runs and your feet smell it can only mean one thing: you are built upside down!
You can go back through every response I have made on this subject on the forum in the twenty-five months I have been a member and I have never used the term “turnout” - to me it is a “switch” - don’t ask me why; it’s just a switch.