So, I used a search, didn’t find my answers.
For my layout, Half Moon has a mainline running through town cocked at an angle. Town wanted it moved, buisnesses liked having the accsess. But the railroad had one problem.
How does one go about switches? the switchstand can’t stabd up in the road, lest they get hit by idiot driver #465, and then there’s the teensage hoodlums that would want to pull said switch.
The control for each switch would be in a box under the pavement accessable through a hinged or removeable lid.
The control is under the pavement at the bottom of this photo. One example:
Photo from
You are quite correct, obviously, above ground switchstands are pointless. All true street trackage employed a below ground switch throw, a lockable steel/cast iron or concrete cover was provided to seal the vault and also provide security. This cover was set flush or slightly below the pavement. A visual inspection was required to assure the cover was secured so as not to hazzard pedestrians or traffic, The Pacific Electric mandated that crew members log the position of the switch as well, signal installation somtimes being impossible to incorporate. As for switch construction, the single point was the clear winner, as opposed to the traditional switch, only point rail moved. Hope this helps.
Dave
Cool.
And now, since I’m a slifght idiot, the scond question I alluded to in the title. How were station stops handled. Would they still nestle up to a platform (possibly faciing the wrong way into a lane of traffic) or would special arrangements be made?
In Oakland the California Zephyr stopped in the middle of the street. The street pavement was the used as the platform. As with any station with rail level platforms portable steps were used to make it easier for passengers to get on and off the train.
Conrail (former PRR) street trackage in Baltimore used “plugs” to hold the switch point(s) in position. Plugs were steel blocks about an inch thick, maybe an inch and a half wide and three or four inches long that went in the flangeways next to the point. The trainmen used a pry bar (switch iron) to pry out the plug and pry the point over and then dropped the plug back in to hold the point over. There was at least one double point switch, where each point had to be thrown separately, but most were single point switches.
Some of the switches had at one time been set up with a sort of toggle mechanism where the point would be pried part way and then it would snap over into position, but by the Conrail era these were broken and used plugs.
Paved trackage at the Dundalk Marine Terminal, which was shifted by Conrail, but owned by the Maryland Port Authority used regular switch throws in vaults with hinged covers. Sometimes they would be filled with water, or in the winter, ice.
Here’s some street trackage that was located in East Baltimore, I believe around Fells Point. They were all single points.
Note that the movable point is on the frog side rail.
All the paving was cobblestones, probably in place since the turn of the last century. This track had been out of service for about 5 years when I shot it back in the early 80’s. It’s all been pulled up since then.
Lee
This site has instructions on how to build a single-point switch:
http://www.trolleyville.com/tv/school/single_point_switch/index.shtml
Mark
I believe a point being overlooked is that all the examples have been from traction railroads or industrial leads/branches of class one railroads. The OP said this was a main track. I doubt they would be using single point switches in a main track on a class one railroad. Since the OP poster said that the main line ran through the town on an angle, that would imply there were places where the track was NOT in the street. That’s where switches would be located. Main track switches buried in a street would be severely speed restricted (and a maintenance nightmare for the railroad). If they HAD to put a switch in the street they would make a siding or lead and then have the switches break off of that.
As to where the train would stop they would have to make some sort of arrangement to stop traffic, so no vehicles could pass between the station and the train for safety. If the tracks are going through town at an angle, then the train would most likely have the street blocked, then it would simply be a matter of letting the passengers out on the side of the train where the train had the cars blocked. The conductor would get off first and put a step stool by the platform steps on the street, just as he would at any low level platform.
Dave H.
Dave H.
Dave makes sense. Regardless, any trains would move very slowly down the street.
I posted the following picture recently on another thread. In case you missed it, here is a log train running down the center of Main Street, Sebastopol, CA on the Petaluma & Santa Rosa of SP’s subsidiary Northwestern Pacific on a damp day in January 1948.
A couple of years ago I was in Santa Cruz, CA and observed a UP freight train going down the street on its way to the cement plant in Davenport. Now I’m kicking myself for failing to observe how any switches were laid out.
Mark
We thank you for the compliments, but Main track? yes. Class one? we could only dream. Unless I get an urge to pretned a different roadTheoretically, we would have runthroughs though. The majority of the switches would only be used by slow moving switchers anyway. In one varient of the plan, the train could come up to the platform. I had the town using the track area as a main street, since it’s an old river (okay, lake) town and having the opportunity for trucks/horse and wagons depending on era to follow the cars in would be prefferred.
Here’s a VERY rough draft. This isn’t all the buisness and buisnesse
How come all the buildings in the town are lined up N-S but the road goes thru the town on a diagonal? That seems very odd. You appear to be forcing the trackage to run through the streets. If you put the roads running N-S to match the buildings that would solve about 90% of your problems. If you absolutely need to make things hard on yourself, then at least run the buildings and cross streets perpendicular to the road the railroad is on and make it look like its the main drag. The other way to do this is to make the diagonal road an “alley” and put the “main drag” on the “front” side of the buildings.
Dave H.
Here is a tracks-in-the-street photo looking east down Oak Street in Visalia, CA. Both old and new S.P. stations are visible. It looks like the older (further) station has a house track between it and (south of) the mainline. Note the switch in the foreground accessing the siding north of the mainline: it has the normal two points.
Mark
because the image I have going in my head looks far better with the town at an angle. if we turn the town away from the track, even just the storefronts, the town loses the whole railfan joy it was designed for. the plan is to possibly hide little video cameras in windows to watch the trains from the cafe. I could and probablly will turn the buildings on the main line. But that’s not what I want to do. And it might help if I wasn’t hurrying something up for us to work with. There’s quite a few towns with mainstreet turned at angle to the roads.
Regarding that Visalia photo pictured above: do you think the switch stand is out of sight, aside the curb on the left (north) side of the road? Note the line in the street from the points going directly toward the curb.
Mark
Heres some photos of some street running. I have posted them before, and they don’t really have any switch stands. But they are up to date shots. Maybe a few months old, and still showing they are used.
Yep, that;s the look I want.
I think its pretty wild myself. If you look real good on the last shot, you can see a weight limit sign of 8 tons. I think its being push past it limits.
Going back to the point of a main street cutting across the typical N-S/E-W grid, we have that here in Sin City. The basic grid is North-South by East-West. The original key route through town runs SE-NW, angling across all those compass-aligned streets and avenues.
While Rancho Drive/Fremont Street/Boulder Highway never had a railroad track on it, the stark contrast of that one diagonal slash across town is striking, whether on a map or a satellite view.
There are plenty of places where the street layout (or the railroad track not in a street layout) dictated the architecture of the adjacent buildings. Anything from a clipped corner on an otherwise rectangular structure to a single wall at an odd angle to a purely triangular floor plan is possible. One of the sample photos that came with my computer is of the Flatiron Building, New York’s first skyscraper. If it was a turnout frog, it would be about a #3, with two long walls meeting at an acute angle, connected by a short wall at the building’s rear. In my boyhood home town, Broadway is at an angle to the compass grid. (Google Map Times Square, then follow Broadway southeast and you’ll find the Flatiron Building.)
I like the idea of putting TV cameras in trackside structures. Have to think about where that might be appropriate on my garage filler.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
You also have to take into account that back here in the east, many of the city street grids were started before the railroad came to town. Since the railroad is dependent on grade, it’s right of way is often in conflict with the existing street grid.
B&O (circa 1880) crosses Falls Road (circa 1760?) in Baltimore.
In the case of an industrial area with street trackage, that might mean a new street was laid out to provide a place for the trains to get through town. In a smaller town, it might mean that everything is nice and tidy until you get close to the tracks.
CSX passes through Meyersdale, PA at a striking angle compared to the street grid
Neither of the above are street trackage, but they demonstrate why things don’t always look the way we think they should. I believe such deviations from the norm make for more interesting scenery.
Lee