I cannot figure out when to refer to a track that branches off the main line as a spur or a siding. Can someone help me here?
Rich
A spur has one switch connecting, a siding has two maybe more. I am sure someone will pontifacate more on this.
I think a spur is a track that goes some place, like another town or another rail road?
A siding is a dead end?
I was going to GUESS the same as CGW121: A spur has one connection to the mainline/branch and a siding has multiple. But I be rather ignorant.
I think SouthPenn is pretty close: a spur goes someplace, whereas a siding just gets traffic off the main.
I wouldn’t take this as gospel, though. I could easily be ignoranter than OneWolf.
Robert
From the CSX “Railroad Dictionary”
| Siding | An auxiliary track for meeting or passing trains. It is designated in special instructions. |
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| Spur Track (Commonly Called Spur) | A stub track that diverges from main or other tracks which provides access to industrial or commercial areas. It usually dead ends within an industry area. |
|---|
Well, now I’m nore confused than ever. [:^)]
Not sure which dead ends and which goes “through”.
Rich
A siding can have a single turnout leading onto it, or it can be double-ended with a turnout at each end. The huge majority of sidings are double-ended so that a train going in one direction doesn’t have to reverse to retake the main. Instead, still moving in its intended direction, it throws the turnout in front of it, at the end at which it stopped to await the passage of an oncoming train, and retakes the main after the “meet.”
A spur has one turnout permitting access to it, but it is not a siding whose purpose is to permit a meet and pass. Instead, a spur is really a main track leading to a smaller switching facility or to an industry, or series of industries.
It depends on the era and the railroad. For example, a Pennsylvania RR track construction specifications manual from the 1950s never mentions “spurs”. Instead, it references “sidings”, “side tracks”, and “industry tracks”.
A 1990s General Code of Operating Rules uses both “siding” and “spur”
A 1949 Wabash Employee Timetable refers to both single-ended and double-ended tracks as “sidings”.
A 1939 ATSF Employee Timetable includes both “sidings” and “spurs”
The general prototype usage seems to be that spurs always dead-end, sidings sometimes do – but this varies by railroad and era.
ahh, OK, thanks guys.
So, spurs dead end whereas sidings often are double ended or pass through tracks.
Rich
Rich,
Get more confused…he he! Theoretically Your reverse loops are considered Passing Loop Sidings:
http://modeltrains.about.com/od/glossary/g/spur.htm
Just about all You need to know about spurs/sidings…unfortunately You have to read them though…some people don’t like to do those things anymore!
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
That page’s definitions don’t match typical prototype designations.
“You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet”
– Abraham Lincoln
I believe it does a pretty fair job for modelling purposes…but that’s just My opinion.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
It’s often a waste of time to post facts on this forum.
Spur is a track to service a business for loading and unloading.
A siding is used for parking a train to clear the main line so another train can pass. does not need to be double ended but most probably are these days.
Steve
Byron,
That’s a fact also…[swg]
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
When I see the work “spur” I cannot avoid thinking back to the old ads by AHC, America’s Hobby Center, in MR. One of their perpetual offers was a “spur deal” – a turnout, a couple of pieces of snap track, and a bumper, for less than the price of the usual turnout. So it was indeed a deal. And a spur.
I have also seen references to “a stub-ended siding,” just to add to the fun. And I have seen the word spur used in relation to streets. I have not seen the word siding used in that context.
Locally, the C&NW switch crews of my youth would refer to servicing “Badger siding” (named for the industry at its terminus) which nonetheless met the definition of a spur: it left the main, made a 90 degree curve (an oil dealer and a tannery were on the curve) then straightened out to run at a right angle to the main. A team track for a lumber dealer, a plastics plant, another tannery, and a gray iron foundary were all on that same relatively short siding, er, I mean, spur. At one time so was a coal dealer, and one of the tanneries started as a soap factory. Once the gray iron foundary closed they kept moving the bumper closer to the main as industry after industry closed or stopped using rail.
Dave Nelson
Depending on the railroad and the time period, many of these terms are almost interchangeable. In the area that I have been focusing my efforts, the Pennsylvania Railroad had a line that began life as the Cleveland & Marietta. It diverged from the PRR’s Cleveland & Pittsburgh line at Bayard, Ohio. I have been using the Sept. 24, 1950 Lake Division employee timetable as a guide.
From Bayard to Dover, the line was identified as the Tuscarawas SECONDARY TRACK. From Dover to Marietta, the line was the Marietta BRANCH. There was a short dead-end branch that ran a couple miles from Dover to New Philadelphia, serving a few industries. It had previously gone a bit farther to Roswell to serve some coal mines, and it was called the NP-1 RUNNING TRACK. There was another short dead-end branch running north from Dover a couple miles to a brick kiln on the the outskirts of Strasburg. It was called the Strasburg SPUR. I don’t know why PRR chose to use “Secondary track”, “Branch”, “Running track”, and “Spur” for these various pieces of the railroad. In my experience, spurs connect to the rest of the world at only one end in most or all cases, although there might be some complex trackwork at some points on a spur.
Throughout the employee timetable, sidings are referred to as locations where two trains can meet or pass. Officially, a “meet” is a situation where two trains are coming from opposite directions and must get around one another. A “pass” is a situation in which one train overtakes another train going in the same direction.
On the main line, the dispatcher would only authorize passes and meets at locations where it was absolutely certain that the track length was adequate, and the employee timetable stipulated this with accurate information on track length, measured in carlengths.
I know of some situations on prototype roads where single-ended sidings were designated as pass/meet points, and a back
The most obvious way to know if something is a spur is to look at one on a boot. Some may have fancy spinning wheels, whatever. The essential thing is that it’s attached to the boot at one end.