Turnout detents?

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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Thu Aug 16, 2018 11:11 am Good info and pics, thanks Mike.
In the picture I posted with the green diamond switch stand, I see that the handle is straight down the side of the stand. Where would this handle be oriented in comparison to where the points are? I want to make sure I index my handle to the linkage arm correctly and I have no idea how the prototype was aligned in that aspect.
On my Racor stand, the handle is lined up with the eye bolt that is hooked up to the throw rod. The 'eye' is on the side away from the handle. Your first picture looks like a Racor, complete with the bent handle :D They must not be strong enough, account my handle is bent too. When the switch is hard to throw, you're inclined to 'put your back into it', I spent 8 months as a Brakeman before I 'went Firing', so I speak from experience :shock:

The handle notches in the table are at 45 degrees each side of the vertical casting leg, and the target shaft is at 45 degrees to the handle, to put the flats at 90 degrees to the track. The eye is between the 'feet' of the casting, so this one would have been mounted with the legs parallel to the track, so that the throw rod was between the two head ties.

The eye bolt is screwed into a boss on the bottom of the shaft. You screw it in or out to adjust the throw. There's no lock nut or anything on it, when it's 'captured' by the yoke on the end of the throw rod, it ain't going anywhere. If you want a picture, I can do it tomorrow morning when it's light.

The CB&Q targets were a long, rectangular, red, piece of sheet metal that were mounted crossways of the shaft. The BN changed them to vertical. Somebody must have got slapped in the face by one as they bailed off the waycar to line the switch back. The only place we had two targets was in the yard.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
rkcarguy
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by rkcarguy »

I get the idea of the eye bolt, but I'd love to see a picture of the stand relative to the turnout position so I can orient my handle correctly if you don't mind posting one.
My railroad is going to be a switching RR, I don't think the geography of my land and the wetlands is going to allow me to run anything to where I can have a continuous loop or reversing loops on each end of the line. Best case I can get a reversing loop or wye on the far end and a run-around on the north end. My understanding is that the green/yellow targets shown above would be on yard/spur type stands? For example, here where I live there is a spur which runs off the mainline and out of the yard, that serves a cold storage, plywood mill, and a small truck depot. This used to be the mainline for the Milwaukee Road until BN ran the new line up the coast. Further up, the line used to serve another cold storage place and ran up the valley all the way to the Canadian border to serve several grain silos, a lumber mill, a propane distributor, the dairy gold plant, and also used to bring in coal to a power plant. That has closed up and the highway crossing taken out of service/paved over. Another line was brought in from the east to serve those customers as all except the power plant are still there. We saw a limited amount of great northern traffic ( I remember a blue/white paint scheme U-boat) on the line which was in pretty poor shape by then. Arsonists burned the large wooden bridge over the river ultimately sealing the lines fate. The easements for the original line were sold off to adjacent property owners in a county auction some years ago, so the line won't be coming back sadly. About 4 miles remains which consists of three wooden trestles and one plate girder bridge, which I'd like to loosely model under Southern Pacific service. I may not have the right target drawn up for what I'm doing though.....the stands had a mix of everything from chevrons to single red discs from what I can remember.
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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 2:12 am I get the idea of the eye bolt, but I'd love to see a picture of the stand relative to the turnout position so I can orient my handle correctly if you don't mind posting one.
Here ya go........this is what the stand would look like from the 'field' side. The legs are parallel to the mainline side of the switch. Almost always, (never say always, account somebody will find a picture proving you wrong) the stand would be on the 'turnout' side of the main track. Except on double track, the stand wouldn't be between the two mainline tracks. In the case of a crossover, they would be on the outside, regardless of the curve in the turnout of the switch. The little step on the side was so the switch lamp at the top could be serviced, with oil, in the old days. Lately they were red and green reflectors in a lamp body. After they put electric locks on the switches, they did away with the lamps.
HighLine stand field view.jpg
Now...how the stand looked approaching it from the point end would depend on which side of the main track it was on. Assume in this picture that the mainline was on the right side of the stand, and the siding on the left. In this case, the 'eye' is to the right of center, and the handle to the left. In this position, the points would be pushed over against the right hand rail, and 'lined' for the siding. If it had a target, which I don't have, the red target would be showing. When the switch was lined back for the main, the handle would be moved over to the notch on the right, and the target would disappear.
HighLine stand train view.jpg
When I hired out on the BN, we had foot pedal locks on the mainline switches. They were a little latch that hooked under the base of the point to 'lock' the points in the mainline position. To line the switch for the siding, you would walk over to the side away from the stand and push the pedal down. They would usually stay down so that you could line the switch. When you lined it back for the main, they popped back up and locked the points. Those went away with power switches and the electric locks on the hand throws.

The chevron targets were the Milwaukee's style for a mainline switch. The only place you'd use the yellow/green targets would be on 'inside' tracks, like In a yard. On the mainline, approaching a switch stand, you'd see either a red target or not, not, if the switch was lined for the main. One day, a Trainmaster was supervising some track machines getting in the clear on the back track at Marietta. He looked at the stand and no target was showing, so he told the train waiting behind the red intermediate to the east that the switch was lined, and he could proceed. The guy came by the red signal, and ended up smacking the track machines. The target had fallen off the stand, and the TM didn't look at the points to be sure. The fellow running the train, who should have been running at Restricted Speed, account he'd passed a red intermediate, obviously wasn't, because he couldn't get stopped in time to avoid running in on the back track and hitting the machines. The TM got transferred, and the "Engineer" got two years off, mostly account he'd mashed up some expensive equipment, and he never admitted he'd one anything wrong, but he wasn't much of an Engineer to start with.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
rkcarguy
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by rkcarguy »

Thanks Mike. So it looks like the handle swings 45* to each side of the center of the stand, looking at it from the engineers view.
I just wanted to make sure I get the plate on top welded on with the notches in the right spot on the locking versions. My post is a long 1/2" bolt, and I'll be welding a coupler nut to the target and using a jam nut to orient it correctly, so I'm not worried about that part. Looking at that base, I think I need to shrink mine down more. There isn't much I can do in the long direction, I have to bridge the ties, but I'm at 5" wide, and I need to narrow that up significantly.
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

rkcarguy wrote: Sat Aug 18, 2018 5:03 pm Thanks Mike. So it looks like the handle swings 45* to each side of the center of the stand, looking at it from the engineers view.
I just wanted to make sure I get the plate on top welded on with the notches in the right spot on the locking versions. My post is a long 1/2" bolt, and I'll be welding a coupler nut to the target and using a jam nut to orient it correctly, so I'm not worried about that part. Looking at that base, I think I need to shrink mine down more. There isn't much I can do in the long direction, I have to bridge the ties, but I'm at 5" wide, and I need to narrow that up significantly.
The 'feet' on mine are 6-1/2" 'side to side' (across the tie), and 10" wide 'front to back' (lenghtways on the tie). The table isn't a full circle, as you can see in the close up photo. The side with the handle notches is circular, but the other side is shaped like an outside rod locomotive crank. It's about 9" diameter.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
rkcarguy
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Location: Wa State

Re: Turnout detents?

Post by rkcarguy »

Thank you for all the help and information Mike. So that foot size is your scale stands, not the real one right?

I was looking at images of switch stands online and it seems they mounted them all over the place. Some of them showed the handle between the stand and the tracks, others on one side or the other, and others on the backside opposite the track like yours.
The way yours is makes the most sense though so I'm good with that. I can pull back the rest of the circle on the table in CAD before I finally turn the drawings loose for cutting.
I'm going to post up my track plan tomorrow, I've revised a few things to make the most sense. The north end of the line and garbage/recycling stop, will have a run-around siding. Then the first spur will be a LH turnout to the fab shop container and will be where I hopefully rail more new creations. The next spur will serve the firewood customer (house), and I may also run a second spur off this one to the train shed instead of having another turnout on the mainline. Then down the hill, loop under itself, and then across the stream. On the other side of the stream, I'll try for a reversing loop but I may not have enough width in my land and have to settle for a wye. Both ends of the wye would run me north/south into more firewood tree area and would serve me well that way, with potential for another ~400+ of track.
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

Those dim's are the full sized stand.
HighLine stand foot.jpg
While I was at it, I took a shot of the bottom of the stand showing the eye bolt.
HighLine stand eye bolt.jpg
The big railroads all have 'standards' for trackwork, but sometimes a particular situation requires a little change of plan. When they extended the 'stock track' siding at Moorcroft, Wyo. (of Close Encounters fame) to allow for more cars at the new cement hopper, the shoulder was too steep on the new turnout sides, and the stands would have been between the main and the new 'tail tracks'. So, they put the stands on the 'outside'. They were doing the work during breaks in traffic. They'd just finished moving the west stand, when a friend of mine came sickling through the sag with a coal load making a run for Moorcroft hill. The problem was, they hadn't moved the target to the correct side of the staff yet, and he saw that red target and thought he was lined into that 10MPH switch :shock: He wasn't, account the switches were 'spiked' until they finished, but it produced some 'interesting' radio traffic :lol:

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing your track plan. I'm thinking about building a couple switches to make a runaround track at the current end of track. I'll build them on my jig, so that I can move the siding and fill back in with plain panels as I go.

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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Erskine Tramway
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

Just for your amusement and amazement...…I found the pictures of the fabricated switch stands the Company uses on Derails.
1029131722.jpg
1029131723.jpg
1029131723a.jpg
Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
rkcarguy
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by rkcarguy »

Neat pictures, it doesn't get more simple than that lol!
I've built several HO scale layouts and ran into multiple situations where I had to relocate a ground throw to the other side of the turnout to prevent it from being between two tracks. I used to use the N-scale ones on HO so they looked more realistically sized, they had just enough throw if they were carefully mounted.
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by rkcarguy »

Here's the track layout, at the moment:)
layout.jpg
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by rkcarguy »

Everything on the right of the stream (stage 2 and 3) will be hard fought, as I have no access to get equipment over there unless the neighbor lets drive it through their yard.
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Re: Turnout detents?

Post by Erskine Tramway »

The track layout looks like it will get the job done. Make friends with your neighbor :>)

Mike
Former Locomotive Engineer and Designer, Sandley Light Railway Equipment Works, Inc. and Riverside & Great Northern Railway 1962-77
BN RR Locomotive Engineer 1977-2014, Retired
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