nickaix Imagine this conversation taking place between you and a visitor to your layout: "Can you switch that switch?" "Which switch?" "The sixth switch." "How do I switch the sixth switch?" "Switch the sixth switch with switch six on the switchboard" "Oh! So if I switch switch six, the sixth switch will switch?" . . . All so we can avoid saying "turnout."
Imagine this conversation taking place between you and a visitor to your layout:
"Can you switch that switch?"
"Which switch?"
"The sixth switch."
"How do I switch the sixth switch?"
"Switch the sixth switch with switch six on the switchboard"
"Oh! So if I switch switch six, the sixth switch will switch?"
. . .
All so we can avoid saying "turnout."
George that conversation will never happen on any of my three layouts
Language and terms for things can vary alot from one region to another and from one railroad to another.Cabooses can be called "waycars" or "crummies" etc. I have heard full size railroaders call these things both a "switch" and a "turnout". To change the route favored by a switch is called "lining a switch" or "reversing the points". Manual switches are called "hand thrown" on the CSX near where I live. Around Chattanooga I heard NS railroaders on the scanner say that a switch was" lined, locked and blocked for the mainline". It depends on the railroad and the place where you are.
George
Revisionist Historians.
Like on the Internet where you can find anything to support your theology, politics, computer software.....you could find folks who wanted to change the world (or terminology), all the way back then.
The comment that someone asked a real railroader, and they call them "switches", simply rests my case.
Trains supported Turnouts, as did most of Clambake.
If you want to call your toy switches "turnouts", feel free.
Since my dissertation involved such "revisionist history" supported by Kalmbach, the 4-8-8-4 is germane to the discussion.
Of course, in cahoots with the nmra, they also supported Kadees....I have threatened for decades to obtain a front coil spring out of a 56 Cadillac, paint it gold, grab a bunch of metal coathangers and a camera, go down to the local freightyard, wire the spring up to the side of a real coupler, and take a photo, so you can see what a prototypical Kadee looks like in 1:1.
The whole discussion is moot, as we run diseasemals and steam on inside three rail track, with curves that would make a streetcar line proud.
lionelsoni I couldn't resist noting the fact that David (Barker) ironically (and obviously inadvertently) coined a new name for the electrical kind of switch ("swith") while advocating use of the same name for both kinds. I hope I didn't offend him or anyone else by that.
I couldn't resist noting the fact that David (Barker) ironically (and obviously inadvertently) coined a new name for the electrical kind of switch ("swith") while advocating use of the same name for both kinds. I hope I didn't offend him or anyone else by that.
No offense here, that is why I put the grin due on! I do this forum strictly for enjoyment, just as I do my three layouts, simply for pure enjoyment. I love CTT and my toy trains.
However I interviewed a retired railroader this morning (I do VA claims through a veterans organization) ,so I asked him his opinion and he said the RR people in the yards call them switches.
As far as the new term "swith' it will never make it
"Revisionist Historians"? I quoted the terminology from the seventh edition of Allen's book above. The first edition was printed in 1889, 57 years after Charles Fox invented the thing. It is now 181 years after Fox's invention. If history has been revised, it was revised from turnout to switch in the last 124 years.
You could call a toggle switch a toggle, but I think it would be very misleading to call a slide switch, a knife switch, a rotary switch, a mercury switch, a reed switch, a push-button switch, or a microswitch--a toggle.
What one calls a Big Boy doesn't seem to me to have much to do with this.
The question doesn't seem to be whether there is something that is properly called a switch. There is; and railroaders, geezers, and anyone else can call it that. Rather it is whether it is proper to call an assembly comprising a switch, a frog, and guard rails a turnout. That is also proper terminology. Since we deal with such assemblies, particularly in association with electrical switches, I find it helpful to use the more descriptive term "turnout" to avoid confusion.
Bob Nelson
I have never heard a 1:1 railroader call it a "turnout". Of course, most are geezers.
Trains Magazine is the same magazine that promoted "turnouts" and 40 years after the last steam tried to rework the Whyte classification system for articulateds....oh, say a Big Boy, which was a 4-8-8-4, they wanted to be a 4-8+8-4.
I still call them switches, and 4-8-8-4's.
Electrically, you could call that version a toggle.
Any one of us, no matter what age, who has not ever made a typo needs to go to the head of the liar line.
You might be surprised with the amount of turnout you get worldwide to read this topic. I almost never see O gauge 3 rail switches described by how many degrees the turn is. In one of either CTT, MR or Trains I saw a one or two page article describing how curves are calculated in degrees. It was an interesting read.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Thank you Mr. Nelson for pointing out my typo! At my age (72+) a typo now and then happens.
(or "swiths", as you say..;-)
I have been reading a wide selection of train magazines since the 1940's, my comments were my opinion that if you model a railroad, it would seem logical a person would know a frog from a double pole double throw. Also the hobby we are in is toy trains and the manufacturing companies as American Flyer, Lionel and Marx listed the product as remote switch, or manual switch, not a turnout.
I understand those scale folks use the term 'turnout' and there is nothing I could say to change that description, as the scale modelers have rank over we tin plate modelers.
David, try explaining in print to someone with no electrical knowledge how to wire up both the switches and the switches (or "swiths", as you say..;-) on his layout using that same ambiguous word for both. As the Trains Magazine glossary says, "Turnout A track switch-the term "turnout" is used to avoid confusion with electrical switches."
However, the usual usage here is actually technically correct, since a toy-train turnout typically comprises a switch, a frog, and a guard rail, all three of which together compose a turnout. My 1931 edition of Railroad Curves and Earthwork, by C. Frank Allen, Chapter VIII, "Turnouts", says,
"A turnout is a track leading from a main or other track....The essential parts of a turnout are 1. The Switch. 2. The Frog. 3. The Guard Rail.
"1. Some device is necessary to cause a train to turn from the main track; this is called the 'Switch.'
"2. Again, it is necessary that one rail of the turnout track should cross one rail of the main track; and some device is necessary to allow the flange of the wheel to pass this crossing; this device is called a 'Frog.'
"3. Finally, if the flange of the wheel were allowed to bear against the point of the frog, there is danger that the wheel might accidentally be turned to the wrong side of the frog point. Therefore a Guard Rail is set opposite to the frog, and this prevents the flange from bearing against the frog point."
Now I wish we could get rid of the ambiguous acronym "PW", which just as reasonably stands for "prewar" as for "postwar"!
I have been in the toy train hobby since the end of WWII. I have been blessed with American Flyer, Lionel and Marx, as a child and teenager. In 1964 for about a year I tried HO but did not get the enjoyment of the 'toy trains' I still had in my possession.
I built many layouts from the time I was in the 4th grade until I left home for the Navy. In each of the layouts I had both remote switches and manual switches. That is what American Flyer, Lionel and Marx called them in their catalogs. Today MTH, Williams and Lionel still call them remote switches and manual switches. As a matter of fact real real railroaders call them switches, not turnouts!
In 1964 for about one year HO was tried and thus I bought Model Railrader Magazine and learned the term turnout rather than switch. It did no make sense to me if you are trying model something why not use the accepted terms. If a person is confused in the difference in a switch that changes rails and a swith that turns on a light there is a problem.
Just my 2c
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