Question: Wye switches thrown/closed

[maxman]

I always watch when people type in the spelling of my last name.  I tell them that it begins with a "Y', and they type "W".

[Overmod]

As a sort of aside: this is precisely like an issue I came upon in ITU group R10 about repeaters for emergency nuclear power-plant management.  The normal (no pun intended) convention for valves is 'green open, red closed' without any indication for whether those valves were supposed to be NC or NO.  Semantically this has been a source of confusion and delay under stressful conditions.  We developed the convention that the repeater, using bipolar R/G LEDs, should display green for 'normal operating position' (with the understanding that the existing control display would remain as built, and could be quickly consulted for physical state).  If there were a proportional signal for valve drive position, it would show an 'offset' of modulated red and modulated green together, the result being a graduated orange that also served to indicate how far toward 'expected' condition the valve had reached... note that this inherently separated 'just cracked open and leaking' from 'not quite closed and dribbling', something of key importance in the TMI accident.

What I'd use for the wye display would not be 'green' or 'red' lights but two white lights either side of the apex switch on the panel track-diagram line.  The appropriate light would show what side of the wye was lined for the stub.  

[Overmod]

Here is a product intended to assist with the concerns of switchmen, they say:

https://www.aldonco.com/product-category/signs-and-lights/turnout/

[Overmod]

maxman

I always watch when people type in the spelling of my last name.  I tell them that it begins with a "Y', and they type "W".

Why? 

[zugmann]

If you have to put up a sign telling people how to read a switch, that person really shouldn't be touching switches.  Or be out there by themselves. 

[Overmod]

zugmann

If you have to put up a sign telling people how to read a switch, that person really shouldn't be touching switches.  Or be out there by themselves.

Remember that we're half a century on from the era that the Army had to produce comic-book manuals for the M1A1 tank... and not a witty update of a Tigerfibel, either!

This is, alas, the sort of "upgraded" signage marketed and sold to MBA-trained purchasing agents who have likely never switched anything complex... but are acutely aware of their legal department's natterings.  (Of course that's my non-railroader's opinion, so take it with the usual lost shaker of grains of salt...)

In Aldonco's partial defense, though, I am in favor of things that would foster unambiguous 'safety' especially in poor weather or for tired or exasperated men.  If one of these patent Bold New Theory products actually does that, I'd be in favor of at least testing them...

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

zugmann

 

 

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

I don't question how they use words in our shared language, maybe they need to check up on how the word has been used here for the last 70-100 years.

 

 

Maybe it's regional, but the only time I ever heard of "Wye" was when referring to an actual wye arrangements of tracks that allowed turning of equipment (or sometimes referring to tracks that once formed a wye, but now part of that wye is missing, but the rest of the remaining tracks are still called a wye - even though you can't wye anything on it).

 And yes, we do use wye as a verb.  "go and wye that power". 

An equliateral switch was always called that, and never a wye switch (as far as I can remember). 

 

In real life on the prototype yes, equalaterial switch, but in the hobby, on the package you buy it in "wye", from every model train track manufacturer in the last 70 plus years.

Sheldon

[cx500]

Overmod

 OK, I'll bite... what are yellow vs. purple used for?

 

 

In the Canadian context, red and green was used when the turnout is on the main line.  Yellow and green are used on yard tracks.  Purple is for a switch point derail.