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
Alton Junction
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.
Modeling an HO gauge freelance version of the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line and the Utah Railway around 1957 in a world where Pirates from the Great Salt Lake founded Ogden, UT.
- Photo album of layout construction -
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
LINK to SNSR Blog
From the CSX "Railroad Dictionary"
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
Well, now I'm nore confused than ever.
Not sure which dead ends and which goes "through".
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"
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
richhotrainNot sure which dead ends and which goes "through".
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,
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!
Frank
zstripeTheoridically 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
That page's definitions don't match typical prototype designations.
"You can't believe everything you read on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln
cuyama zstripe Theoridically 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 That page's definitions don't match typical prototype designations.
zstripe Theoridically 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
I believe it does a pretty fair job for modelling purposes...but that's just My opinion.
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
cuyama It's often a waste of time to post facts on this forum.
Byron,
That's a fact also......
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 backup move was required. This was particularly common on short lines and low-density branches where traffic was fairly light. These pass/meet points were usually called sidings, whether they were single ended or double ended.
Terminology might be entirely different on another Railroad, or Division, or at a different time.
Tom
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.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman 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.
Technically they are both sidings; A (passing) siding is like a passing lane. A spur siding is a dead end.
A passing siding is on the side of the mainline, running parallel to the main track with a turnout on both ends connecting it to the main (or branchline). A spur siding could also be on the side but could also curve away. It usually goes to an industry.
Please add pocket track to the conversation.
Spur...... A Track serving a business or something. The train working it still holds the warrant for the main line while working unless the warrant requires the train to be entirely clear of the mainline at so and such a time for another train to pass.
SIDING... is a place where trains meet or pass each other. It is under the control of CTC, and it frequently the end point of a track warrant, with a new warrant to be issued upon departure, unless of course the original warrant specifies continuing after the meet. A train would not work a siding as it would a spur, but even that is up for depage as a train may set out a defective car on a siding to be picked up later. The siding in Taylor ND has a built in spur for just this, since it clearly has no industry there.
In Richardton, there is a sput that leads into the team track, customers such as Stone Mill use it for shipping bagged grain products in box cars or containers. Equipment and particularly work trains can be laid up there.
The Ethanol Plant connects to the main line at both ends, and has several tracks that pass through the corn tower and tank filling station. There are several spurs that are east of the plant and loop back west again, because that is the land that they own and could not build longer straight spurs since they did not own that land. Looks like something a model railroader might build. These spurs were used for unloading hundreds of miles of oil pipe (the Dakota Pipeline project), but that pipe is all gone now. The ethanol plant does use the sidings for storing ethanol cars. Corn cars are returned right away lest drayage be paid. The GATX company Ethanol cars are leased to a consortium of ethanol plants and so they need a place to park them when not in use.
West of Town is the Halliburton plant. This too accesses the main line from both ends of the plant, but here the access switches are remotely contorlled by CTC, and the yard switiches by Halliburton. There is a complete wye at each access to the main, two loops that pass through the unolading terminal and eight spur tracks holding more than 10 cars each used for whatever, but originally intended for additives to be brought out and mixed with sand for particular customer specifications.
Taylor is the next town west of us and it has a 2+ mile siding the longest between Mandan and Glendive. Beyond that is the Grain Cooperative with a single sidding connected to the main at both ends, manually contorlled, and requiring a track warrant to work the plant. BNSF does the movement of grain cars for the plant, were as the Ethanol plant has two locomotives, and the Halliburton plant has two new goats for this purpose.
Are they sidings or spurs? ONLY the timetable knows for sure.
POCKETS... Found on subways. I place to park a bad order train en route, or a place to stash the "gap" train. The gap train is called out if the next train is so far behind that it is need to collect passengers before the next road train can get there. Pocket tracks can be single ended or double ended. Non my layout the are all double ended since they must leave in the same direction as they entered.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I'm going to guess just like everybody else. A SPUR is a track that branches off the main to a particular industry - like a mine. A SIDING is where a train can park to allow another train to pass. I wouldn't think a siding serves any indutries. That's the job of a BRANCH which may serve a whole bunch of industries and may be many miles long and serve several cities.
leewal I'm going to guess just like everybody else. A SPUR is a track that branches off the main to a particular industry - like a mine. A SIDING is where a train can park to allow another train to pass. I wouldn't think a siding serves any indutries. That's the job of a BRANCH which may serve a whole bunch of industries and may be many miles long and serve several cities.
The problem is that people are defining it by track geometry and the real railroads define it by USE.
Definition (most rule books)
Siding - A track auxillary to the main track used for meeting and passing trains.
Definition DL&W 1952 rules
Side track - A track, other than siding, auxillary to the main track.
A "spur" is not defined in any of the rule books I have.
So here the way to tell what it is. Answer this question:
Do I meet and pass trains in this track?
If the answer is yes, its a siding. If the answer is no, its not a siding, its something else.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
To add even more to the confusion I will refer to the prototype in Picacho, Arizona, on the Union Pacific. There were at one time two sidings at Picacho, a north and a south siding, a few years back Union Pacific completed a large section of Double track through there and now where the south siding existed is now the #2 Main Track, the North siding held a small seto out spur where we would set out Auto Racks bound for Phoenix, in recent months the set out track was extended to roughly the same length as the siding, the real difference for the prototype is that the siding has motorized CTC control points and Signals whereas the spur or setout track has manually operated switches and derails (another item commonly found on spur tracks and not sidings) at noth ends and no signals as it is not considered main track by GCOR definition.
All spurs are sidings, but not all sidings are spurs.
Don
Per John Droege's Freight Terminals and Trains from 1912, the definition are:
There's a discussion in one of the other sections here about the difference between a siding and a spur - it's spelled out in this book:
A stub track is a track connected to another at one end only
A spur track is a stub of indefinite length diverging from the main line
A siding is a track auxiliary to the main track for meeting or passing trains, limited to the distance between two adjoining telegraph stations.
An interesting read, if a bit dry, but a good insight into railroading just after the turn of the century. I'm about 200 pages in so far.
https://books.google.com/books?id=p4gNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR3&dq=freight+terminals+droege&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivuvSc95nSAhVH5YMKHdQRBI0Q6AEIIDAB#v=onepage&q=freight%20terminals%20droege&f=false
Note you do not have to read this online - there's a Google Books app for at least IOS and Android that lets you download the content and read offline.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.