Hobbez#3 are replacement relay points. For what particular relay, I can only guess.
For the third time, I believe that they are extra contacts for the switch machines that NJI used to sell. You can see some installed on the machines at the following link: https://www.google.com/search?q=nj+international+switch+machine&rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS443US443&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_0UaVPGWFYqhyAS2x4D4CQ&ved=0CB8QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=579
The package of "fishplates" says "used in Kit No. 709" I checked the Mantua catalogs on the HOseeker site. Did not find Kit No. 709. In the 1955, 1959 and 1960 catalogs kits 701 through 706 are truss bridges.
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No. 707 and 708 are "Circuit Breaker Kits" Found 709 on a list "Fishplates, envelope 100" - No help!
There are several lists of 4 digit part numbers. While "5616" does not appear on any of them. It is obviously a renumbering of "709"
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
BRAKIESomething to mull over. On the PRR I heard tie plates called fishplates.On Chessie(C&O) they was called tie plates.
Larry,
That's a good example of regional or even RR-specific variation in terminology.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
#1 are optical detectors. They know when a train is over them because it blocks the ambient light. Used in crossing or block detection generally.
#3 are replacement relay points. For what particular relay, I can only guess.
#5 are transistors. If you have access to a transistor testor, you can figure out if they are pnp or npn. All kinds of applications for those. I love old transistors like these because each of those is one transistor, but your smart phone has trillions of the same thing in it.
Something to mull over.
On the PRR I heard tie plates called fishplates.On Chessie(C&O) they was called tie plates.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
................plates."
maxmanSo as I said above, if it looks like a rail joiner, it is a rail joiner, even if someone wants to call it a fishplate.
Oh, I agree completely. A rail joiner is a completely different kettle of fish...
So as I said above, if it looks like a rail joiner, it is a rail joiner, even if someone wants to call it a fishplate.
The SW-51 (61?) extra contacts are for the switch machines that NJI used to sell. I think I said that above, also.
The SM-106 Scale-Like Industries things are slow motion turnout motors. They are in all probability re-purposed Hankscraft display motors. Similar items were sold by an outfit called Electro-plumbing and I think one or two others.
Hawk007www.raybuettner.com/bucket.html
Not to get too personal, but your colon was mislocated...
http://www.raybuettner.com/bucket.html
Pic #5 looks like an old school(?) transistor if those are 3 legs in each. If there's any with 4 legs, those are usually bridge recitifiers.
ok, This is Usless, I can not post images. so plan #2 head to this link. its just a picture page. with all of the things I talked about. Sorry I just can not get uploads of pictures to work. it is on my personal site. it is SAFE I promise...
www.raybuettner.com/bucket.html
"Sometimes the Most real things in life, are the things we can not see."
ok, will have to do that then. give me some time lol
Hawk007Guessing I can not add pictures here??
Not directly. You have to upload them to a third party website, such as photobucket, first.
Finally got batteries for the camera. phew here are some of the images of what I posted about before.
Guessing I can not add pictures here?? weird
A French civil engineer was heavily involved in construction of the British rail system -- Maidenhead Bridge is just one of his designs that is still in daily use today.
Yeah, good examples of how language and word usage can be very complex. The term fishplate also applies to a piece of metal used in bricklaying to help bond courses of brick together. It's somewhat similar to how the term applies to rail, as it, too, is a term based on the shape, rather than word origin.
It's also a good time to point out that word usage and dictionary definitions can be similar, but also vary. Usage comes first, while words make it into the dictionary after they've been in use in that manner for some time, during which they may have evolved considerably. Likewise, someone compiling a dictionary in the 21st century has to be careful about not reading their own point of view into how they see something that happened in the 19th.
That's why I'm leery about the French theory. It sounds exactly like what someone being somewhat careless about their definitions might come up with, as it seems wholly based on the word's root, rather than historically located in the context it was used in. I'm aware of no great influence of the French on British railway practices. If anything, the opposite was the case, given how influential British rail technology was. It seems more likely to me that the French should be calling them "fishplates" in French, but since I don't have much French, someone else will have to weigh in on what the French call them -- which might be interesting to find out.
This source says it comes from the French word "ficher", meaning "to fasten", http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fishplates
See Wikipedia for another opinion re: fish plate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishplate. To summarize what they say, "The name is derived from fish, a wooden bar with a curved profile used to strengthen a ship's mast.[1]".
ACYI wasn't there, so I dunno.
Yeah, that's kinda the sticking point. I wasn't, either.
I'm really not disputing the French theory so much as noting it may well have been of some significance, but may not be the only piece of the puzzle. Betamax is right, too, lots of borrowing from French into English. Thing is, much of that borrowing went on before the 19th century, so I'm not sure it applies here...but it could.
All I know for sure is what the dictionary said. In my personal experience, I've heard "fishplate" from modelers, but not from U.S. railroaders. They generally call the things angle bars or joint bars. There may be other names, and it could be a regional thing. I suspect the typical British track worker, or "plate layer" didn't speak French in 1840 - 1850, but the inventor of the thing might have spoken French. I can also imagine a French railway ordering "fiche" plates from a British foundry, and influencing British usage.
But I wasn't there, so I dunno.
Tom
After the Norman conquest, French was the language spoken in England by the upper classes for quite a long time. Eventually English became dominant again because it was the language of the common people, so the government began working in English to better communicate with the average Englishman.
That doesn't mean that French language influences are not there. The Queen is fluent in French too.
CTValleyRRSee Tom's (ACY) original post. The french word "fiche" with it's older meaning of "attach", is pronounced "feesh". Anglicize the pronunciation a bit and you have "fish". It has nothing to do with the shape or markings.
That's an interesting theory. I'd put more stock in it if the French had been somewhat more prominent in railway engineering. Otherwise, it's kind of hard to see a gang of Brit railway workers discussing the latest in French cuisine and what the best bar in Cannes might be, as well as the funny name some engineer just called that fishplate over there...
Words have interesting histories and it's often not entirely possible to sort out all the influences out. Word definitions are like a lot of things dealing with language. There's not a correct way. It's all about how people actually use language. I suspect there's some influence in this by people dealing strictly with words, reading something into the definition that really requires a more complex approach. For instance, wikipedia cites the invention of the fish plate in the mid-1840s in England, while the cites for the "French theory" tend to cite the mid-1850s. Maybe the Brits had them around for a decade, then decided to ask the first Frenchman they encountered to name it?
I have my doubts about the assertion that fishplate is a strictly "English" term, too. I knew what a fishplate was before I ever got into model railroading. There were railroaders in the family, but mostly before my time. Or who knows where I learned it, except I'm pretty sure I never met any Frnech people and came away calling it that... I actually suspect that it's as much a regional issue as it is a national issue in terms of usage.
This is all pretty tongue in cheek, except the part about words being defined by those who use them, rather by those who observe such uses. There is always a tendency to reduce things to one "correct" way, as that the thing that humans, and particularly Americans, do, because it makes the world simple. But the world is far from simple and the mutiple uses and meanings of words over time are a prominent example.
If you want to understand the fish image associated with these things, think about how fish swim, upright and in parallel. So is how you make a rail joint, with two of them "swimming" in parallel. Depending on the fish you're talking about, some are longer in the body and have either eyes, gills, or markings that resemble the bolt holes.
Then there was the fact that the RR brought fresh fish to the English away from the coast for the first time at an affordable cost. In this sense, people could've been thinking "fish" when looking at RR track.
I suspect the fishplate word story is rather more complex than simple.
Hawk007 OK, I get the fish plates part. but why do they call them Fish Plates??? I dont even see anything that looks like a fish anything on them. though I am sure there is a real reason provided by Our fellow UK'ers.
OK, I get the fish plates part. but why do they call them Fish Plates??? I dont even see anything that looks like a fish anything on them. though I am sure there is a real reason provided by Our fellow UK'ers.
See Tom's (ACY) original post. The french word "fiche" with it's older meaning of "attach", is pronounced "feesh". Anglicize the pronunciation a bit and you have "fish". It has nothing to do with the shape or markings.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
mlehman Interesting about Anderson's demise 10 years after the info I found. Now I'm starting to wonder if the Anderson involved with Eshleman is the same as Arvid Anderson? The illustration in the catalog shows a round vertical tube, with the top arm being fixed in an elbow to hook and move the bridle back and forth. Down below is a screw-attached arm. I presume it can be adjusted so it can point in any direction toward the switch machine mount, plus the arm positioning could then be adjusted to the throw of the machine. Maybe Anderson sold the turnout throw design to Eshleman, then went on by investing the proceeds to try to invent the Uber-coupler, but got outclassed by Kadee???
Interesting about Anderson's demise 10 years after the info I found.
Now I'm starting to wonder if the Anderson involved with Eshleman is the same as Arvid Anderson?
The illustration in the catalog shows a round vertical tube, with the top arm being fixed in an elbow to hook and move the bridle back and forth. Down below is a screw-attached arm. I presume it can be adjusted so it can point in any direction toward the switch machine mount, plus the arm positioning could then be adjusted to the throw of the machine.
Maybe Anderson sold the turnout throw design to Eshleman, then went on by investing the proceeds to try to invent the Uber-coupler, but got outclassed by Kadee???
Welcome to the wonderful world of model archaeology.
I recall using 'fishplates' to assemble rail end-to-rail end. Later the name morphed into the more accurate, 'rail joiner.'
The things that look like 1:48 scale rail joiners were probably intended either to simulate rail joiners (all jointed track in those days) or to be soldered to the rails at joints - a one-sided rail joiner, if you will.
Don't know about the Anderson uncouplers. Arv Anderson invented the Anderson Link for through-the-roadbed point throwing purposes. I still use a crude form - brass tube and bent paperclip.
Don't know about your track cleaning car. How does it clean track. If it's a John Allen-type slider car you could run it as part of your MOW equipment.
Items 5 through 7 sound like parts intended for a signal detection system. Item 6 might be a long-obsolete transistor, possibly intended for use in Linn Westcott's Twin-T detection circuit. I haven't looked up the original article, so I can't say with certainty.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Earl R. Eshleman's first ad is in the May 1965 Classifieds. selling "starch decals" and "PRR calender pictures". In the April 69 Off the Train Wire there is a note the Eshleman now owns Andersons turnout link, sound system and O scale trackwork. Anderson "plans to concentrate on Oscale kits and custombuilding."
Mr Eshleman advertises that his business is for sale in the March 1999, Jan 2003 and Feb 2003 Classifieds.
ACY The above post says "fish plate" is a synonym for "tie plate". I think that may be erroneous. Fish'plate, n. [prob. from Fr. fiche, means of fixing, confused with fish] either of a pair of iron or steel plates bolting two rails together lengthwise, as on a railroad. (Webster's New twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Second Edition, published 1961 when jointed rail was the norm.) Tom
The above post says "fish plate" is a synonym for "tie plate". I think that may be erroneous.
Fish'plate, n. [prob. from Fr. fiche, means of fixing, confused with fish] either of a pair of iron or steel plates bolting two rails together lengthwise, as on a railroad.
(Webster's New twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Second Edition, published 1961 when jointed rail was the norm.)
Tom (and all others reading this thread); I stand corrected on this, can't believe for the past 60+ years I called the tie plate a fish plate?? Just goes to show you learn something new every day; and I will remember this one.
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
I believe the resemblence to fish was found in the 19th century versions of the "fishplate." Modern ones have a big angled foot that rests against the base of the rail, so is more resistant to sieways forces, etc. IIRC the early ones were more like a flat bar that attached pretty much bearing on just the web of the rail.
Of course, the model railroad rail connector doesn't resemble either very much.
Ok, so your saying that most of these things were about late 50's through the 70's. I have most all the Model Railroader, & Railroad Modeler magazines from that period. if not then I may know a few people who may have them. and hopefully I can find some sort of info on some of these thing.
As for NJ, I will email them for that info. If they are infared detectors, then boy and I going to have a great itme with my new signaling project. ;) I do not like Signals / Switches to be a aprt of the DCC system. call me a old fart and just "out of touch" but the actual feel of controling switch's with a actuator, or switch for the switch, or even a throw bar. feels good to me. and gives me more of a actual feeling of a real road of the olden days. when there were switch towers, interlocking towers with real people in them, old "Grasp, yank, and pull" throw switches. not this new 1 dispatcher for several states junk, or a computer driven routing system. WHat can I say. Im a older Style, Model Railroader. it was more fun back then. Though I do have Slo-Mo Machines I picked up somewhere at an estate sale some 20 years past. (love those estate sales) lol.
Signals, I pretty much made, or am making them from scratch. mostly brass parts that I got from the SuperStore eBay, and a lot of NJ plastic heads. and plasticville signal bridges, turned into working signal bridges. So far, from my old model railroad, before I had to pack it up (and did not learn about modular sections. I have about 150 brass signals of all types, not so much plastic.