How Do Train Switches Work ?
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- How Do Train Switches Work ? Understanding a train switch and how to tell which way a train is heading all in this instructional video. I used to work for FEC Florida East Coast Railway and will show you the basic of railroad switching on an industry spur that leads to the Norfolk Southern Flo facility in Miami, Florida. You will always see a railroad crossing tour in this video.
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It may come to people's surprise that there is no bolts or fasteners holding down the locomotive or the car body to the trucks, or in the case of locomotives the traction motor sets. The trucks or the traction motor sets have what is known as a kingpin, something similar to what a semi trailer has, and a sliding pivot plate that the car or locomotive body pivots on. On the car or locomotive body there is a mating hole that the trucks kingpin goes into. The car or locomotive's weight and gravity does the rest.,
The components to a switch is first the head, this part is either remotely controlled at a central dispatch center, the yard masters post, or it can be a mechanical manual throw by a switchman or the conductor. The connecting rods, that connect to the switch points and the switch head. The switch points, which are the inner rails that are tapered to a point to allow the wheels to be guided through the switch. The frog, the central point within the switch with grooves to allow the flanges of the wheels to pass through. The guard rails, they are located near the outer rails or stock rails to keep the wheels and trucks going in the desired direction of travel. The stock rails, or the outer rails.
Switches are used for sidings, turnouts in yards, spurs and branch lines, cross overs, Wye's, and interchange points. Indications of switch positions can be either through the use of signal lights on mast near the track, or something as simple as an indicator paddle on the switch head itself. The signal aspect on a switch would normally be a set of two clusters. The top cluster will normally indicate the condition of the main, meanwhile the bottom cluster will indicate the position of the switch.
A green over red, meaning the top cluster is green and the bottom cluster is red generally means a clear indication on the main, and the switch is closed on the turnout, meaning you are directed to continue on the main at track speed. A yellow over red or the top cluster is yellow, and the bottom cluster is red usually means to reduce speed through the switch and prepare to stop at the next signal, and the red indication on the bottom cluster will indicate you are being guided through the switch onto the main. A red over red or the top cluster is indicating red, and the bottom cluster is indicating red, means you are to stop prior to entering the block unless authorized by your dispatcher, and the red indication on the bottom cluster means you are going to be guided though the switch onto the main. Remember the top cluster will be an absolute signal, meanwhile the bottom cluster will indicate the position of the switch.
Normally in the case of a thrown switch, the bottom cluster will indicate either a green or red aspect, meanwhile the top cluster will indicate either a yellow or red aspect. If you have a red over green, meaning the top cluster will be red and the bottom cluster will be green, that means you are to proceed through the switch into the turnout, and be prepared to stop once the last car has cleared the switch. The signal at the end of the siding will indicate a red over red, meaning you are to stop prior to entering the switch to get back onto the main. Normally after you have been given authority to re-enter the main, you will have a green or yellow over green. The green will normally tell you to re-enter the main and resume track speed, the yellow will normally tell you to enter the switch at restricted speed and prepare to stop at the next signal, meanwhile the green bottom indication will tell you that it is safe for your train to re-enter the main. Like the entrance signal, the top cluster is always the absolute signal, meanwhile the bottom cluster will indicate the switch condition.
Normally sidings are 2 to 3 miles in length to accommodate long trains, that also applies for the most part the individual signal blocks. Most Class 1 railroads will try to space their trains two to three blocks apart which means they will be between four to six miles apart. Normally it will be the conductors responsibility to call the signal aspect to both the engineer and dispatch, the engineer may do this as well depending on company policy, nevertheless the aspect still needs to be called out. For interchange authority, if the train has in its possession a car(s) that is in need of interchange, it is the origin dispatcher that will contact the company in which the car(s) will be interchanged with, and both dispatchers will need to be in agreement to grant the authority onto another company's tracks. This is called trackage rights. In the case that the train will be reclassified, then it will be the yardmaster that will gain control of the train for the purposes of classifying cars on their respective tracks for other destinations on their system. This usually occurs when the train to be reclassified enters the yard limit. Run through tracks are still under the authority of central dispatch.
I've seen this on Union Pacific and BNSF.
duh
Excellent video, greetings from Poland, +
Good video my friend. Enjoyed the information.
Great video railrol
👍😅 learning a lot from your videos including switching train tracks
I'm flattered, Michael! Thanks as always for the views and comments!
Very nice 👍 .snd nice old rails .thank you again
Great video.
Always follow the Gap! Thanks, you made it much easier!
Very informative, thanks Mr. RailROL.
Cool vid! Love the switches.
Nice video in Miami Florida Sunshine State good job friend bless you
Thanks ROL82, learn something new everyday : )
Fascinating, I could visualise the direction but not explain it - follow the gap, simple.
You are an ex railroader you really know your stuff I like that
Thank you sir! I appreciate the kind words!
Amazing video as always! This was pretty cool!
I had to watch this twice, looks like the line is infrequently used, awesome about switches, and the symbols and what they stand for and which track it’s switched too, looks like these tracks are in dire need of maintenance and some trash on the tracks. Excellent instruction RoLRoL
Ya I was confused if they were used frequently. But 3 times a week makes sense
You have to check this crossing out RoLRoL ruclips.net/video/HpIjQw3PEZk/видео.html
😀😀Awesome🇮🇳 Video👍👍👍
When I first started on the railroad we didn’t have colors on the switch stands so it took me a little while to figure out which way the track was going lol
Yeah, that can be a tricky situation without colors. So you had to follow the point since you had no colors.
@@railrol82 especially in big yards with like 20 tracks
Super video my friend!
Best regards :-)
great video RailROL82 :)
Egy újabb el hagyott ipar vasút! Érdekes köszönöm!
They're actually switched by remote control.
This one in particular is manually operated though.
@@railrol82 Oh. Lots of heritage railroads are that way, like the Black River & Western Railroad.
@@Ih8kone Usually the ones on the main line are remote or dispatcher operated now.
Great video! Track switches are used so that a train could switch onto another track. Useful for switching trains.
You could very easily screw up with switches
Nice
I'm glad you liked it!
Put a camera on the dash while your driving the engine... and go on abandoned tracks and try and activate the lights and stuff
You should do more instructional vids. That was very informative.
Thanks for the lesson on how switches work. Following the gap makes sense. The fun part of switches is double split switches at the throat of a major passenger terminal.
Very educational video. I like these types of videos. Very interesting how things work with railroads. Great video, thank you!
I've always wondered what the colors meant on the target, that's pretty cool thank you. Matter of fact I didn't even know it was called the target before this LOL
Cool little old section of track too, thanks for sharing
Very educational and interesting. Thank you 😊❤️
I would say the opposite, follow the closed point to the stock rail, and it shows your direction it's coming from or going
That works also. Thanks as always for the views and comments!
The operations of railroading is very interesting slot to learn and know
The was going straight… the wheel flange will make contact with the straight rail on the left and not with the switch.
The gap is for the flange of the train wheel to pass straight through, if the gap is closed but opened on the other side..the train will go to the right!!
Very Informative video! Interesting that the switch that leads to the blocked track appears in better condition than the switch to better maintained siding. I think Norfolk Southern (or the businesses that are served by the spur) should clean up that area around those switches. There was a lot of debris there that might get lodged in the switch. Thanks for sharing you knowledge with us! Looking forward to the next lesson!
If you worked for Briteline i'd ask if you knew 4 of my former co-workers that work there.
We shared the line with them, but thats about it. They were always in our way lol.
Thanks for the Switch or turnout video. For those not used to switches, go to a super busy rail yard. It will look like a switch maze. Multiple tracks will crisscross at various angles. Or to confuse you, check out tracks that look like a tic tac toe puzzle. No switches used, but the tracks are designed differently where they intersect. Then I saw a real neat way, for a train to cross another track. Not a switch. One track was solid running. The other track, has a small, 10' section that raised like a draw bridge. The draw bridge track stayed raised, till a train on that track, needed to cross. That 10' section would lower on top of the other track. When the train passed and cleared, the 10' section would raise up and stay up, till needed again. Their is a video of this on RUclips, but I don't remember how to find it.
It might be from the Florida area. Anyway, thank you for all the great videos, as usual.
I saw a video like that. I think it was from Australia. The line with the drawbridge was narrow gauge and the other line was standard.
@@jovetj I thank you. This is very clever. Doesn't look like it's a bad job, either. Could be hot at times. Thanks for finding the link.
@@railrol82 please see the other replies to my comment. One has the link to that video.
Thanks for the reply.
Very nice video plus did you work on Railroad befor??
@@railrol82 thats good plus what railroad u did work for?
Here’s how they work you smash them to pieces lol ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars nice video 🇺🇸
Would be a neat video to see some switching out cars at these warehouses
At 2:28 the train will go straight. 😀Interesting stuff!
That line looks abandoned.
Hola R my railroad brothern this was a awesome catch as always. Thanks again. did you know that CSX and NS some time will spike switch sometimes on very low density lines ? thanks R again :-)
@@railrol82 hey R yes it is true, but they wont never admit, my friend who worked for the r r told me that and I have see it :-)
What’s your favorite type of locomotive?
Where i work we have at least one target red where normally it would be green because green is hard to see at the angle we approach the switch.
That's odd. I bet that doesn't happen very often.Thanks as always for the views and comments!
Great catch and are they much different then model switches because I mean I was thought to do model switching also I thought I herd a train horn
RailROL82 oh ok and your welcome
But how do the tracks shift.
What is its method of construction.
The tracks shift because there is bar connected to the lever, that goes side to side, and where the point of the shifting rail lands, is where the train is going. Thanks as always for the views and comments, Arup
It might be broken or work I think the switchers that will be works
RailROL82 your welcome
If the colored part of the target is parallel to the track, the train goes straight?
Still confused. If the target is red and green and the green part is facing up and down the track (parallel), the train will go on the main line?
So, If your the engineer and you see the green target(perpendicular) as you travel down the track, you may proceed without going off into a siding?
So if the perpendicular target is red, you will head into the siding?
GOT IT! Thanks!
Is it abandoned?
I was right
RailROL82 thanks you have interesting videos. Particularly because I railfan where there is a sighting so I wanted to learn what direction the will turn a train
While you were at FEC, did you ever see any that were messed with on purpose to throw the train off route? or maybe the switch was purposely damaged or stolen?
I'm going to guess your name is Rolando? Or Rolandito?
Rolando. Thanks as always for the views and comments!
RailRO82 is this line active
And a railroad worker becomes a railroad historian! Thanks for the “behind the scenes” look at how they change directions and do what they do!
Now I’m gonna have “Always follow the gap!” stuck in my head for the rest of the day...oh well.
Neat video! How do the targets work on Y switches? Since there's no straight on a Y switch, would it be a red target for right, other target for left?
💯💯 💯👌 👌 👌
@@railrol82 Always. I like what you do and it's awesome to see so many railroad crossings and learn about them. I've been liking railroad crossings and traffic signals since I was a kid and love them to this day.
They say rail traffic is down over last year, do you think that's true? Interesting video as usual.
Turn the Switch
Do you still work for FEC?
@@railrol82 keep up the great videos that I always look forward to watching.
is this the section before sun? looks like leaky gravel cars? :-)
@@railrol82 before the sun tank farm, also you have
competition , tolga
I presume it will go straight
yggg
Thanks as always for the views and comments!