How Railroad Switches Work

hello again rail fans you know in every rail fans travails he or she comes across the switch in the railroad the turnout that's the mechanism that sends a train off of one track and onto another sounds pretty simple and basic but there are some intricacies in there and in August of 2023 I got a question in the comment section from everything is cool 2028 wait a minute everything is cool 6228 and he was asking could you do a video explaining different kinds of switches on railroads I thought excellent question so I said about to do just that now I couldn't cover them all because we don't have all those types of switches here in Florida so I had to work with what I could get video of but this may answer some of your questions and out of service unused Freight yard is an excellent place to examine the most basic types of switches and switch stands here in downtown Tampa's former Seaboard Airline old Tampa yard are lots of low switch controls these are short all manual hand throw switches designed to be operated many times every shift in the past 20 years old Tampa yard only served One customer the ConAgra ardant Mills flower Mill as this area of Tampa is gentrifying at lightning speed developers wanted the flower Mill out and a deal was made to get it done the last pieces of the grain silos are still here but green bananas probably have a longer life expectancy than those silos the yard now sits empty with its lead to the main line cut on the North End no word yet on what will become of the property here but you can bet your last dime it won't be anything industrial however the yard will serve our purpose today the switch stands in the old Tampa yard are a&k easy op models each of them has a backsaver handle that reduces the need for bending over to lift and throw the switch the colored flags on the top are called targets these help indicate at a distance the position of the switch the target spins 90° when the switch is thrown and Spins back when it's normal green for normal or closed yellow for reversed or open in Seaboard coastline territory the colors on switch targets are generally red and green on the main line now on tracks other than Mainline they can be green and yellow or red and white I've also seen red and yellow and Rusty and more Rusty this particular semor style target was seen a lot on the old Seaboard railroad the switch appliances have latches on either side so the handles stays in whichever position it was left and so it can be padlocked if needed these switches have likely seen their last train cars ever so no need to lock them down the switches here are among the simplest kind of turnout they don't even have guard rails opposite the frogs frogs are the forged steel appliance in the switch that allows the wheel on the middle rail to roll through to the diverging track as it's being Guided by the curved stock rail or going the other way to the main track there were a couple of interesting features at Old Tampa yard because the very Northern end of the yard coming from the main line crossed two busy streets there were crossing signal circuits in the tracks the northernmost switch right next to the Kennedy Boulevard Crossing had an interconnect in it that apparently allowed either track to energize The Crossing signals depending on how the switch was thrown and because the whole plant was jointed rail there were contact wires welded at the joints along the crossing circuit to ensure the signals activated when train cars rolled close to to the street Crossing it's not too hard to figure out what this track Appliance does it's called a bumping post or budding block a steel pyramid with a flat plate at car coupler height designed to stop train cars or locomotives at the ends of stub in tracks you can also see these at Tampa Union Station but they are much larger and made of solid concrete and farther up on the yard lead just south of the Tampa Union Station there's this this a split rail derail it looks like a turnout switch but notice how only one rail moves and there's no frog this device merely puts a brake in the rail and sends any gotway rail car off the track and onto the ground stopping it immediately a very basic form of positive train control the switch stand for the derail has a bow handle an early form of the back sa handle still in wide use today notice also the colors on the switch Target here I'm get guessing since this wasn't really the main line and it wasn't really a yard track the target's red and green just for safety I that's just a guess imp Plant City Florida is an example of a power operated switch we're looking South here on the CSX Sanford to Tampa Mainline the A-line the switch opens up to a track that connects the A-line to the CSX Tampa to Wildwood Mainline the sine in a power operated switch the motor and linkage apparatus is connected to the CTC signal system and allows an operator in this case the J dispatcher in Jacksonville to line that switch for establishing a route the switch machine as it's called can move the switch points to either normal or reverse position and lock it in that status until an electric signal is received from the CTC telling it to unlock and move back the other way the switch machine can also be unlocked manually and then manually placed in hand throw mode should that be needed in case of a signal system failure communication failure mechanical malfunction or power outage power switches are normally left locked in motor mode there are latches with padlock rings for every position the lever can rest in to prevent tampering the sharp ends of the movable rails are called points the switch points in addition to guiding the train wheels are the feature that determines which way you're looking at a turnout on this switch from this View we are looking at the facing Point side of the switch if we were looking at it from the other side in the other direction we'd be looking at the trailing Point side of the switch the Plant City Connection track is a right-and switch the direction of the diverging route when looking at the facing Point end determines whether it's a right hand or left-hand switch the Plant City Connection is locked in normal position and that's enabled the dispatcher to line up a clear signal for hamrak 91 making his way to Tampa the Florida summer this this year has been really brutal out here mid99s every day some days the upper 90s that's why I started carrying a cooler full of ice water and um I'm not messing around with bottle water anymore or any or any drinks I I just get a cooler full of ice water and I'm telling you it's uh it's one of the best ways to stay cool out here on the road just around the corner from the Plant City Connection track and about a mile North on the sine is the Plant City side iding and an example of a high switch stand still a manually operated switch but in a taller design this was for decades the standard for Mainline switches into sidings in Industry tracks especially in non- Signal dark territory note how this guy's indicator Target is red and green even though it's on a siding the mainline colors are still used here the wear switch stand probably 50 years old or better works on the same Principle as the low stand hands we saw back at Old Tampa yard except the handle throws the main shaft vertically instead of horizontally here's an example of one in action on the mainline switch at climax Georgia on the bow line back at Plant City we notice another Appliance on this switch stand it's an electric sensor that's connected to the CTC signal system because this is a signaled siding it has circuitry that show shows its status on the dispatcher CTC control console this switch and connected sensor will tell the CTC system if it's reversed or left open and will prevent the dispatcher from being able to route a train into the siding here's another example of switch protection courtesy of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga a weir tall switch stand with semaphor type Target and a switch Lantern on top in the early days these signals were kerosene fuel lamps this one has been updated to electric power same indications as the day Target Green for normal and red for reversed only the lantern obviously is for night operation this type of Target was all over the Seaboard when I was a kid except the normal side was white instead of green the two holes in the red side sometimes had plastic reflectors in them and they were never this clean often times switches from a Mainline to a yard are power operated switches here at TS is the southern entrance to yman yard in Tampa the switch is reversed to route a train onto the yard lead track both the mainline and the yard lead parallel each other for about a qu mile here because of the terrain a local train l700 is arriving from Bradenton and taking that turnout into the yard 700 has one of csx's New Heritage units this morning the 1827 commemorates the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 1827 is the year the bno was founded l700 is what remains of the once popular Tropicana juice train at one time the juice train was a 65c car loaded Hot Shot unit train that ran from brenon to Carney New Jersey 5 to 6 days a week a few weeks later I was at the same spot and caught an empty grain Hopper arriving from Big Ben a terminal area on Port Tampa Bay with a new grain elevator facility that replaced the old one we saw earlier at Old Tampa yard in Tampa the train had all foreign power on it but noteworthy was they were all very low on fuel it gave me a chance to see them taking on diesel in a place where I could shoot it on the Orient Road overpass over the North End of yman yard I had a bird's eye view of the fueling action the train R 643 pull P to a place where a tanker truck could easily pull alongside the truck has come into the yard Down The Long Service Road this is how fueling happens at terminals that don't have large fuel storage facilities when a 400,000 lb locomotive needs a fill up they don't just pull into a truck stop they must take on fuel at Major rail terminals or if they need fuel at smaller or medium-sized terminals like Tampa the fuel truck must come to them and it's got to happen in places where both vehicles can get close together and those places are few at yards some Mainline sidings and some industry tracks NS 4183 is going to fuel up right here on the bypass main at yolman yard the truck driver handles it all attaching the nozzle to the filler intake running the hose from the supply spet and then starts pumping a truck like this will hold around 7500 gallons of diesel give or take so I think the plan here is to spread that fuel out across these three engines locomotives have fuel fillers on both sides so they can fuel up no matter which way they're pointed the fuel truck guy must have come close to topping off 4183 because he spent 25 minutes pumping on it R back to our topic of the day there's one more type of switch I want to touch on CSX calls these remote controlled switches they're often located in terminal areas close to Road Crossings to eliminate manual hand throw switches at which trains Must Be Stopped to allow the conductor to walk up and line the switch walk back and then restart the train holding up motor vehicle traffic for the 8 to 12 minutes this operation takes the switches are triggered by short range radio with a code generated from the locomotive cab the switch broadcasts a recorded announcement identifying which switch it is and its position by this announcement and the green signal and switch Target on the switch the crew then knows it's clear to proceed here at csx's Rockport terminal in Tampa a whole line of these switches has been installed to help arriving trains just glide on into specific yard tracks without having to stop and line the manual switches busy us41 is only a few feet from the yard lead and before these remote switches were installed arriving and departing in phosphate trains could sometimes block the road for 10 or even 20 minutes while shooting the Plant City switches I ran into Craig and Brenda Clark they're fans of the channel and told me they were headed to Norma's sandwich shop in downtown Plant City now I still had some work to do so I couldn't join them right then but I went by later on normas is just half a block North of the A-line on Collin Street in Plant City in a tiny little storefront Norma's specialty is Cuban sandwiches I got the lunch special half a Cuban chips and iced tea 15 bucks I prefer Cuban's pressed which is code in this part of Florida for toasted and smashed so that crispy Cuban bread and the fresh ingredients made this sandwich incredible and many thanks to Craig and Brenda Clark for the tip about Norma sandwich shop I didn't even know it was there they say at lunchtime on weekdays the line at normas is is out the door and I believe it thanks to everyone who helped out with the technical advice on this video and you all know who you are now please smash that like button if you like this video subscribe to the channel if you haven't done that and please share it with your friends get a lot of coverage that way when folks share it so let's make plans to meet up again somewhere soon somewhere out there on the high iron and until we do this is Danny Harmon out

Channel: Distant Signal

Views: 146,546

Keywords: Railroad switches, turnout, manual switch, Railroad, Trains, Danny Harmon, Railfan, Railfanning, CSX, Distant Signal, High Iron., Tampa, Florida, Derail

Id: jn0nUj1XL4U

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 01 2023