Canadian Railroads > Fix It Friday - Switch Machine Guts at CN Bells Junction

On May 10, 1976, I was at Bells Junction, in Bells Corners to the west of Ottawa. Early in the afternoon, a CN van came out to the west switch of the passing siding at Bells Junction. This track is on the south side of CN's Beachburg Sub, immediately east of Bells Junction. That junction is where CP's Carleton Place Sub diverged from the Beachburg. The previous movement through the plant was a CN road switcher off the Carleton Place Sub onto the Beachburg, then east into town. Its route would be retraced in reverse by the Canadian, so I can't recall how they flagged that anything was an issue. Anyway, off came the lid, electronics were fiddled with, and 20 minutes later the Canadian came through, maybe 5-10 minutes late.
Fred

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That a very cool 'behind the scenes' type shot.  There is a significant amount more wiring in there than I would have expected.

BoostedFridge Wrote:
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> That a very cool 'behind the scenes' type shot. 
> There is a significant amount more wiring in there
> than I would have expected.

You have multiple contacts in there to tell the CTC or Interlocking system what position the switch is in. Locked Normal, Locked Reverse or Unlocked.
You can not get the system to clear a route over the switch unless it's fully locked in either Normal or Reverse.