Eastern Railroad Discussion > The Cunundrum switch

Somewhere in Indiana an SW1 looks over this potentially preposterous puzzle potentially preturbing NS trainmen.

Which is older? the SW1, foamer or the puzzle switch? Note the second set of switchmachines to handle the frogs....

Not bad for an elevator switch..

---

Who can figure which way it is lined.

Lined straight from lower left to upper right.

It's not often that one sees a double slip switch outside of a passenger terminal's throat. The switch seems to be lined for the track going from back right to front left and it looks as thugh the SW1 hasn't gotten out in a while.

SP had a lot of them in the yards. Top end of Bayshore, 245 at Roseville. Didn't take much for a new guy to run through one.


Nudge

The elevator crew said if they don't watch them the NS crews will run through it too...

I would have to say the puzzle is the oldest.

I've seen double-slips away from passenger terminals -- and we have a single-slip right here in Toledo -- but I've never seen a hand-thrown puzzle switch before....

What is bizzare to me is the extra ground throws for the frogs. On a hand thrown double slip, with a relatively small frog number, in a low speed setting it is just really odd. I would understand it as a power operated device in a terminal somewhere with higher speeds. Also, I would guess that SW1 might be older than that double slip switch. It looks like it has either been rebuilt or was installed within the last 15-20 years.

KC - There was once one on the IC in my home town of Dixon, IL

The curved cab windows on the SW-1 makes it fairly old. If I remember right pre-1949

I found the shot I was looking for that I took in Beaumont, TX at Continental Grain Co in May 99 of a couple of "puzzles" that have regular frogs. The switch in IN with it's hand thrown frogs and new looking bolts is pretty new but it's pretty close to a tie between Qman and the SW1 which is oldest ;-)
JB



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/12 08:22 by 3rdswitch.

---

its lined to go to the right

The kink near the heel of the upper right switch point says it's been run through at least once!

Dick Samuels
www.oregonpacificrr.com

Not to mention the broken rail in the joint lower left corner

The first time I saw the term Puzzle Switch was when what was then Orange Empire Trolley Museum salvaged one from the Pacific Electric LA terminal at 6th & Main back in 1964. The big difference between it and the one in the photo is that the PE switch (which is probably about a hundred years old now) has street-railway points instead of the "main line RR" design in the photo. OERM used to have the only puzzle switch in a museum, but now Seashore Trolley Museum has one near the visitors center.

Not my picture...

Ray

---

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Lined straight from lower left to upper right.

Look again. It's lined from the lower right to the upper right. The switcher is stuck until someone throws some more levers.

kevink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> PHall Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Lined straight from lower left to upper right.
>
> Look again. It's lined from the lower right to the
> upper right. The switcher is stuck until someone
> throws some more levers.

Sorry. PHall is 100% correct.

Ray

Yes, that kind of switch is very rare outside of passenger terminals. Someone must have had the bucks to put one in and a very limited space that demanded it or got suckered into it by a contractor. There used be one like this in Jim Boyd's home town of Dixon, Illinois on the Illinois Central by the freight house. (There are photos of it in his Illinois Central book.) Complicated switch work was more common in the 19th Century when material and labor were cheaper and there was a larger count of trains.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/12 13:35 by wabash2800.

As they say, "it ain't prototypical" when ever modellers try something like this.