Hand operated points

[Trog]

On ‎06‎/‎11‎/‎2014 at 14:52, The Stationmaster said:

......... So I duly arranged for the PWay gang to come in and change the lever  which I found them doing at 08.00 the next (Saturday) morning - and really it is more accurate to say 'caught them' as the offending handlever box was about to be consigned to the river so no one else could have a good look at it and the worn cam which had caused the problem wouldn't have come to light........

 

Often like that the P-Way. I once found a nice neat pile of seven hot shoes lying beside a length of new CWR with a

somewhat bruised end. What did I do as a responsible manager? Two things first I rang the relayers and warned them that the rail needed moving. Then I picked up the hot shoes and threw them behind a conveniently situated bush.

 

I was also involved with a saga regarding a bullhead joint and a non set of fishplates. one plate was a stepped 95lb plate and the other was a 95lb to 97 1/2lb straight junction plate.  After several increasingly sarcastic emails from myself about the local maintainers attempts to correct the joint, they finally managed to get all four bolts in and at 90' to the long axis of the rails. Before I could get to the bottom of how they had managed this with a plate with a hole spacing 1/2" different to the rail and the other plate, the end of the rail fell off. I did a quite extensive search of about a quarter mile of line side but the whole rail had vanished, I wonder why.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Trog
Swear filter did not like my characterisation of PW.

[9C85]

This is really interesting to me as I have just been sent a batch of Dornaplas levers by a fellow RMWebber.

I have a couple of questions relating to my shunting yard layout:

1) Are the levers always installed on the same side of the point? ie on the 'straight' track side of a standard point?

2) I have read that if a point is controlled by a signal, then it won't have a lever. I am assuming that if this is true, the point will have a point motor? I am going to have a few ground signals on my layout controlling access to and from the main line and fuelling point- should I have no levers, but dummy point motors, on these points? BTW the layout is set in the early 1980s

Thanks in advance. 

[ikcdab]

1 hour ago, 9C85 said:

This is really interesting to me as I have just been sent a batch of Dornaplas levers by a fellow RMWebber.

I have a couple of questions relating to my shunting yard layout:

1) Are the levers always installed on the same side of the point? ie on the 'straight' track side of a standard point?

2) I have read that if a point is controlled by a signal, then it won't have a lever. I am assuming that if this is true, the point will have a point motor? I am going to have a few ground signals on my layout controlling access to and from the main line and fuelling point- should I have no levers, but dummy point motors, on these points? BTW the layout is set in the early 1980s

Thanks in advance. 

1. It varies. They will try to be consistent you avoid a shunter crossing my the line unnecessarily, but it could be either on the main side or the turnout side.

2. Generally what you say is correct. If there is a signal controlling movements over a set of points then the points will also be controlled from the signalbox and either worked by rodding or a point machine.

However, sometimes in shunting yards the points might be worked from an open ground frame and movements controlled by hand signals or a local signal also worked by the ground frame. 

Any points giving access to the mainline will always be worked from the signalbox by a point machine or rodding. These points would never be lever operated.

[RailWest]

16 hours ago, ikcdab said:

2. Generally what you say is correct. If there is a signal controlling movements over a set of points then the points will also be controlled from the signalbox and either worked by rodding or a point machine.

.........

Any points giving access to the mainline will always be worked from the signalbox by a point machine or rodding....

The key word there is 'generally' :-) There were cases where signals controlled moves over points which were worked by hand-levers, but usually in a trailing direction. It was not unknown to have them even as sprung points in main lines - the GWR sometimes did that at the exit from goods loops and the L&SWR had an example in the main line at Honiton Incline.