scrap points to catch points

[colin penfold]

It's all Mike the Stationmaster's fault. He kindly dropped in to my Layout Planning thread and helped with some advice on signalling. Amongst the gems he let me have was "you need a couple of trap points".

 

So I was about to buy two peco catch points but when I looked at them I couldn't really see it as £15 well spent, nor did I really like their appearance.

 

I then remembered a small pile of scrap peco points from a previous layout and wondered what sort of a job I could make of a catch point by cutting down a peco 2' radius point.

 

Lets talk you through what I did

 

 

Select your victim!

 

 

I removed the ends of the tie bar which are unnecessary and unsightly

 

 

 

Then I cut the point in half, two sleepers from the blade pivot

 

 

I then cut away the sleeper under the two exit rails to allow fishplates to fit

 

 

I then carefully trimmed away the chairs around the unwanted blade (this being a single blade catch point)

 

 

Followed by carefully bending open the soft metal clips that hold the blade to the tie bar and freeing the unwanted blade. It's worth noting that the tie bar goes a little out of square at this point because it's only supported on one side. I plan to pin mine as I don't intend them to be operational. If you did make them operational, the point motor would provide an additional support for the tie bar.

 

 

Now we have the beginnings of a single blade catch point

 

 

 

I then thought about the location of one of the two catch points which is in between the toe ends of two points

 

 

I had a little go at easing the catch point into the gap, rather than just fitting it in between (experimenting on scrap 5' radius points)

 

 

 

I concluded that the small saving in length wasn't worth the gamble as I felt I had weakened the points with my surgery

 

Finishing with a  little filler to repair the sleeper with the blade pivot I feel I have made two decent catch points for nothing. You will note I removed a sleeper from the toe end of one point as it was damaged

 

[Campaman]

Excellent, I have got a bunch of old Hornby set track points that I have hung onto just in case, I now know what to do with them as it will not matter that they are set track radius for catch points

[pitbull1845]

Thanks for going to the trouble to share this Colin.

I was only thinking the other day about catch points. Seems like a perfect solution to me. I'll add it to the things to do list.

[airwimp075]

Very interesting, thank you.

I have just swapped all of my short radius insulfrog points for streamline electrofrog and now have a spare abundance of points, two of which are temporarily in place to make headshunts, that, to my eye, looks too much track in a small area and ive still got potential stalling issues.

Now however, I will take my disk cutter to a couple of points and experiment with making a couple of catch points. I just hope they look half as convincing as yours do, im going to try make working examples but if I fail a blob of solder may find its self between the rails to permanently fix it.

Thank you for the idea and taking the time to show us how its done.

 

Jason

 

Edited for spelling.

[bigwordsmith]

Nice thread Colin - very practical. I thought you only put catch points where there was a risk of a train - normally a light engine - fouling the main line such as from a loop or siding, or on a long downhill where you would find them switching the loco into a sand drag.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I'm sure the signalling bods like Mike and Beast will be able to give more informed info, but basically:

 

Catch points protect running lines from vehicles running back in the wrong direction of travel. Often were unworked - could also be seen on running lines on inclines to catch errant vehicles.

 

Trap points protect running lines from vehicles moving forward, eg at the end of a siding or loop.

 

Nice bit of modelling there Colin.

[colin penfold]

Mike has kindly told me where I need to put these on my layout planning thread.  I shan't get into whether they are catch or trap - I've seen how that discussion has gone elsewhere

                 

[The Stationmaster]

I'm sure the signalling bods like Mike and Beast will be able to give more informed info, but basically:

 

Catch points protect running lines from vehicles running back in the wrong direction of travel. Often were unworked - could also be seen on running lines on inclines to catch errant vehicles.

 

Trap points protect running lines from vehicles moving forward, eg at the end of a siding or loop.

 

Nice bit of modelling there Colin.

Agree - and he even started the thread by blaming me!  

 

Much simpler to remember are all sorts of various expressions such as 'catch points catch you when you roll back', or 'trap points trap you before you do the wrong thing' or various words to similar effect.  Another simple one as well - in most usages catch points are trailing points and trap points are facing points, or more correctly for movements in a facing direction.

 

But apart from getting the name right the other part is of course getting the railwaylike appearance right - little things like this can make a big visual difference and create a good impression.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Rather like putting apostrophes in the correct place.

[colin penfold]

Its' even more important than that!

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Its'   

[Joseph_Pestell]

Don't get me on the subject of apostrophes!

 

Anyway, back on topic. I made some trap points for a layout this way back in the early 90s, albeit with two blades. I found the large radius Y particularly useful. It does not matter if they are really ancient Streamline as one is not using the crossing.

 

That said, I ended up using the crossings as well. Local club was modelling a location nearby where there is a stretch of interlaced track over a bridge.

[Rifleman]

But apart from getting the name right the other part is of course getting the railwaylike appearance right - little things like this can make a big visual difference and create a good impression.

There's a BR training film on YouTube called 'Single Line Working', which may be of help, here.

 

 

It shows how a catch point is clipped out of action during Pilotman working (at approx. 9 mins 30 secs into the film), but even more helpful are the shots of the clipped catch point being unclipped when normal working is resumed, from 31 mins 25 secs to 32 mins 20 secs.

 

As well as giving a very clear image of the overall appearance, there's also close-up footage showing the train proceeding over the catch point afterwards, which shows the way the switch blade is pushed up against the stock rail by each wheel in turn, and then flips back into its resting position before the following wheel reaches it.

 

The overall view also shows the most important bit of the lot; that if the catch point catches a wrong direction runaway, it derails it to the cess side, and not into the 6 foot!