Subject:
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Re: Question for model RR gurus
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sun, 19 Aug 2001 04:19:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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430 times
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In lugnet.trains, Frank Filz writes:
> I think there are a few reasons. One thing is that while in many places
> in real life, everything is manual, in other places it isn't. Mailine
> turnouts these days are probably remotely controlled (that's what an
> interlocking tower does for one thing).
That's what an interlocking tower USED to do. Nowadays they are getting
rare. With CTC (Centralised Traffic Control) an entire division or more can
be controlled from far far away. Umpteen thousand miles of the Union Pacific
are all controlled by a few guys in a few darkened rooms in downtown Omaha
NE. (or where ever... Omaha is their HQ but I'm not quite geeky enough to
actually know where the control rooms are)
I am with J1, automation is fun in its own right as well as freeing one up
to talk to the mundanes, who eat that sort of stuff up (it was one of our
biggest feedbacks at the GR GATS show, people wanted to see more animation
of things, not just trains themselves running).
An operating trolley pole that reversed at the end of the run would be
pretty nifty... but reversing loops are not at all unprototypical for
streetcar service. Over time the labor to go out and crank down the pole,
lock the control cab and reverse the process at the other end adds up. (In
Zurich, which is the most dense street railway system that I have seen, in
terms of lines per square mile of populated area, all the lines had
reversing loops at the ends (and sometimes at stops not quite at the end but
that were terminations during rushhour) to facilitate this.
I am wondering if some sort of motor that parasited off track power isn't a
possibility though. What is needed is a mechanism that runs for a time, then
shuts itself off, until the polarity reverses, without binding or keeping
the motor locked on, but that doesn't take a lot of parts. Either that or
something that is tripped by a device at the end of the track without
derailing the car. What about pneumatics? There are pneumatic mechanisms
that are self limiting until tripped again.
Since James Powell is participating in the thread, I no doubt will get
corrected on some extremly arcane and geeky point in what I said above, but
that's fine.
++Lar
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Question for model RR gurus
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| (...) The trolley busses in Boston use a reversing loop also (the bus station in Harvard Square is interesting, it's underground, in two levels (arrivals and departures)). The green line uses reversing loops for the trolley portion (recall what I've (...) (23 years ago, 19-Aug-01, to lugnet.trains)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Question for model RR gurus
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| (...) I think there are a few reasons. One thing is that while in many places in real life, everything is manual, in other places it isn't. Mailine turnouts these days are probably remotely controlled (that's what an interlocking tower does for one (...) (23 years ago, 18-Aug-01, to lugnet.trains)
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