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Re: Google science fair finalist- foul-proof switch
Author: trainjunkie
Date: 07-12-2011 - 13:48
Lordy, is this the future of our scientific community, or is this some kind of dry humor? Is this what they're teaching kids these days?
This entire experiment is flawed from beginning to end. First, fouling a switch does not mean to run through it. It means a car or locomotive on one track is fouling the clearance point on the merging track at the switch. You don't have to run through a switch to be out to foul.
As the poster above mentioned, running through a switch in a trailing point movement, even a rigid switch, rarely results in a derailment. It only breaks or bends the throw bar on the points.
And if this "junior scientist" bothered to check into it, he would have found that there is already a switch similar to what he proposes, called a "variable switch" or informally, a "rubber switch", which is one that lines with the trailing point movement and stays lines that way (as opposed to the spring switch which returns to the normal position after each wheel passes the points).
Neither a spring switch, nor a variable switch, prevent accidents or derailments due to fouling equipment at switches though. I have no idea where this guy got his information or terminology but he definitely has no idea how a real railroad works.
BTW, one little fouling point collision or derailment could easily cost $2-million, the figure he puts on the cost of all of these types of derailments nationwide annually. He says this is according to the FRA but it makes no sense at all really.
This entire experiment is flawed from beginning to end. First, fouling a switch does not mean to run through it. It means a car or locomotive on one track is fouling the clearance point on the merging track at the switch. You don't have to run through a switch to be out to foul.
As the poster above mentioned, running through a switch in a trailing point movement, even a rigid switch, rarely results in a derailment. It only breaks or bends the throw bar on the points.
And if this "junior scientist" bothered to check into it, he would have found that there is already a switch similar to what he proposes, called a "variable switch" or informally, a "rubber switch", which is one that lines with the trailing point movement and stays lines that way (as opposed to the spring switch which returns to the normal position after each wheel passes the points).
Neither a spring switch, nor a variable switch, prevent accidents or derailments due to fouling equipment at switches though. I have no idea where this guy got his information or terminology but he definitely has no idea how a real railroad works.
BTW, one little fouling point collision or derailment could easily cost $2-million, the figure he puts on the cost of all of these types of derailments nationwide annually. He says this is according to the FRA but it makes no sense at all really.
