Different turnouts and Signals

[DWP]

Came across a couple of sites that might be of interest.
I'm still trying to figure out how this one works, much less how to model it.
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/tkmacph.Html
Or this one
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/railway/wharton.htm

Plus this site for signaling
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/railway/railhom.htm#civil
Dave

 

[60103]

Dave: The Ottawa station used to have a model of one of these contraptions on display. I spent a long time in the waiting room looking at it.
As far as I can tell, when the switch is set curved, the rails come over and lift the wheels up and over the straight rails. the first one has a frog that comes over the straight rail as well.
If you want another fancy switch, the Mt Washington Cog railway has switches that have 9 separate moving parts -- each bit is hinged and is placed over another piece of rail, separately and by hand! It had to be done and undone twice in order for trains to pass.