09-12-2015, 09:08 PM
(09-12-2015, 10:23 AM)Canard Wrote: OMG! Crews are installing the gauntlet track hardware this morning! Kewitt guys. Looks like a spring switch on the merge end! Interesting - make ssense, for how infrequently it will be used, I guess. Will just mean no reversing over it (especially if a train is halfway across!). They're also on site near Columbia installing what I think is a crossover.
Are you sure it’s a spring switch? That seems strange. I assume you mean the switch at the South end of the gauntlet section. It seems to me it has to spring to the freight position because freight traffic will go in both directions on that track. That means that southbound LRVs would have to push the switch aside every time they go by, every few minutes. And northbound LRVs on that track would be impossible (well, I suppose they could skip the station). Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but LRT systems should be designed to make single-track operation possible in the event of one track being temporarily unusable for any reason.
Perhaps they just haven’t installed the switch machinery yet?
Thanks for the detailed photos. I still want to get out there and see for myself but your photos really make it feel real.