Tuesday, March 20, 2018

steam action in Carson City, Nevada, 1940


Carson City is now home to the Virginia and Truckee Railroad as well as the Nevada State Railroad Museum. (shorpy.com)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have not seen point work like this before. There don't appear to be any blades - just a butt joint when the tracks are brought in line. Do you have any links to more information about this design, please? R

Howard said...

Stub switches; they were very common in US railroading's early days when rail was a bit lighter. Also, it's a three-way switch, very rare. See the wikipedia article on railroad switches.

Maynard's Dad said...

These points were common in 19th century America and were known as "stub switches." They were a crude but cheap type of switch/point, so they held on into the 20th century on branch lines and short lines (like the V & T.)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your help. Knowing that they are called stub switches in America has enabled me to find quite a few articles on the web.