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The N Scale

White River and Northern

Model Railroad

 
Another unusual throwbar

Another unusual throwbar

The points are not soldered or even permanently attached to anything. The throwbar consists of two pieces of 0.015 steel wire and two pieces of wire insulation, assembled to engage the points as shown below. In the orientation of this cross-section view, the rails are both sprung to the right. The switch is thrown by pushing on the end of the long steel wire, which moves the points to the left.

Throwbar cross-section

Notice the subtle kink in the upper stock rail by the end of the point. This exactly reflects how the real-life turnout was made.

Image specs: This image was captured with a Canon 20D digital SLR. The illustration was rendered in CorelDraw version 9.

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