Re: Australian railway terminology

David Johnson (trainman@ozemail.com.au)
Mon, 07 Jul 1997 23:32:45 +1000

MarBau wrote:

> NSW used to have a description along the lines of,
> "When the upper yellow functions,
> beware of turnouts points and junctions!"
> So I guess they used both terms.
> BTW, could someone from NSW post the real quotation from the rule
> book?

NSW officially uses the terminology "points" to describe the diverging
section of the rails.
"Turnout" is a description of the state of the points. For example:
"The points are set straight" or "The points are set for Turnout".

Quoting the General Appendix to the Book of Rules and Regulations from 1
July, 1973:

Definitions:
"(o) "Interlocking" shall mean an installation of points and signals
operated or controlled from a signal-box."

"(z)(4)(a) Position Light Turnout Signal - When the band of lights are
displayed."

I could quote more, but this is the easiest for me to do. :)

-- 
David Johnson
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~trainman/
trainman@ozemail.com.au
trainman@railpage.org.au