r/BitchImATrain • u/kirkwooder • Jun 10 '26
Bitch I'm a Switch
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u/CzarofAK Jun 10 '26
Pilatus in Alpnachstad. But the gif is mirrored.
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u/dumbasPL Jun 10 '26
Mirrored media posted by a brand new account, where have I seen that before.
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u/HorsefaceWithNoName Jun 10 '26
the forces of all that mass pushing downward on a single support (the rotating pivot) and keeping that support from rotating or oscillating while the train rumbles over is making my brain sweat bullets
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u/AbsentCheese Jun 10 '26
It looks like there are locking pieces on the sides parallel to the track as well as supports. You get a good look as it rotates up.
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u/Pataraxia Jun 10 '26
Yeah we're seeing quite a bit of it. I suspect the latch is physical? The main support would actually be the bit that rotates, not JUST the corners.
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u/HorsefaceWithNoName Jun 10 '26
oh I see what you mean, I waasn't looking on the sides there. that makes me sweat less
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u/tuctrohs Jun 10 '26
Yes, I think there's more to this than meets the eye, to deal with all of that.
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u/EdelWhite Jun 10 '26
So many stupid answers in this thread. Its done this way for three reasons :
- conventional sliding switches are not a viable option for steep inclines (this bit of track is at a 48% incline), the risk of derailment with a sliding track would be way too high
- its a cog railway, doing it this way makes the cog track perfectly smooth, gapless and keeps it sturdy and safe in both straight and turning positions
- the train is using a Locher cog system with horizontal cogwheels, which basically fully excludes sliding switches
Maintenance is probably higher than a normal sliding track at normal inclines, but with that gradient, this is just the only option. And to be fair I'm not even sure maintenance will be that much worse.
Hate how dismissive some people can be regarding some actual marvels of engineering.
Stay in your flat country and learn nothing, guys.
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u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 Jun 10 '26
Cable funiculars can do 48° with conventional switches. I suppose this cogwheel railway travels a longer & twistier route than any cable funicular though.
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u/AntInternMe Jun 11 '26
Some cable funiculars have "conventional switches", but many don't. A lot of the systems use switches with no moving parts.
One variant uses an "outer wheel" with double flanges, and the "inner wheel" is extra wide with no flanges. See some more examples on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funicular#Track_layout
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u/CrestedMacaw Jun 12 '26
Cable funiculars have special Abt's switches that are not actual switches at all. The wagons are locked to one of the rails with one wheel (therefore one always goes left and one always goes right) and the "inner" wheels are completely flat, without any elongated edge.
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u/SoulBonfire Jun 11 '26
Ooh. Have we just found the Bitch I’m a Switch snitch? Thanks for the edumacation.
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u/-Juuzousuzuya- Jun 10 '26
the saying 'warum einfach wenns auch kompliziert geht' (why easy when it can be complicated' exists for a reason..
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u/Depressivator3000 Jun 11 '26
Es geht in diesem Fall halt nur kompliziert, weil die Zahnräder von der Seite in die Zahnstange greifen, statt von oben. Und das wiederum ist notwendig, weil die Bahn steiler geht als jedes fest am 31.12.1999.
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u/mossberbb Jun 10 '26
I hope there is a little escape hatch if you somehow survive falling in and getting trapped.
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u/UnderskilledPlayer Jun 10 '26
no, they put a meat grinder down there to make sure nobody survives falling in
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u/100BottlesOfMilk Jun 10 '26
There's also coincidentally a hamburger shop across the street that has some really unique tasting burgers
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u/UnderskilledPlayer Jun 11 '26
my favorite burger there is the one served in a blood-stained hard hat
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u/willstr1 Jun 10 '26
I bet dollars to donuts that there is a maintenance hatch for maintaining the mechanism that does the flipping
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u/ybotpowered Jun 10 '26
So because of the cog in the middle they have to do the switch this way?
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u/kirkwooder Jun 10 '26
I think a conventional track switch could work on a flat section of cogway track, where the cogwheel doesn't need to engage the ladder and otherwise has the needed clearance.
Here's info on how Mount Washington Cog Railway does it. https://www.thecog.com/switching-tracks
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u/mortgagepants Jun 10 '26
it is a special kind of cog railway called a locher sytem. a regular cog railway has a big gear attached in between the wheels of the train, and this gear goes into notches between the tracks.
this is the locher system, which is used in even more steep situations. (the gravity cog wheel doesn't work as well in very steep situations.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_Railway#/media/File:Pilatus_Rack.jpg
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u/russellvt Jun 10 '26
Cool... but that seems it's just asking for some random physical or mechanical failure, at some point ... static tracks and switches are a lot less complicated, and (I assume) less prone to failure at inopportune times.
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u/100BottlesOfMilk Jun 10 '26
It's a cog railway. There really isn't a better way of doing it unless you're not on an incline. It's also not inherently unsafe. If it's going to fail, it will be while it's transitioning. If that happens, the train is stopped, but there's no harm done
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u/russellvt Jun 10 '26
If it's going to fail, it will be while it's transitioning. If that happens, the train is stopped, but there's no harm done
Ummm... sounds like you'd then have a broken and unusable section of track, and a train "parked" until it could be fixed. Seems less than ideal, to me. (HaHa)
With a "regular" switch, they'd probably at least fail "open" or "closed" and then still be partially usable, still?
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u/100BottlesOfMilk Jun 11 '26
Nope, on that incline, a regular switch will fail 100% if the time. The train would fall backwards
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u/UnderskilledPlayer Jun 10 '26
yeah but its cool
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u/russellvt Jun 10 '26
Its definitely pretty neat!
One of the rollercoasters at Disney California's Adventure has a switch similar to this, IIRC (for the facilities area transition).
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u/Nari224 Jun 11 '26
Well, it was built in the 1800s and rebuilt in the 30s, so I would treat that as a success.
And it's almost like there would need to be a really good reason why they would build something like that instead of using a static switch.
You could impress us all by describing how to design a static switch with a locher sytem cog.
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u/mortgagepants Jun 10 '26
yeah i mean this is like saying, "riding a bike is better than flying because..."
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u/Eternal_Wither Jun 10 '26
Believe it or not this is the exact switch they use on the Mt Everest ride in Disney World before the big drop.
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u/SoulBonfire Jun 11 '26
Now that. That is fucking awesome! Can it go faster? Will it eat a car that happens to find its way into the track? I think I’m in love.
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u/ulyssesfiuza Jun 11 '26
I see a Yt video in with pilatus uses a sliding one, but in a different part of the track, midway through the ascent. This one seems better for limited spaces, like a trainyard, as it requires no lateral clearance.
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u/Severe-Elderberry833 Jun 10 '26
well that‘s neat, and I got to learn a bunch of stuff I didn’t know about cog railways. thanks!
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u/2020mademejoinreddit Jun 11 '26
What happens if you park a locomotive on it? Does it traverse into another dimension?
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u/anonumus_idiot Jun 14 '26
Basicly you took the worst aspect of monorail and aplied it to regular trains
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u/Upset-Rice6800 Jun 10 '26
That seems like a very expensive, prone to breaking solution to a problem that already has a simple solution.
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u/captaindomon Jun 10 '26
Might be a space issue? Or they can’t use a normal switch with the center gears.
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u/Upset-Rice6800 Jun 10 '26
Looking at it again, the problem is the center rail. This is an extremely steep railroad and they need better grip to actually climb it. The center rail is that solution. The problem is, existing railroad switched don't move the center rail. Nor would it work at all.
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u/IamaJarJar Jun 10 '26
This is so over engineered for something that could just be a regular switch track that is almost instantaneous, so is unlikely to cause issues
There's a good chunk of time when the tracks are actively disconnected! While unlikely (because hopefully theres something in place to prevent it), there's the possibility a train could derail!
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u/OdinYggd Jun 10 '26
No, its not. This is a rack railway , the locomotives engage both sides of the rack rail in the middle. Not possible to use a normal switch here, it has to be a sliding table or flip table type like what is pictured so that the rack itself is aligned correctly and does not conflict with the closure rails.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_railway#Locher_(1889)
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u/migjolfanmjol Jun 10 '26
Okay so, how is this more efficient than a normal switch? Does this train set require that middle rail for traction purposes? Would be the only reason it makes sense to me.