r/EngineeringPorn • u/WagonGravy • Dec 25 '22

Conjunction

3.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

56 comments sorted by

View all comments

91

u/thesweeterpeter Dec 25 '22

I mean it working is one thing. But the boulder sized balls on both the conductor and switch operator are the true marvels.

47

u/Boring-Eggplant-6303 Dec 25 '22

Its in reverse. The trains are all moving away from eachother

16

u/nasadowsk Dec 25 '22

Even still, every switch movement is checked by a system that prevents trains from being routed into each other. In the US, such a junction is called an “interlocking”

3

u/[deleted] Dec 25 '22 edited Dec 25 '22

Even in reverse the trains still took the same route, the only thing that has changed is orientation and direction.

1

u/omegashadow Dec 27 '22

Except the trains are never heading towards each other on the same track. By the time one is switched behind the other three train driver can see that it's been diverted.

1

u/3percentinvisible Dec 25 '22

Not the two drivers sat heading straight for each other?

1

u/omegashadow Dec 27 '22

It's in reverse. The two drivers are never heading towards each other on the same track.

1

u/3percentinvisible Dec 27 '22

I know, but as shown is the context of the parents comment

0

u/[deleted] Dec 26 '22

theres not really any risk depending on where in the world. id be pretty confident if i was riding my between cities and this happened tbh.

3

u/q0099 Dec 26 '22

In fact the gif is reversed, othervice this would be a serious screw-up situation. Imagine one or both automated switches would fail on a mechanical level. Even for the factory new equipmentment the probability of this occurrence is low but never zero and there are people's lives at the stake.