Transfer table

A transfer table or traverser is a piece of railway equipment. It functions similarly to a turntable, although it cannot be used to turn vehicles around.

A transfer table or traverser is a piece of railway equipment. It functions similarly to a turntable, although it cannot be used to turn vehicles around. ==Overview== A transfer table, also known as a traverser, consists of a single length of track that can be moved from side to side, in a direction perpendicular to the track. There are often multiple tracks on one side of the table and a single or multiple track(s) on the other. ===Yards=== They are often found in yards with locomotive maintenance facilities. The table allows a shed with multiple stalls for locomotives or carriages to be served by a single track, without the need for points that could take up a much larger area. ===Terminal stations=== In Europe, there were traversers at the terminal platforms at Birmingham Moor Street station, at Rossio railway station in Lisbon and at the former Gare de la Bastille terminus in Paris. These were installed to release locomotives from arriving passenger trains to the adjoining track. They had three parallel tracks on the table so that whichever positions the traverser was in an incoming passenger train would not be faced with a void. Traversers were used at metropolitan termini located in confined sites, such as Kew and St Kilda in suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which worked only two tracks. In 2013, the Port of Felixstowe installed a traverser across nine tracks at its new North Terminal as ordinary points could not be fitted while allowing 35-wagon trains of shipping containers. ===Rack railways=== ]] Systems like the Locher rack system do not allow normal switches and transfer tables or rotary switches are used instead, as on the Pilatus Railway. A transfer table contains two tracks with different configurations. The table is moved sideways or rotated to choose the configuration that connects the track that the incoming train will be traveling from and to. Using transfer table as a switch or a rotary switch allows the center rack rail to be aligned for the cog wheels to continually drive the train forward while crossing the switch. ===Roller coasters=== Smaller traversers are frequently used on roller coasters to switch out trains. ==Combined turntable and traverser== In rare instances, the turning features of a turntable have been combined with the lateral motion of a transfer table. Examples of such installations are in Asia and Europe. An example of both pieces of equipment was in use up until the 1970s at the Collinwood Yards in Cleveland, Ohio. It allowed a single turntable to serve a linear train shed. File:Didcot Railway Centre transfer table.jpg|Transfer table at Didcot Railway Centre. Image:Transfer table, ATSF Railway, San Bernardino, Calif.jpg|Steam locomotive on the transfer table between buildings in Santa Fe's San Bernardino, California shops in March 1943 Image:Sydney monorail depot 1.jpg|Former Sydney Monorail depot with its traverser at the front File:Pilatus transfer table.jpg|The two row transfer table in Pilatus Railway, one edge also serving as a passenger platform ==References== ==Further reading== ==External links== Photo of transfer table at the Derby Works of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad in Oakfield, Maine, USA.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1345992012 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.