Catch points and trap points are types of turnout which act as railway safety devices. Both work by guiding railway carriages and trucks from a dangerous route onto a separate, safer track. Catch points are used to derail vehicles which are out of control on steep slopes (known as runaways). Trap points are used to protect main railway lines from unauthorised vehicles moving onto them from sidings or branch lines. Either of these track arrangements may lead the vehicles into a sand drag or safety siding, track arrangements which are used to safely stop them after they have left the main tracks.
A derail is another device used for the same purposes as catch and trap points.
Read more about Catch Points: Trap Points, Catch Points, Sand Drag, Chock Block, Effectiveness
Famous quotes containing the words catch and/or points:
“If you address a ghost as “Thing!”
Or strike him with a hatchet,
He is permitted by the King
To drop all formal parleying—
And then you’re sure to catch it!”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Wonderful “Force of Public Opinion!” We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes; follow the traffic it bids us, realise the sum of money, the degree of “influence” it expects of us, or we shall be lightly esteemed; certain mouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown at us, and this what mortal courage can front?”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)