Switchstands a-plenty

Today I made switch stands - or at least got started. The Rio Grande Southern (RGS) used what was called harp switchstands to set the points of their switches or turnouts. This is the part of track work that sends trains to the left or right at junctions. They would move the red flag part to the left or right to move the switch tracks to send the train to the left or right.

Call me weird or anal - but I wanted my model world to mimic the real world - so I bought scale replicas of the switchstands (in brass) and have been putting them together. The weird part is once attached to a switch with a small brass wire, the red flag will move left or right when I throw the switch via a small electric motor under the layout. So I can see by the stand's flag location which direction the train will go. This is way harder in the smaller model railroad scales, but is doable in Sn3.

Next step - get the stand completed and painted. The four in the picture still in raw brass have not had their flags or harps put in and secured by the small brass rod. Once that is done tomorrow, I can paint them and they will look like the completed stand at the bottom. Then I can mount them on a turnout (switch) and test the movement.

In future pictures at my work desk, I will do a white card adjustment for the camera to get rid of the yellow ghost.