Derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, or a train) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock.[1] The device works by derailing the equipment as it rolls over or through it.
Although accidental derailment is damaging to equipment and track, and requires considerable time and expense to remedy, derails are used in situations where there is a risk of greater damage to equipment, injury or death if equipment is allowed to proceed past the derail point.
Derailers may be operated remotely (motorized) or manually with a lever. For safe operation, a manually operated derailer may be locked with a key or locked/verified remotely.
A less 'violent' alternative, more common on busy lines, have a switch that diverges offending trains onto a safer route or a short stretch of rail towards something suitable to stop the train, like a buffer stop or sand bank. These could be tagged as normal switches. The diverging track could perhaps be tagged with service=runaway or catch_point in addition to the normal railway=rail.
Node Mapping
Create a node on the drawn railway line where the derail is located, mark
it as railway=derail and add an appropriate description.
Appropriate description
Marking of the turnout (if available and marked) *= should start with a
country code or operator prefix, or a standard like Us-BNSF: xxx, where BNSF
represents the railway operator BNSF Rail and xxx stands for the turnout
number.
railway = derail
Derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling (blocking or compromising) of a rail track (or collision with anything present on the track, such as a person, or a train) by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock.[1] The device works by derailing the equipment as it rolls over or through it.
suggested by User:Chrisana13