DL&W Branchville Wye Site

 train, railway junction

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When the size of Lackawanna steam locomotives exceeded the length of the turntable, the DL&W installed a wye to turn steam engines and the train would back into town. Wye was used in the early diesel era.

A wye or triangular junction, in rail terminology, is a triangular shaped arrangement of rail tracks with a switch or set of points at each corner. In mainline railroads, this can be used at a rail junction, where three rail lines join, in order to allow trains to pass from any line to any other line.

Wyes can also be used for turning railway equipment. By performing the railway equivalent of a three point turn, the direction of a locomotive or railway vehicle can be swapped around, leaving it facing in the direction from which it came. Where a wye is built specifically for turning purposes, one or more of the tracks making up the junction will typically be a stub siding.

Tram or streetcar tracks also make use of triangular junctions and sometimes have a short triangle or wye stubs to turn the car at the end of the line.