Abt's points
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    Niklaus Riggenbach (1817 - 1899) got the patent for cog railway in 1863. The most popular railways with the Riggenbach's cog were Vitznau - Rigi (1872), Arth - Rigi (1875), but also the cog railway by the side of Panama canal. The electric locomotives help the ships keep moving. The railway 29 km long has rising 500 promile. Also Slovakian railway Štrba - Štrbské pleso, when finished in 1872, was equipped with Riggenbach's cog. When the railway was newly built in 1970, the Abt's cog was used.

    Roman Abt (born 1850) - the student of Riggenbach - created in 1882 the new constructiom of cog. The advantages were: greater power possible, the smoother movement of the locomotives and they were cheaper.

    The construction of the cog points was very important. They were essential on the railways  with full cog traction. On the railways with mixed adhesive/cog traction the traffic is much easier with cog points.

To get onto cog use to be done in low speed (cca 5km/hod). It must be done carefully. Cca 1.2 m on the beginning of the cog springs in order to get smoother onto it.

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On the Abt's cog only one cog rod can be used in the short section. So the rail crossing the cog rod need not to be intersected.

The red-signed cog rod is used by the right cog wheel of the locomotive. Near by the crossing rail the left cog wheel uses the green signed cog rod. The rail does not intercept the cog wheels, because it is cca 11 cm lower.

Attempt to reconstruct the cog-wheel roll-on to cog see on this hyperlink!

(Click on the picture left to obtain it in original size)

The simple system above can be used only with secondary rails or by the light traffic. When the points is built on the rail with heavy traffic or on great rising, the points like on the picture right is used. Many of the parts are moving in complicated way, that neither the cog rod nor the rails are intersected. The photos were made within station Queralbs in Pyrenees. (Val de Núria railway in Spain)

(Click on the picture right to obtain it in original size)

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The Abt's points were used also on the railway Tanvald - Kořenov. The points in the station Horní Polubný can be seen on the picture from the book of Petr Kroča: Železniční návěsti/1. Historie a vývoj návěstí, kapitola Návěstní předpisy v minulosti/Československo 1955. (Railway signals).

As I know, there were 3 Abt's points in Dolní Polubný. One of them is on the picture of Mr. R. Friml [20] from 1988. It seems to be of the simpler type.
Manipulation with the extraordinary fast train Korenov-Praha 26th june 1988, T426.003 and T466.3010

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The photos of the original points in Dolni Polubny sent me Mr. J.Hovorka, the photos were shot by Mr. J.Hovorka junior.

The points hardly seen in the book Železniční návěsti, and on the photo by R.Friml is pretty shown here.

Photo: J.Hovorka junior

And the last points direction Korenov...

Photo J.Hovorka junior

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The Abt's points were until 1996 on site. Then they were removed, despite of declarating them technical artefact.

Photo S.K.