Railroad Switch West of Pittsfield

This electrically-controlled railroad switch just west of Pittsfield's train station is the beginning of the Yard Limit for the Pittsfield Yard. In the train business, a "Yard" is the area of switching and train routing around a city, town, or other concentration of rail activity.

This right-hand switch divides rail track A single track arriving from the left in the photo below into two tracks: the B track (going straight ahead) and track C (the diverging track, to the right in this photo.

Trains approaching from the left (west) on the main line (i.e. the A track) would either continue east on the A track (the B track, or main line) or be switched off to the right, to the diverging C track. A mile or so further east, other such switches take other sidings off to the left of the main line, and off to the right of this first siding, to form a 4-track marshalling yard just east of downtown Pittsfield.

Here is a closeup of the left rail (traveling west to east) of the switch above.  All these switches are computer-controlled in a nearby dispatchers station. I have hidden in the bushes several times to watch this switch switch as trains approach. It goes "Bbbzzzz-it-clang-clunk." Fun stuff!

For an interesting introduction to how railroad switches work, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_switch