I came across the single blade points in the picture below while doing a rail tour in Tasmania, Australia many years ago.

A bit rough to ride through but they obviously work well enough ...

I was thinking of using one in a return loop for a local 7 1/4" ride on railway but unfortunately Covid caused its closure instead.

Has one ever been produced of this type for the smaller model gauges?

Yes HO, you are correct, my apologies. The image does not show the type I recall seeing.

The ones I saw were set up so that locos approaching from the leading direction could only take the straight path through the point and did all trailing through the curved path - as could be used in a return loop or a passing loop without any manual switching. In which case only a single blade could be spring loaded.

We hired a main line steam train in Tasmania for a few days around 2005 and also did a lot of smaller railways in Tasmania and Victoria. I took photos of the point thinking it would be an easy solution for the return loop on my own 5" railway.


Here's a link to the little railway the image came from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkV1OdX3ebc.