... side view of a human foot.) The turnout road can diverge to the left or right from the main road, regardless of whether the main road curves to the left or right. The direction in which the turnout road diverges determines the "hand" of the turnout, left-hand or right-hand (LH or RH) again regardless of whether the main road curves to the left or right. This means that in some cases the turnout road can be less curved than the main road, like this: 2_281820_150000000.png Here you can see that the lower road is the main road following a constant curve. The upper road is the turnout road, making this a left-hand turnout even though the main road is curving to the right, and even though the turnout road is curved less than the main road. If you zoom in on the switch points, you would see that there is still a discontinuity in the line of the rails where the wheels are suddenly deflected away from the ruling main road curve. So there is still ...