Rail Drills
Rail shots give many players agita. The balls are harder to make and it’s harder to move the cue ball where you want it to go. These drill can help immensely.
Think of them as a 30 day prescription of antibiotics. You have to take them every day until the prescription is gone, not just until you start to improve. Otherwise, you slide right back to where you were, and the prescription has become less effective.
The first 2 drills are variations of the third, an old classic called the corner drill. In each there are three balls spread out along one half of the long rail and along the foot rail, and you have to make all the balls into the same corner pocket working outward from the pocket. The shots get progressively harder because the distance to the pocket gets further and the positioning is tougher as well.
In the first two we make it easier by moving the balls inward toward the pocket, simplifying both shot making and position. The trade-off for this reduction in difficulty is that you are expected to come off the rails at 90° and to focus strongly on the cueing it takes to accomplish this. Once you’ve got this down, you can use it as a reference point on all future rail shots to help you gauge how much english is needed to move in your preferred direction.
The old standby, the full sized version, is ready when you are. It’s mostly the same only harder except for that penultimate shot where you have to move the cue ball into a very small zone to get good position on the 6 ball. Go high and inside for success.
| Name | Description | Difficulty | Thumbnail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drill 7a | One Rail Variation | Low |  |
| Drill 7b | Two Rail Variation | High |  |
| Drill 7c | Traditional | Medium |  |
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