The ratchet wheel of the stepping switch is sol idly connected to a cam shaft that contains three main cams (SC, SL, SR). The two cams nearest to the ratchet wheel (shown in Figure 8) have only one lobe each and therefore raise their associated contact-operating springs only during one step interval for each revolution of the ratchet wheel. A third cam (not shown in Figure 8) has one fixed and three adjustable lobes, and these lobes may be set to raise their associated contact• operating spring on any desired step. When the adjustable cam lobes raise their contact-operating spring, they close two SC contacts shown in Figure 6, and one of these supplies the breaker-closing signal. Since the adjustable cam lobes can be set to close the SC contact on any step of the ratchet wheel, they can provide a breaker-closing signal at RESET (an instantaneous breaker-reclosing signal} and/or on any subsequent step until the LOCKOUT position is reached, which is 35 steps after RESET. The schematic diagram, Figure 8, shows the ratchet wheel in the LOCKOUT position. In this position, the lockout cam opens its SL contacts to open up the breaker-closing circuit and the timing circuit (which prevents any further operation of the stepping switch until the breaker is manually closed, as explained later) and closes an SL contact to ring an alarm. When the stepping-switch armature coil is energized again, the switch steps from LOCKOUT to the RESET position (as explained later).