TommyDodd

Over the last few years, we haven't had that many really snowy winters, though it feels rather ironic typing that right now. For me, the opportunity to run and take photos in the snow is a rare treat and one to be taken full advantage of. I'd always been jealous of those of my fellow 16-millers organised enough to have built working ploughs in time to use them. Last christmas I finally managed it, had tremendous fun clearing the track the old-fashioned way and look forward to doing the same again this winter (score so far, 40 yards cleared, numerous derailments and 1 broken coupling). I just wondered what everyone else thought and did. [Edited to correct a spelling mistake]

Apologies for slow response (shift change night-to-earlies over the weekend meant time and brain function were in limited supply). Taking those points in order: A short post peeping through would also be a valid alternative, if the location allowed (too far to the left and the bridge abutment would mask the arm, too far to the right fouls the structure gauge) though I wouldn't fancy being a driver on that line- place yourself on the footplate of an up goods, class J or K, and imagine having creep your way towards that signal with all that weight behind you . I hope I didn't come over too didactic (I did use the word "might" in my first post) and sound like I was asserting that these things Must Be Done, but the combination of overbridge, restricted view ahead (the presence of a cutting is implied by the overbridge) sharp right hand curve and a right hand drive loco flags up signal sighting as a potential issue. My suggested alternatives were exactly that, suggestions. The quickest, easiest answer wouid simply be for the layout builder to get down to drivers' eye level, squint along the track and see for himself, and I think it would be time well spent Second point, moving the pointwork at the town end: Possible, yes but plausible, no. Why on earth would any railway go to the time and trouble of a relay and resignalling and while doing so shorten a passing loop by a good few feet? The presence of the bridges at either end of the station suggest that this is not naturally level ground-every square foot flat enough to lay track on has been expensively dug out, and in that situation they wouldn't have built one inch more than they thought they needed. Then, having expensively won those extra few feet of loop length, would they casually throw them away? I doubt it, at least during the era in which this line is set (ask me again in the early 70s if the line survives). In the end, I have to admit my gut reaction to the "old" box was that it just looked wrong. I've done my best to explain why it does, and you've done your best to provide a logical rationale for why it would be there; a well reasoned rationale but one that just doesn't convince me- that box still looks wrong to me. It's not my railway, but if it was and I was faced with the choice of explaining away something questionable or doing away with it I know which I'd pick given the choice. Your reference to Tavistock is 100% accurate, but I think misses my point. I'm not cricticising the location of his intended platform box, far from it.. As I said-"If I was signalling the layout from a clean sheet I would ........ put a single box where your platform box is". What I was trying to say was that a single box at the mid point of the loop (IE inside the overall roof) would have been completely impractical for sighting reasons, as part of a rationale for the station having 2 boxes at one part of its life. The OP's plan is set in the time between nationalisation and Beeching, but the author wants (as indicated by the existence of his suggested out-of-use) box to suggest the location's history by modelling the remains of earlier eras. The history of this location, according to the OP, would divide naturally into 3 phases: 1) as built as a terminus 2) as first rebuilt as a through line and 3) as modernised with the single platform box, the model being set in phase 3 but with the remains of earlier phases visible. Phase 1 signalling we have already dealt with- 1 box at the town end (though we differ on its location), phase 3 is as drawn (1 operational box on the up platform). I was explaining why I thought phase 2 signalling would almost certainly have required 2 boxes, giving a rationale for an "out of use" box to be modelled at what appears to me to be a more suitable location.

First, the good news. Even without reading your post a quick glance at the track plan told me "early west country branch with Brunellian overall roof", so you're on target for suggesting the atmosphere you want. I've read through the suggestions and agree with them, and have only 2 to add. 1) The Up home (assuming trains go down to the terminus and up to the junction) might be a bit awkward for sighting, that close to the road bridge abutments (bearing in mind the GW placed their signals assuming right-hand drive locos). 2 possible alternatives are i) Move it "outside" the bridge, which would aid conspicuity. It could then be made even easier to spot by either painting a white square behind it on the bridge or giving it a "sky arm", a post tall enough to give the arm a clear sky background. The downside be that a train stood there might be out of sight of the signalbox, and unable to observe hand signals for shunting movements (making additional ground-discs necessary) ii) Leave it where it is and improve its visibility by either giving it a co-acting sky arm visible to approaching trains a good way off, or providing a banner somewhere beyond the bridge (which might not even be on the modelled portion of railway, but we'd know it was there...) 2) The position of your old, out of use signalbox is a bit odd, remote from the station and only just in operating range of its associated pointwork. If I was signalling the layout from a clean sheet I would (depending on period) either put a single box where your platform box is, or have two, one at 6'8" along x 1'"8 in and the other at 17' x 1'. In the days before track circuits, boxes were placed as close to the points they controlled as possible, to a) shorten rodding runs making points easier to operate and less vulnerable to changes in temperature and B) more importantly, give the signalman as good a view as possible of any shunting operations over points he controlled- it's surprisingly easy, in the absence of sophisticated safety equipment, to swing the road under a movement. With a terminus you only have to worry about the points at one end of the layout so my first suggested position would have sufficed for the layout at that stage, but when the extension opens you hit a snag. Originally BoT regulations would not allow a facing point to be further from it's controlling signalbox than 110 yards, that's 1320mm or 4'4" in 4mm scale, and you had to have a good view of every point under your direct control. Some stations managed a long loop from a single box by placing it halfway along the loop, but that would be impractical in this case- that lovely overall roof would spoil the view. The only alternatives are i) control the country end points from a ground frame (usually beneath the GWR's dignity, though they did resort to it on odd occasions, such as Yelverton), or provide a second box at the location suggested, on the opposite side of the line to the first. Companies did that, where practical, to allow both sides of the train to be frequently examined for defects by signalmen as they passed by. Your platform box would date from much later, when improvements in rodding allowed the maximum reach to be increased to 180, then eventually 300 yards (for mechanical points- electric points have no limit), enabling the company to manage with 1 box instead of 2. SO the upshot of all that waffle is that if you really want both old and new boxes the best place for the old one would be at the country end of the station, on the up side (I would expect that the original town-end box would have been demolished on abolition, since it would get in the way of shunting and yard work). Since this box would have been smaller, having less pointwork to control, this gives you an opportunity to strongly suggest location and age by modelling a small pokey structure from an earlier age, say a GWR type 1 or something stone-built by the Bristol and Exeter. Hope you find the above useful, or at least mildly interesting.

The Princetown turntable, and its twin at Yelverton (junction with the Plymouth-Tavistock-Launceston branch) were not provided for regular turning of locomotives at all, but solely to turn the snowplough when it visited the line. The Princetown branch was vulnerable to drifting snow, being high on Dartmoor, and since it served the prison of the same name (and was one of the few branchlines to be built with a government subsidy, since that was the only way to get the GW to serve the prison) it was considered particularly important to be kept running in poor weather.