RailWest

That will be the detection. The interlocking in the frame is only capable of ensuring that you can pull the right lever for the right signal depending on the position of the point and FPL levers. The detection ensure that the points blades are actually properly closed and the FPL plunger is full in.

Both of Honiton's distants were converted to C/Ls on 16th Dec that year, the Incline's Down Distant being done on the 19th. Not sure why they did the UP so much earlier that year...

The previous semaphore Up Distant was only 80 yards closer to the SB. In the case of the replacement Down Distant, the new C/L was 'close to' the old semaphore.

It would appear that even Honiton Incline got 'modernised' a bit in BR days, as the Distants signals were converted to colour-lights in 1962 - the Up Distant in Jan and the Down Distant in Dec. I wonder if the relevant levers got cut down even shorter? The Down Starting had been renewed and moved further out towards Honiton in the 1940s, so probably a UQ arm by then - anyone seen a photo of it please?

IMHO any trailing catch in rear of the Down Home would have been the typical un-worked type that would have been clipped and padlocked in the event of SLW. As regards the one for the Refuge siding, I see that as simply a sprung trailing point which lay normally for the siding. Had there been the capability also to work it from the box then I would expect it to be specifically marked as a 'slotted joint' or similar terminology.

What intrigues me about the arrangements at HI was that - in theory at least - you could not pull/push a train out of the siding onto the Down Main and then back across the crossover onto the Up Main purely by using the signals and points worked from the SB - the trailing point would have to be held over all the time. Also - and it's a long time now since I looked into the matter, so my recollection of the facts is a bit hazy - there used to be a second siding coming off the 'refuge' siding. IIRC this served some form of sand pit and was used by the Engineers. I can recall some old instruction about ensuring that the hand-lever working the sand siding point had to be kept with the points set for the refuge line so that an run-aways did not run into the sand siding by mistake to the detriment of any unfortunate Engineering Dept staff.

I have uploaded now a new web-page about MOOREWOOD (including Old Down Siding). It's mostly about the signalling there (no surprise there!) , but I've included some background details about the stone and coal traffic also. Sadly there is a dearth of good photographs and maps for that location, so contributions would be welcome :-) and hopefully more detail can be added in due course. The photograph below - sadly very poor and uncredited - has been included here as I /think/ that the 'T' shaped structure in the background /might/ be a 'tower' for the erstwhile aerial ropeway to Cockhill Quarry - any thoughts? http://www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sdjr/moorewood.html

Actually, that is irrelevant :-) The 'Rule 55' diamond exists because a train standing at the signal is detected by track-circuit ACT in rear of that signal. The FPL and point are detected by TC ABT, which is in advance of the signal.

It's track-circuited, so the 'train detection' is electrical rather than mechanical :-)

>>>Whereabouts was the Moorewood one and I will have a look.... Thanks. Problem is, the exact location is a bit of a mystery, as the various records are conflicting! It will have been either just north of Bridge 57 (carrying the main road east of Old Down), or between Bridge 57 and Bridge 58 (Coalpit Lane).

>>>Are there 2 versions of this book ?, mine, first published in 1986, has pictures of an empty Masbury in plate 53 ! Actually, it appears that there were three - 1986, 1995 and 1999. Mine is the 1999 version.

Firstly, it is quite likely that the Down Sidings were effectively out-of-use for some years before the points were removed, given that apparently both coal and stone traffic from them had ceased by the late 1930s. On the other hand, it has been said that they were used to hold (empty?) wagons for the Emborough works and also for New Rock Colliery, as the latter's sidings at Chilcompton did not have the capacity. Indeed, it is said there was a proposal to retain a length of track of the S&DJR after 1966 from Bath to Moorewood specifically for New Rock, who would otherwise have to seek alternative loading facilities (but instead they closed down). I have been pointed to a better scan of the Toop photo here It is possible to enlarge this much more clearer to the extent that no point is discernable in the down line nor any rodding leading across to it, but the shortening of the perspective is a little confusing. In the background can be seen disc 14, for moves back over the east crossover. This is where it gets confusing.....according to George Pryer disc 11, for moves back INTO the Down siding, was in the 6-foot, and as clearly it is not there then one might assume that it has been removed, However, all the available signal diagrams for Moorewood (1914, 1930 and early BR) show that signal to be on the outside of the track and there is no known record of it being moved, in which case one would expect any view of it to be blocked by the train anyway.

In the meantime, I've written a bit more on this subject.... www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sdjr/sigmisc.html#catch

There were instances on the S&DJR where, on rising gradients on double-track lines, trailing spring-loaded catch-points were provided some distance in rear of the relevant Home signal. Known examples existed at Midsomer Norton and Moorewood on the Down line, and Masbury and Winsor Hill on the Up line. There are several photographs which show the one at Winsor Hill and (at least) one for each of those at Midsomer Norton and Masbury, but does anyone know of photos for the Moorewood example please?

No, that was the Up siding for Emborough Quarries.

In Mac Hawkin's "Somerset & Dorset Then and Now" plate 53 shows 44561 on a Down train passing Moorewood signal-box in a photo credited to RE Toop and dated 20-May-1961. The caption states that by that date the connection to the Down sidings had been removed, yet the official date from Weekly Notice P/EW46 for the removal of that connection was 9-Dec-1964 (quoted also by RA Cooke). Is the photo wrongly dated or - given that the site of the sidings is not visible in the photo anyway - is it simply a case that the caption is incorrect? I suspect the latter.

>>>>...EXCEPT where was either a further ("Advanced") Starting signal before leaving the area or a distant arm for the next box below the starter. In that case it would be 3-aspect G/Y/R, only capable of showing G if the advanced starter/ lower distant arm was off..... However, I think you will find that the two C/L Starting signals at Portishead were R/G only. Stationmaster might know more....:-)

I see no customers - were the tanker drivers on strike on those days ? :-):-)

It was usually the case with most economic FPL mechanisms of which I am aware that the point was bolted in either position. Pulling/replacing the lever withdrew the lock plunger, moves the point blades, and re-inserted the lock plunger.

Many years ago now a group of us went on an officially-sanctioned visit to the (then relatively new) Bristol power box. During the course of our 'guided tour' of the operating floor we asked if we could take photographs, but permission was refused (politely) on the grounds of 'security concerns' . Admittedly this was at the time of the occasional IRA bombings on the UK mainland. We were then taken downstairs into the relay room, at which point our guide was called away for something, so he went off and just left us there. Apart from the fact that any of us could, had we been so inclined, removed the (unlocked) covers from any of the relays and 'fiddled' with the contacts (not that we would have ever done such a thing, of course), we were bemused to notice that there was a door (fire exit? loading/unloading entrance?) standing wide open with direct access out to the public area near the platforms, thru' which any passing ne'er-do-well could have hurled the odd rucksack bomb or two.....

>>>Contributory factors to the ignorance of signalling include the Private notice on the box door and the rule book requirement that it be observed. .... So relatively few outsiders got to see operation practices in real life.... Quite true. A few years ago I was in the box on a heritage railway on a 'Behind the Scenes' day when visitors were encouraged. A chap came in, looked around - obviously somewhat puzzled - and eventually said "I know this is a signal-box and that it controls the station, but what are all the big levers for ?" I think his prior 'experience' of signalling had been confined to photos of the insides of power boxes :-(

Picking up on an earlier comment, I am reminded of one well-known and well-regarded layout seen on the exhibition circuit some years ago. It was based on a prototype that had been a junction station with two signal-boxes, one at each end, but at some stage those had been replaced by one central box and the actual junction remodelled. Unfortunately....the group building it had used the track layout from one era and the signalling from the other :-( As a result there were signals on the layout which served absolutely no function at all because they were incompatible with the points layout.

I think he did :-) I don't know the area, but I wonder if there was something which crossed the railway at that location (such as an aerial ropeway or similar) and there were some form of barriers worked/bolted by 16 which prevented it being used when trains were passing underneath. If it had been just a narrow path with gates, then I would have expected the gates to be drawn as such.

I've looked at the SRS diagram for Cannock Road Jcn and can't find that at all ! Is there perhaps more than one box of the same name at Wolverhampton ?

I'm not sure I understand your first point what do you mean by "the lack of a double slip off the up line"? As regards GSs, usually engines were banned.