Stanley Junction

[ColHut]

Looking at the facing connection to the branch at Stanley Junction, 1917, I am having trouble identifying what the numbers relate to. A copy of the diagram is on The Signal Box website.

 

https://www.signalbox.org/diagrams.php?id=617

 

It looks like 33 and 34 are a facing point lock & bar, and the facing point itself, and 16 is a clearance bar? Or am I mising something obvious?

 

Likewise 7,8 and 15.

 

 

regards

[RailWest]

7 and 33 are the points.

 

As regards 8,15,16 and 34, to be honest I do not know , but my guess would be that - for whatever reason - it was one of locations where there were separate FPL bolts for each of the two routes at a point.

[bécasse]

Both 7 and 33 points are provided with separate locking bolts (note how John Hinson has drawn them) for normal and reverse positions of the points and therefore with separate locking bars. I can readily see why 33 points was a candidate for this treatment, but it is less obvious why 7 points leading into the down sidings should have been so equipped but I suspect that it has something to do with acceptance arrangements.

[jim.snowdon]

It is an unusual arrangement. I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that the double locking bars are not for Normal and Reverse, but as a means for either simplifying the mechanical interlocking, or to overcome a practical difficulty with the interlocking.

 

What is interesting is the placing of the "additional" levers in the frame, in that 7 points are locked by 8 FPL, and 33 points by 34 FPL. The additional FPLs 15 & 16 lie next to the group of levers required for the Down Main signals 17, 18, 19 & 20.

 

A possible reason for that could be that the locking for clearing these signals includes the state of 15 & 16 FPLs, and it is quite possible that for both, the condition is that 15 and 16 can be reversed (assuming that reversal engages the bolt) only with 7 and 33 points Normal.By extension of that logic, 34 FPL could be conditinal on 33 Reverse, and sits easily with the group of levers required for routing a train from Down Main to the Branch.

 

Jim

[bécasse]

It is an unusual arrangement. I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that the double locking bars are not for Normal and Reverse, but as a means for either simplifying the mechanical interlocking, or to overcome a practical difficulty with the interlocking.

 

What is interesting is the placing of the "additional" levers in the frame, in that 7 points are locked by 8 FPL, and 33 points by 34 FPL. The additional FPLs 15 & 16 lie next to the group of levers required for the Down Main signals 17, 18, 19 & 20.

 

A possible reason for that could be that the locking for clearing these signals includes the state of 15 & 16 FPLs, and it is quite possible that for both, the condition is that 15 and 16 can be reversed (assuming that reversal engages the bolt) only with 7 and 33 points Normal.By extension of that logic, 34 FPL could be conditinal on 33 Reverse, and sits easily with the group of levers required for routing a train from Down Main to the Branch.

 

 

I must admit that I had wondered that too so it is at least as likely any other explanation. Unfortunately the original Signal Box website post didn't raise the issue so we don't know if anyone actually knows the answer. However, if the locking charts have survived (which isn't particularly likely) they would almost certainly provide the answer.

[Martin Shaw]

This was quite a common arrangement in Scotland, and as has been suggested, is indeed to simplify the locking. With this, almost all of the interlocking is straight dead locks, rather than bothway or conditional locks. Given that Stevens held the patent for tappet interlocking I can't explain readily why this was done, but it may have been a stipulation of the BoT rather than the railway company itself. In answer to Jim's comment re levers 15 and 16, the levers required to signal trains on the up and down main lie next to each other, and remembering that in those days signals were cleared in the opposite direction to the travel of the train, 15.16,17,18,19,20 in that order is wholly logical.

 

Regards

Martin

[jim.snowdon]

That last little bit about the lever sequence makes a lot fall into place. I am more used to the routine of clearing in the direction of travel, with the distant last.

 

Jim

[Martin Shaw]

Jim

The cause of the change to what we nowadays accept as normal practice was sequential locking, both mechanical and electrical, and line clear releases. Whilst the Ais Gill accident put track circuits to the fore, seq locking makes it quite difficult to accidentally run one train into the rear of another.

Regards

Martin

[ColHut]

Thanks All. Much clearer now. An interesting station with possibility of a train wrapped around the platform and sitting on the points for the branch although I do not know the length of passenger trins or the workings in 1917.

 

regards

[Martin Shaw]

ColHut

 

You should perhaps bear in mind that the "branch" is in fact the Highland Railway main line, and the main is the Caledonian Strathmore route to Kinnaber Junction and Aberdeen so whilst it was a rural junction, it's no sleepy byway.

Regards

Martin

[luckymucklebackit]

Thanks All. Much clearer now. An interesting station with possibility of a train wrapped around the platform and sitting on the points for the branch although I do not know the length of passenger trins or the workings in 1917.

 

regards

 

In World War 1 the "Jellicoe Specials" ran from various mines across Britain to the north of Scotland to feed the Ships of the Royal Navy based at Scapa Flow, there were stories of 100 wagon trains of coal, but I am not sure if they worked the whole route with that length.

 

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

In World War 1 the "Jellicoe Specials" ran from various mines across Britain to the north of Scotland to feed the Ships of the Royal Navy based at Scapa Flow, there were stories of 100 wagon trains of coal, but I am not sure if they worked the whole route with that length.

 

Jim

 

And most of the coal trains ran to ports on either the Tyne or Firth of Forth (especially the latter) for onward transit by collier.  Some of the coal trains did load up to 100 wagons for parts of the route - some, at least, of those which the GWR handed over to the LNWR at Warrington were worked by 28XX 2-8-0s and were booked to convey 100 wagons over that stage of their journey.

 

Stores trains (and of course trains carrying personnel) did run further north onto the Highland Railway.

[ColHut]

Indeed, very few large oil burners in the fleet then, The Queen Elizabeths and optionally the Revenge Class I think.

 

More to the matter at hand, What size passenger trains called there?

 

regards

[imt]

.......

 

More to the matter at hand, What size passenger trains called there?

 

regards

 

Anything going to Inverness or beyond down the "Branch" - so trains from Edinburgh and Glasgow certainly, which in my time (early 60's) were standard size sort of trains. I didn't travel to Aberdeen that way so I don't know - but I thought most passenger work was via Perth and Dundee. I don't think many Inverness "expresses" (there's a joke) stopped at Stanley - but there were plenty of long trains - including at appropriate times sleepers and Motorail (which certainly didn't stop at Stanley).  I have a passenger timetable for 1965/6 which does not have Stanley in as a station, but that might not mean much.  My WTTs are after the closure date (1967??).  Early 60's most Inverness local traffic was round by Nairn, Forres and Granton to Aviemore - again I didn't travel much beyond there, and my memory fails.  Most fast trains left from Aberdeen and those travelling from Inverness were encouraged to a highland rail excursion - much to my father's annoyance.

 

I am sure there are better informed pasengers/railwaymen around to help more.

[Graham R]

Jim Summers makes reference to the characteristic Caledonian Railway facing point lock arrangements in his book "Signalling the Caledonian Railway": "[The Caledonian] commonly adopted a design by its own John Steven, the Signal Superintendent, which involved two levers. These 'Steven detectors' were fitted to facing points, if facing moves in both the normal and reverse directions could be signalled over them, and used individual levers to lock the points for the normal or reverse positions. Each operated its own lock plunger, working in conjunction with a stretcher bar between the toes of the points, which was common to both, as was the lock bar. At the same time it proved (detected) which way the points lay". Steven is not the same as the contractors Stevens & Sons whose equipment the Caley also used widely! 

 

If I understand Jim's argument correctly, this meant that the Caley did not provide detectors in signalling wire runs to prove that points lay correctly for the relevant signal to be cleared at a point facing passenger traffic over both routes, but relied on the individual point locks and the interlocking in the box. That would have been more prone to wrong-side failure due to broken point rodding, which was perhaps why the LMS and BR seem to have replaced these double-lever locks with conventional single levers. (This last sentence is a bit speculative and I would be happy to be shot down by anyone more expert in these matters).

 

Jim's book also reproduces a diagram of the from Raynar Wilson's "Mechanical Railway Signalling" showing how the two levers and locks operated a single locking bar, and finally he shows a diagram from Balquihidder East with two points toe-to-toe, facing in both directions, and a photograph of these points which makes it clear that the double locks used a single bar: only two locking bars in the photo but four drawn on the diagram allowing the operating levers to be clearly numbered.

 

regards

Graham

 

[Edited correcting typo]

Edited June 2, 2017 by Graham R

[micknich2003]

I have been following this topic with interest.

 

 Has anyone ever come across a location where a FPL could be worked from EITHER of two levers?

[adanapress]

Some years ago I was a regular staying at the station building at Stanley Junction, then operating as a B & B (Lovely lady in charge) with   the modern s/box immediately opposite.  A few hundred yards south  both the up and down lines had semaphore starters  both seemingly for trains  proceeding towards Inverness from either line.  By the time the line curved away northwards  from the remains of the platform,  it had become single track.

I wonder if that double set of starters has a clue to the query.

[Martin Shaw]

Hi adanapress

 

The two signals are the result of the lines from Perth to Stanley Jn being bi-directional. How long this has been in operation I'm not certain, but theres no mention of it in the 1977 sectional appendix so reasonably it post dates then.

Regards

Martin

[Gary704]

Hi all,

 

Couple of things. First of all I'm a Perth Train Driver with interest in all things Strathmore so hopefully I can put my oar in here!

 

The double line south from Stanley Jn to Perth is not bi-directional. It is a conventional up and down arrangement with an arrangement at Stanley on the up line to allow trains (machines) to shunt clear of the single line and return to the single line using fixed signals. However a short section of bi-di does exist between Perth New Yard (site of) and Perth along the down line.

 

On the subject of Strathmore traffic. All main line west coast (from Euston), all ex CR / LMS and BR Glasgow traffic (passenger and goods) from the central belt (and intermediate points) to Aberdeen ran via the Strathmore line. The Strathmore line was the trunk main line. It was the Perth to Dundee line that was the branch, becoming the main line after 4th September 1967 after closure of the Strathmore route.

Edited September 14, 2018 by Gary704

[Gary704]

Some years ago I was a regular staying at the station building at Stanley Junction, then operating as a B & B (Lovely lady in charge) with   the modern s/box immediately opposite.  A few hundred yards south  both the up and down lines had semaphore starters  both seemingly for trains  proceeding towards Inverness from either line.  By the time the line curved away northwards  from the remains of the platform,  it had become single track.

I wonder if that double set of starters has a clue to the query.

Unfortunately the "station building" doesn't exist. It was demolished many years ago. The B&B is new build on a slightly different site.

[MikeS89]

The box is gaining a panel from 26th March to control the Pitlochry area, although isolated from it by Dunkeld.