Colour light signals

[ikcdab]

I need to build some colour light signals for my new 1960s suburban layout. Try as I might, I can't find any suitable drawings to build from. I guess there were regional variations, but not as dramatic as the different semaphore styles.

Any pointers where to look?

[andye]

I have a handful of real 4 aspect colour lights, probably from the southern , from the 60s, i can send some pics, or you can buy one off me if you want a fabulous garden ornament! !!

[Joseph_Pestell]

9 hours ago, ikcdab said:

I need to build some colour light signals for my new 1960s suburban layout. Try as I might, I can't find any suitable drawings to build from. I guess there were regional variations, but not as dramatic as the different semaphore styles.

Any pointers where to look?

 

Colour light signals is, like track, a somewhat neglected area of the hobby.

 

What is the back story to your layout? In some parts of the country colour light signals were installed early in the 20th century to very different patterns to later installations. Many, for instance, used "searchlight" signals (one lens with different colour aspects).

 

St Simon of this parish (Norwood Road) is probably best placed to help you. He is researching a book on the subject.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Joseph_Pestell
Typo

[ikcdab]

Thank you. There is no real back story, I'm looking to build a suburban style layout roughly based on Minories. I have a collection of rolling stock that is heavily southern orientated mix of late BR steam and green diesels. In the past I have built layouts with semaphore signals and the designs were very distinctive and it was fairly straightforward to build great Western or southern signals et cetera. Now I want some colour lights and I am finding it more difficult to find prototypical drawings. It seems to me that the designs are a lot more fluid and in some respects just depends on what the contractor can supply. All I really want is some basic dimensions of signal heads, route indicators, post diameters et cetera and then I can construct stuff from photographs. But I'm finding it difficult to find any kind of basic dimensions anywhere. You will see that I'm not so concerned with fixing my layout to a particular region or time, it's more of a generic suburban layout set at the turn of steam and diesel but orientated towards the southern. Thank you

[ikcdab]

3 hours ago, andye said:

I have a handful of real 4 aspect colour lights, probably from the southern , from the 60s, i can send some pics, or you can buy one off me if you want a fabulous garden ornament! !!

Thank you! I also have a garden railway but full-scale signals would be too big even for that! But I would love to see some photographs, even better if you could give me some of the key dimensions that would be fantastic. Thank you again

[Grovenor]

The standard colour light lens is 8 and 3/8" diameter and you can work out most of the rest from there with the help of photos.

Regards

[luckymucklebackit]

For a 1960s layout you should have longer hoods above the aspects than later installations, i believe installations from the 1950s and 60s had a longer hood as a throwback to ARP regulations to reduce the amount of light being seen from the air.

 

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Thank you. There is no real back story, I'm looking to build a suburban style layout roughly based on Minories. I have a collection of rolling stock that is heavily southern orientated mix of late BR steam and green diesels. In the past I have built layouts with semaphore signals and the designs were very distinctive and it was fairly straightforward to build great Western or southern signals et cetera. Now I want some colour lights and I am finding it more difficult to find prototypical drawings. It seems to me that the designs are a lot more fluid and in some respects just depends on what the contractor can supply. All I really want is some basic dimensions of signal heads, route indicators, post diameters et cetera and then I can construct stuff from photographs. But I'm finding it difficult to find any kind of basic dimensions anywhere. You will see that I'm not so concerned with fixing my layout to a particular region or time, it's more of a generic suburban layout set at the turn of steam and diesel but orientated towards the southern. Thank you

For 1960s colour lights there were a mass of Regional differences.  s Although the signal heads would have come from one of the three main manufacturers and displayed standard aspects there were considerable cvariations in the use of subsidiary signals (which changed in the 18960s let alone differences between Regions), differences in some route indicators, differences in the types of signal posts, bracket and gantry structures used, differences in colour schemes including number/ID plates (some Regions used white lettering on black background, most used black on white but each Region had its own style of plate, differences in numbering systems, differences in design of location cabinets and signal post telephone cabinets.  

 

Overall for those who know or who bothered to study you could as easily tell which Region a colour light signal was on - and in many cases when it was erected within a decade or so - as you could a semaphore signal.  Big problem is none of the variants are available r-t-p but some which are available are adaptable and even paint schemes on their own plus various detail items will make a difference.  I have photographs of most Regional variations from the 1969s  which still remained in the early '90s and can describe most others.  Say which year and which Region you have in mind and I should be able to give you a reasonable steer in the right direction detail etc wise.  Or pick examples you like and I should be able to tell you which Region's practice they represent.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, luckymucklebackit said:

For a 1960s layout you should have longer hoods above the aspects than later installations, i believe installations from the 1950s and 60s had a longer hood as a throwback to ARP regulations to reduce the amount of light being seen from the air.

 

Jim

There were considerable Regional variations in the length of hoods in the 1960s on new signals booth between Regions and also between manufacturers as SGE's standard length hood was very different in appearance from the standard Westinghouse equivalent.

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

There were considerable Regional variations in the length of hoods in the 1960s on new signals booth between Regions and also between manufacturers as SGE's standard length hood was very different in appearance from the standard Westinghouse equivalent.

There were also differences in the length and style of hoods depending on which way the signal was facing in some areas. This was to cut down the effects of loss of clarity due to low sun shining onto the lens or in the case of New Street searchlights to help guard against misreading where adjacent signal heads were close together. 

[andye]

9 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Thank you! I also have a garden railway but full-scale signals would be too big even for that! But I would love to see some photographs, even better if you could give me some of the key dimensions that would be fantastic. Thank you again

 ok I will get some pics, mine are from redhill, four aspect

[ikcdab]

7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

For 1960s colour lights there were a mass of Regional differences.  s Although the signal heads would have come from one of the three main manufacturers and displayed standard aspects there were considerable cvariations in the use of subsidiary signals (which changed in the 18960s let alone differences between Regions), differences in some route indicators, differences in the types of signal posts, bracket and gantry structures used, differences in colour schemes including number/ID plates (some Regions used white lettering on black background, most used black on white but each Region had its own style of plate, differences in numbering systems, differences in design of location cabinets and signal post telephone cabinets.  

 

Overall for those who know or who bothered to study you could as easily tell which Region a colour light signal was on - and in many cases when it was erected within a decade or so - as you could a semaphore signal.  Big problem is none of the variants are available r-t-p but some which are available are adaptable and even paint schemes on their own plus various detail items will make a difference.  I have photographs of most Regional variations from the 1969s  which still remained in the early '90s and can describe most others.  Say which year and which Region you have in mind and I should be able to give you a reasonable steer in the right direction detail etc wise.  Or pick examples you like and I should be able to tell you which Region's practice they represent.

Hello Mike,  thank you. I'm looking at southern region early 1960s. 

Ikcdab

[The Johnster]

Hood length varied according to line speed as well IIRC.

[The Stationmaster]

16 minutes ago, ikcdab said:

Hello Mike,  thank you. I'm looking at southern region early 1960s. 

Ikcdab

Right - that's reasonably straightforward although one big difference is that at that time the Southern were, in the early '609s still using 3 lamp 'feather' type route indicators and electrically floodlit disc signals for ground and shunt signals.  in the later '60s, basically the Bournemouth Electrification resignalling, they were using 5 lamp feathers (which everybody else already used) and they also used position light signals instead of the flood lit discs.  so there was a change in what they used in new work in the later half of the '60s.

 

I think for the sort of layout you have in mind you could ideally go towards Southern practice for the early '60s and earlier although some of their small termini not so far from London still had semaphore signals for a long time after the '60s while inner area stations had had them from much earlier.  I think the first thing you need to do is to try to find any signals already available which could be easily adapted (or most easily adapted) to a Southern like appearance and then add Southern style details to them and around them in ground equipment etc.

 

Have you come across any model signals yet which take your fancy which can be looked at to see how they might be detailed up to a suitable appearance?

[ikcdab]

22 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Right - that's reasonably straightforward although one big difference is that at that time the Southern were, in the early '609s still using 3 lamp 'feather' type route indicators and electrically floodlit disc signals for ground and shunt signals.  in the later '60s, basically the Bournemouth Electrification resignalling, they were using 5 lamp feathers (which everybody else already used) and they also used position light signals instead of the flood lit discs.  so there was a change in what they used in new work in the later half of the '60s.

 

I think for the sort of layout you have in mind you could ideally go towards Southern practice for the early '60s and earlier although some of their small termini not so far from London still had semaphore signals for a long time after the '60s while inner area stations had had them from much earlier.  I think the first thing you need to do is to try to find any signals already available which could be easily adapted (or most easily adapted) to a Southern like appearance and then add Southern style details to them and around them in ground equipment etc.

 

Have you come across any model signals yet which take your fancy which can be looked at to see how they might be detailed up to a suitable appearance?

 

Hi Mike, i want to scratchbuild these, hence the need for some pictures or drawings. I saw this film today, the train is being hauled by a bullied, so i assume this is southern.

This is the youtube link

But of course, having a solid girder or tubular post would be easier to make thank this lattice, though i guess i could use an etched kit for this, i havent found one though. What I am after is some basic dimensions and a couple of typical pictures.

Hope that helps.

 

 

This is also a nice poster:

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by ikcdab

[The Stationmaster]

1 minute ago, ikcdab said:

 

Hi Mike, i want to scratchbuild these, hence the need for some pictures or drawings. I saw this film today, the train is being hauled by a bullied, so i assume this is southern.

This is the youtube link

But of course, having a solid girder or tubular post would be easier to make thank this lattice, though i guess i could use an etched kit for this, i havent found one though. What I am after is some basic dimensions and a couple of typical pictures.

Hope that helps.

 

Very definitely Southern and dating from possibly the very early 1950s  or, more likely, the late 1930s.  I've never seen a drawing of one of those structures but if you have a look on RMweb for a chap called Clive Mortimore he has built a very similar signal structure (but LMS, of the same period) out of plastic components and he can probably give you some dimensions.  You would then need to study the detail differences - mainly in how the signal heads are mounted - to get it right for Southern.

 

The southern used concrete bracket structures in some schemes in the early 1950s and there might be a drawing of one of those in the relevant Irwell book although I think such structures were only used on the Central Division.  Elsewhere on the Region a much simpler design in steel had appeared by the late 1950s and these can be seen in the film linked below.   The dimensions of these aren't much different from one of the very similar designs used on various Regions from the late 1970s onwards although the construction style differs a bit due to use of different steel sections - I've an idea I've seen some dimensions somewhere for the 1990s equivalent and they won't be much differeent from these.  Now where to find those dimensions?

 

You'll find some much simpler structures in this film -

 

 

 

[Butler Henderson]

I've cobbled together a couple of SR like colour light signals from Train Tech kits - see the postings of Nov 30 2017,  Dec 3 2017 and Jan 14 2018 in this thread

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/127304-warmington/&tab=comments#comment-2892699

Edited February 13, 2019 by Butler Henderson
corrected kit brand

[synthnut]

On 05/02/2019 at 07:10, andye said:

I have a handful of real 4 aspect colour lights, probably from the southern , from the 60s, i can send some pics, or you can buy one off me if you want a fabulous garden ornament! !!

Out of interest, what's the going rate for such lovely decorative garden features? I don't think my original scheme of a set od wig-wags was too popular...

Ben

[andye]

On 08/02/2019 at 23:03, synthnut said:

Out of interest, what's the going rate for such lovely decorative garden features? I don't think my original scheme of a set od wig-wags was too popular...

Ben

 

difficult to know, i have one on ebay on an auction starting at £69

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192818814485

 

we will see what it makes!

 

andy

 

 

[iands]

On ‎05‎/‎02‎/‎2019 at 11:06, ikcdab said:

Thank you. There is no real back story, I'm looking to build a suburban style layout roughly based on Minories. I have a collection of rolling stock that is heavily southern orientated mix of late BR steam and green diesels. In the past I have built layouts with semaphore signals and the designs were very distinctive and it was fairly straightforward to build great Western or southern signals et cetera. Now I want some colour lights and I am finding it more difficult to find prototypical drawings. It seems to me that the designs are a lot more fluid and in some respects just depends on what the contractor can supply. All I really want is some basic dimensions of signal heads, route indicators, post diameters et cetera and then I can construct stuff from photographs. But I'm finding it difficult to find any kind of basic dimensions anywhere. You will see that I'm not so concerned with fixing my layout to a particular region or time, it's more of a generic suburban layout set at the turn of steam and diesel but orientated towards the southern. Thank you

Hi ikcdab,

No dimensions I'm afraid, but a couple of photos that may, or then again may not, help. They are of perhaps unconventional signal posts that may be of interest if you want to scratch-build something a bit different. Mike 'The Stationmaster' might be able to help here with dates regarding when these originally date from (e.g. which resignalling scheme). As Mike and others have alluded to, there were different styles of signal posts, signal heads and lens hoods. As I say, the signals posts in these two photo examples don't exactly conform to any particular "standard", but rather fall into a category of bespoke/homemade/adaptation to fit a particular need/situation. e photos were taken 2007 as part of a survey I was undertaking in connection with the East London Line project. Signal L568 is on the London bound platform at Brockley with the post constructed out of bullhead rail and a pipe for the "cable management".

 

 

 

The second phot shows signals L559 and L561 at New Cross Gate (looking towards Brockley). It seems the footbridge/walkway support structure was adapted to accommodate L559.

 

 

Hope these are of some interest.

[uax6]

The Classic SR coloured light signal was a Metro-vick GRS style one. These had 'Pigs ears' which where in the side of the head with another lamp in them to show to the driver (when they had pulled up right on top of the signal) what the aspect was. These things are seriously heavy (I call my ER two aspect without ears the Metro-Vick Hernia, as I was expecting to get one lifting it!)

 

There was a thread on here all about SR colour lights, I'll have a hunt and see if I can find it again....

 

Andy G

[uax6]

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107329-southern-railway-colour-light-signals/

 

Hopefully I'm got the link right!

 

Andy G

 

If you want to see my Metro-vic head its story starts halfway done this page:

 

Andy G

Edited February 10, 2019 by uax6

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, iands said:

Hi ikcdab,

No dimensions I'm afraid, but a couple of photos that may, or then again may not, help. They are of perhaps unconventional signal posts that may be of interest if you want to scratch-build something a bit different. Mike 'The Stationmaster' might be able to help here with dates regarding when these originally date from (e.g. which resignalling scheme). As Mike and others have alluded to, there were different styles of signal posts, signal heads and lens hoods. As I say, the signals posts in these two photo examples don't exactly conform to any particular "standard", but rather fall into a category of bespoke/homemade/adaptation to fit a particular need/situation. e photos were taken 2007 as part of a survey I was undertaking in connection with the East London Line project. Signal L568 is on the London bound platform at Brockley with the post constructed out of bullhead rail and a pipe for the "cable management".

 

 

 

 

The use of railbuilt posts for colour light signals on the Southern seems to have been a comparative rarity.  But they could definitely be found carrying banner repeaters and - as was probably the case in Ian's picture - they were sometimes used if the scheme plan but the new colour light in the same place as a previous semaphore signal.  So ok to use but with considerable care and don't overdo the idea.  incidentally I have never seen one used for a signal carrying any form of route or junction indicator.

 

16 hours ago, uax6 said:

The Classic SR coloured light signal was a Metro-vick GRS style one. These had 'Pigs ears' which where in the side of the head with another lamp in them to show to the driver (when they had pulled up right on top of the signal) what the aspect was. These things are seriously heavy (I call my ER two aspect without ears the Metro-Vick Hernia, as I was expecting to get one lifting it!)

 

There was a thread on here all about SR colour lights, I'll have a hunt and see if I can find it again....

 

Andy G

'Pigs ears' were also incorporated in the Westinghouse supplied signal heads used in. much of the resignalling carried out on the South Western section of the Southern in the 1930s and in fact right up until the 1960s new signal heads coming from Westinghouse had circular blanking plates down the side in the position in which the pigs ears would have been fitted although by then they were outmoded by changes to the lens which provide an angled 'hot spot' visible at close range.

 

The signal heads posted in the OP's original video snatch have pigs ears and look like the original style of Westinghouse heads with a rounded top to the back plate.  This rounded top changed by the late 1950s/early '60s to the flat type with corners but an angle as shown in the pics upthread of the one being offered for sale.

[ikcdab]

Thank you for all your comments.

Far more modern, but here are two shots of the gantries at the up end of Taunton station. erected in approx 1985 as part of the Exeter resignalling system. This is the format of signal i wish to make, but in a more 'period' style....

 

[The Stationmaster]

I'm reasonably sure that I have a pic or two of the SR equivalent (from which the above design was developed) from the 1970s but I'm not so sure about the SR 1960s equivalent.  Only a couple of thousand pics to go through so it might take a little while.