Signal gantries at Reading station 1990s

[The Stationmaster]

On 25/12/2020 at 12:56, 5BarVT said:

It was moved longer ago than I thought!  I have a print of the Reading sketch that is from 1984 at the latest and probably 80/81 and R338 is moved on that.  It showed W and M then and I see no reason why it should have changed.

The closest ‘Reading’ gantry to York that I know of is at Gloucester station. Installed early 76 as part of the Eastgate closure, manufactured late 75 is my guess as there was one of that size in the works then.  The brackets installed at Gloucester are not ‘Reading’ brackets but the type that were installed for all the WR reversible working in mid 70s.

I have photos of the Gloucester gantry and brackets at Bristol taken in 2017 and also some from Swansea (when I can find them).

I can put some on here, (or let you have originals via PM) if you wish.

Paul.

There was one gantry installed at Gloucester in the 1968 resignalling and I think that probably went in 1975 when the platform was extended with the 1975 closure of Eastgate when at least one new gantry was added.

 

Don't forget that the Reading design full gantries came in two different patterns. and the appearance of the smaller version owed something to the LMS Pratt truss design although it was different in many ways.  There was an example of the smaller version at Reading (one end of it appeared in my post of 28 October) and on it the uprights were a single I section girder.  The larger version had two cross braced uprights and was used to either span more lines and/or to carry more weight than the smaller type.

 

There was, and night still be, an early example of the larger version at the north end of Shrewsbury station and it is unique - as a result of later alterations, in having both a semaphore doll and a couple of colour light signals on the one structure.   There were also some large versions at Bristol and a very early one at the west end of Cardiff General Central.   The gantries, for obvious reasons, were used in multi track situations where there were inadequate 10 foot intervals to allow the use of bracket structures or straight post signals.  Because there were fewer of them to start with outside the multiple running line areas they have suffered even more from electrification works than the bracket structures.

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Page 20 of "A Contemporary  Perspective on GWR Signalling" page 20 for the large Gantry at Shrewsbury I think.