Cwmhir signaling - Attempting a somersault and rotating discs

[Darwinian]

This is the latest signal for Cwmhir. The home signals. This is a bracket with the smaller doll reading to the colliery exchange sidings. That arm should probably have a circle on it (only the main arm shown).

 

 

 

I've used an MSE McKenzie Holland bracket etch with some additional support framing from brass angle and etch waste. The doll post was filed up from a couple of pieces of concentric telescopic  tube as I only needed  one.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Darwinian
Remove duplicate image

[Darwinian]

Here's one that got a bit further in July. The combined elevated disc and somersault. The operating linkages have been made but will not be installed until this and the bracket signal have been painted.

 

I have to admit that it's a bit speculative, drawing on photographs of a number of Aus and UK McKenzie Holland signals to get a might have been arrangement.

[Darwinian]

That first single elevated disc signal seems to be jinxed. I realised that the mechanism was set so that the balance weight falling would clear the signal. Oops. Turning the crank around sorted the problem but I melted the fibre optic in the lamp post with the heat from the soldering iron.

Testing to get the fibre optic out the bracket broke away from the post.

Having fixed those back and got the mechanism working correctly I gave it a wash to remove any flux residue and knocked the top off the finial. I don't have a spare so I'll try to pin it back on.

Hopefully that's the 3 problems for this signal 🙄

[88C]

Some days things don’t quite work as well as you hoped. You will get it sorted.

 

Brian

[Darwinian]

Finial successfully pinned with a short length of 0.4mm dia. nickel silver wire.

This signal now needs the paintwork restoration doing. The two most recent signals have now been given a coat of Halfords etch primer and the balance arms, levers etc. Treated with metal black.

[Darwinian]

Would I be OK for my 1929-34 time period in assuming:

 

Red Signal arms linked to spectacles with Red-Blue(=green) glasses.

 

Red glass in discs with a white indication when cleared. 

 

All lamps have white lens at back for confirmation that lamp is still lit. Covered by back blinder when cleared for signals facing away from the signal box.

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, Darwinian said:

Would I be OK for my 1929-34 time period in assuming:

 

Red Signal arms linked to spectacles with Red-Blue(=green) glasses.

 

Red glass in discs with a white indication when cleared. 

 

All lamps have white lens at back for confirmation that lamp is still lit. Covered by back blinder when cleared for signals facing away from the signal box.

Almost certain by then although the proceed in the sub disc might possibly have been changed to green.  If any ground discs had been alteered to GWR standard some would be red at danger and some would be white - it needs a signallingdiagram to say which would be what.

[bécasse]

Discs alongside running signals would normally have red and green aspects once the post-grouping norms started to be applied. In broad terms the GWR white aspect was used either where the other companies used yellow shunt signals (typically at exits from sidings where there was also a shunting neck) or where they used running discs between running signals (the running disc being cleared before the appropriate running signal).

[Darwinian]

Thanks for the information. As the only time the colour if the disc lenses for the disc "off" position would be seen is when I turn on the lighting I'll leave them white.

[Darwinian]

Nearly there with the semaphores and rotating disc signal builds.

Here is the bracket signal awaiting fitting of arms, lamps and linkages.

 

 

The semaphore with rotating disc

 

 

And the spectacles and lamps. When I saw this I realised I'd put the glasses on the spectacles the wrong way around. I'm building the signals with the arm to spectacle link rod above the pivot so the red glass should be above the spectacle pivot not below it as seen here. I've corrected them now.

 

 

The "glazing" is the Wizard models material. For the spectacles it was roughly cut to size and then glued to the frames with Micro Kristal Clear. The overhanging bits were then trimmed back using Xuron micro shears and the edges painted black.

The circular red glass for the discs was punched out using a short length of brass tubing (with the edge sharpened on wet and dry paper), a small hammer and a cutting mat. Again glued to the disc with Micro Kristal Clear which has also been used to add clear lenses to the signal lamps (so that the holes don't get full of dust/crud).

[Penrhos1920]

I’ve just read that Rhymney signal arms had 2 white stripes rather than just 1.  TVR , RR & Barry signals, on railsigns.uk .  Although I’ve not been able to find a photo that proves it, just this photo at Tirphil which has 1 arm that might have 2 stripEs  

Edited December 10, 2023 by Penrhos1920

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

I’ve just read that Rhymney signal arms had 2 white stripes rather than just 1.  TVR , RR & Barry signals, on railsigns.uk .  Although I’ve not been able to find a photo that proves it, just this photo at Tirphil which has 1 arm that might have 2 stripEs  

This is a fascinating area and one I will immediately admit that I do not fully understand.  Photographic evidence indicates that all three of those companies had somersault stop signals which had two white stripes on the front of the arm although the only clear RR photographic evidence which I can find shows two black stripes on the back of the arm.   The stripes normally appear to be of equal sizes .   On the other hand there are some photos which clearly show individual RR (and TVR or BR) somersaults with only one white stripe on the arm.

  

Where it gets confusing is what the two white stripes meant, if anything(?), because there are fairly clear photos around of both TVR and BR somersaults mounted in groups as splitting signals where not all of the arms have two white stripes although the arms are basically of similar sizes (perhaps with a minor variation but no more).  In other words it is something akin to the photo posted above by 'Penrhos'.

 

So - and here I am stabbing in the dark - there are several possible questions.  Firstly did the practice of painting two white stripes reduce to only one at some time prior to the GWR amalgamation  (after which photos indicate that it had definitely ceased)?  Or was it simply to make arms considered more important more noticeable?   And/or,  thinking aloud,  did the additional white stripe convey some particular meaning?   It might be construed from a couple of BR examples and a TVR example that arms reading to Absolute Block lines ( toor where Absolute Block applied for all trains) had two white stripes while (at one time) those with only one stripe read to lines worked under some sort of permissive system or to yards & sidings?  However one BR example seems to potentially conflict with that possible conclusion as it used reduced size arms to read to a yard from running lines.

 

If the second stripe actually did have any particular meaning the answer ought to lie somewhere within the Rule Books and/or General Appendixes of the companies concernd.    Someone somewhere might well have access to such publications and know the answer.

[bécasse]

I rather wondered whether that right-hand arm in the photo concerned has a white ring centred on it and that is what we can see (with the rest lost in the white stripe and the background). Don't ask me what a ring would signify because I don't know but it would certainly make good sense to centre any ring around the central pivot on a somersault arm.

 

There is a well-established and productive Welsh Railways Research Circle and IIRC Derek Mundy is/was a member so I would expect signalling matters for all the Valleys' companies to have been researched and reported on.

[Michael Hodgson]

7 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

If the second stripe actually did have any particular meaning the answer ought to lie somewhere within the Rule Books and/or General Appendixes of the companies concernd.    Someone somewhere might well have access to such publications and know the answer.

Very interesting suggestions there.  I have a few pre-grouping rule books but not for GWR consitutents.  The collection at Didcot shuld be worth exploring

 

The signals used by the smaller companies tended to be bought in rather produced in-house.  The suggestion of two stripes may have come from the contractor?  Or of course, they may just have copied the neighbours!

 

The idea that the two stripes was more conspicuous would certainly be relevant in an area where visibility was a frequent problem.  That to me suggests the London smog rather than the Valleys, but I don't know how bad pollution was back then.  When I lived in Llandogo (Wye Valley) half-way up the hillside in the late 1960s, I remember often being able to see the far side of the valley clearly on a bright sunny morning, but not being able to see the valley floor for mist (which burnt off after a couple of hours).  Perhaps that was an issue in the coal mining Valleys too?

 

[The Stationmaster]

I can't speak for him but I believe that 'Penrhos' is in any case involved in the WRRC.

 

Arms with rings on do appear in some early South Wales photos but the $64,000 question is the date on which they were taken let alone what they might have meant?  The real answer will undoubtedly lie in whatever of the official official publications I mentioned have survived.  T The earliest post Group GWE GA supplement I have is dated December 1923 and makes no mention of arms with two white stripes although u it very obviously includes entries relevant to the amalgamted South wales companies.  But there had been earlier Suuplements to teh GA and at least one of them post-dated the amalgamation of the South wales Valleys companies - but I don't have them.

 

Similarly the GWR  January 1923  Rule Book, to which I think I have most if not all of the Supplements up to and including 1933 but it would in any case be unlikely to show such a detail (if it actually meant anything.  The GWS might have something but a lot of teh stuff they do have - from past experience - in thsi sort of area is neither catalogued nor stored in what would seem to me a logical order.  But Rule Book  and GAs tend to be rather obvious!  Kew does have lots of such publications so might be a possible answer?

[Darwinian]

Wow, that's a whole new, and intriguing, can of worms. I'm neither knowledgeable enough about signalling nor Rhymmney railway practice to comment. Until we have some more definite idea I'll assume that the GWR would have repainted any such signal arms by my 1929-32 period.

 

Anyway for what it's worth, here are my signals, virtually complete. I have tested the lighting using the LED on my phone as a source and they seem to be OK. I'll only really know once I've wired them up.

 

Bracket

 

 

Somersault and disc on post;

 

 

The single elevated disc is basically the same as the last but without the somersault. They need a bit of paintwork touching up and I am planning on adding signal wire pulleys to the bases, once I've decided which side of the operating wire they need to go to lead back to the signal box.

 

A Merry Christmas and Happy New year to all.

 

Adrian

 

 

[Darwinian]

On 10/12/2023 at 17:13, Penrhos1920 said:

I’ve just read that Rhymney signal arms had 2 white stripes rather than just 1.  TVR , RR & Barry signals, on railsigns.uk .  Although I’ve not been able to find a photo that proves it, just this photo at Tirphil which has 1 arm that might have 2 stripEs  

That looks like a ring on the arm of the shorter doll. There are similar ones in "The Rhymney Railway Vol. 1, The main line from Cardiff" John Hutton, Silver Link (Pubs). 

Page 26." Aber Junction and sidings about 1905 " shows a single post with a rotating disc and a somersault arm with a ring. Viewed from behind there appear to be two black lines outboard of the disc (one either side).

Page 84. "K Class ........passing Heath junction on 16th May 1919"  A somersault to the left of a large bracket signal (with two arms on the main post) has a ring and a fairly clear white band to the left of the ring. The ring does appear to be around the pivot point.

 

In "The Taff Vale Railway Vol.2" Same author and publisher there are several views of somersaults with the double white band (one either end of the arm) and no ring:

Page 48 View of Porth Station June 1921 there are two pairs of "home?" somersault signals, all with the double white bands.

Page 51" Ynishir ......June 1922" the starter signal from the left platform has the two band style. The back of a 3 doll signal is also featured but all arms are set on and it's not possible to see if there is a second black band at the lamp end of the arm.

Page 83 "TVR O4 0-6-0 ...... Mountain Ash circa 1908..." shows a two doll signal with both arms clearly showing the two band style.

Page 123 A side view of the carriages involved in the accident near Gyfeillon Coke Works 23rd January 1911 there are a set of distant signals with the double chevron bands.

Edited January 2 by Darwinian
Typo

[Darwinian]

I should perhaps add that there are several other pictures dated from 1912 onwards showing signals with the more familiar single band. If the dates are more or less correct then both band patterns were in use, on the TVR at least, during this period. I've not found any double band images post 1922 in any of the books I have but that may just be chance.

[Darwinian]

It moves! Courtesy of MERG Servo 4 and Tower Pro 9g servo.

 

 

Just needs the lamp fitted.