Prototype practice in Lampeter

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Would the lock be something highly visible (like a chain on the brake lever) or would it be something like a locked door denying access to the mechanism? Thanks. 

It was a lock on the door.    So the handbrake could be released but the lamps, except for one - possibly two, shouldn't have been accessible and either would anything else have been accessible.

[Rail-Online]

I think your 'Brake Van' in the photo is actually a lone ballst hopper.

 

Tony

[Nevermakeit]

2 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

I think your 'Brake Van' in the photo is actually a lone ballst hopper.

 

Tony

Wouldn't that be a strange place to leave it? 

[The Stationmaster]

18 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Wouldn't that be a strange place to leave it? 

Not necessarily.  It might well have been detached from, or be waiting to be attached to, an Up train.

[Nevermakeit]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Not necessarily.  It might well have been detached from, or be waiting to be attached to, an Up train.

So would this be attached to a timetabled goods train and dropped off and picked up as required for the track maintenance people, or would they run their own trains as specials? Thanks. 

[The Stationmaster]

Varied.  Generally ballast would be worked in ballast trains but odd wagons for small jobs or a small number of wagons for a particular job (or after a job) might end up in a freight train simply for convenience.  But usually ballast was conveyed to site in teh train that was going to unload it unless it was pre-positioned near the work site to save sidings becomiing too crowded elsewhere. Also a wagon might be put off for attention if it had developed a fault such as a hot axlebox.

[Nevermakeit]

Whilst idly trawling through RMWeb, I came across a picture from @Miss Prism

which shows a passenger train on the way to Lampeter with milk tanks at the rear.  On the website http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/latest-input--news--old-pictures-etc/archives/03-2013/2 there is a photograph of a passenger train on the way to Lampeter with milk tanks at the front.  Was there a policy on where in the train the milk tanks should go, or was it more or less at the whim of the driver (or dependent on other factors)?

 

Similarly with goods trains - I believe that all the vehicles for Lampeter would be grouped together in the train, but by the time it got to Lampeter, would they be at the front, next to the locomotive, or at the rear, next to the guards van? (assuming it was from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth, for example)

 

Thanks.

[The Stationmaster]

4 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Whilst idly trawling through RMWeb, I came across a picture from @Miss Prism

which shows a passenger train on the way to Lampeter with milk tanks at the rear.  On the website http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/latest-input--news--old-pictures-etc/archives/03-2013/2 there is a photograph of a passenger train on the way to Lampeter with milk tanks at the front.  Was there a policy on where in the train the milk tanks should go, or was it more or less at the whim of the driver (or dependent on other factors)?

 

Similarly with goods trains - I believe that all the vehicles for Lampeter would be grouped together in the train, but by the time it got to Lampeter, would they be at the front, next to the locomotive, or at the rear, next to the guards van? (assuming it was from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth, for example)

 

Thanks.

Positioning of tail traffic - such as milk tanks - depended on all sorts of factors - ease of shunting, time available for shunting (at one end or the other), at times even what a particular Foreman or Shunter decided what suited him (the least likely  I think), availability on the tail traffic of steam pipes in the steam heating period, connections (points) temporarily out of use as one place or another and so on.  The last person whose views mattered was normally the Driver.    

 

Normally things would be consistent but obviously at Pont Llanio the shunt to detach the tanks had to be carried out by the train engine  so all the tanks would be marshalled together (simpler to attach them that way and would automatically go on the front.

 

On the freights the Lampeter traffic would inevitably be marsalled together as the usual practice was to form sections in station order and any wagons piv cked up would be attached in such a way that the original station order for putting wgons off would not be affected.  Simplest was to shunt Lampeter with a Down train would be for it to arrive with the Lampeter section front but there might have been occasional attachments at intermediate stations which were put between that section and the engine so they might be shunted aside first or - more likely - remain attached to the engine while the Lampeter traffic was shunted off (depending on how many wagons were involved as extra length could interfere with ground staff sight lines).

[Nevermakeit]

On 20/06/2021 at 15:24, ejstubbs said:

 

 

Going back to this photograph, there are a surprisingly large (to me, at least) number of wagons in the goods yard.  Presumably these would have taken some time to unload?  Would there be any health and safety rules in place in 1949 regarding what would happen if another train arrived whilst unloading was going on?  Would it have stopped whilst the new train was shunted, or would people just be told 'shunting is going on, hold on tight in case of bumps'?!  Would non-railway staff unloading demurrage wagons only be allowed on-site at certain times?  Thanks.

[Nevermakeit]

On 04/06/2021 at 12:51, Harlequin said:

Some further googling (when I should really be working) found this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/31890193@N08/14243894766/

 

the Down Advanced Starter signal is on the opposite side from normal, presumably because there's not enough clearance for it on the yard side.

 

Regarding the 'Down Advanced Starter', presumably the fireman would need to watch the signal at the end of the platform, whilst the driver would watch the Down Advanced Starter?  Would this be unusual, or would it normally be the case that both would be watching out for signals?  Would the platform signal and Down Advanced Starter operate in sync, or would they control separate sections of track?  Would the Down Advanced Starter cover both the Down track re-joining the single line, and the exit from the sidings, and would those points operate in sync?

 

Thank you.

[Pacific231G]

7 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Going back to this photograph, there are a surprisingly large (to me, at least) number of wagons in the goods yard.  Presumably these would have taken some time to unload?  Would there be any health and safety rules in place in 1949 regarding what would happen if another train arrived whilst unloading was going on?  Would it have stopped whilst the new train was shunted, or would people just be told 'shunting is going on, hold on tight in case of bumps'?!  Would non-railway staff unloading demurrage wagons only be allowed on-site at certain times?  Thanks.

Mike may well know the answer to this but I thought it was the other way round. Shunting took place at certain published times of day (obviously based on the WTT) when the yard (or at least the mileage sidings) was closed to traders  You certainly could not have had traders loading and unloading wagons if there was any chance of them being moved. However, I can't find any reference to this in the GWR's  General Appendix to the Rule Book  and this may have come from something written by CJF. It would in any case not have included traders such as coal merchants who had their own premises in the yard.

Other sources just say that the goods yard was open to customers during normal business hours (typicall 08.00 to 18.00)

It doesn't quite answer this question but I've just found a very useful book available as a free pdf from Historic England that goes into the development and operation of goods sheds and warehouses in some depth.

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/railway-goods-shed-and-warehouse-in-england

It's rather sobering to think how few people are now around who can actually emember when local yards handled individual wagon loads of goods.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Pacific231G

[Nevermakeit]

5 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Mike may well know the answer to this but I thought it was the other way round. Shunting took place at certain published times of day (obviously based on the WTT) when the yard (or at least the mileage sidings) was closed to traders  You certainly could not have had traders loading and unloading wagons if there was any chance of them being moved. However, I can't find any reference to this in the GWR's  General Appendix to the Rule Book  and this may have come from something written by CJF. It would in any case not have included traders such as coal merchants who had their own premises in the yard.

Other sources just say that the goods yard was open to customers during normal business hours (typicall 08.00 to 18.00)

It doesn't quite answer this question but I've just found a very useful book available as a free pdf from Historic England that goes into the development and operation of goods sheds and warehouses in some depth.

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/railway-goods-shed-and-warehouse-in-england

It's rather sobering to think how few people are now around who can actually emember when local yards handled individual wagon loads of goods.

Thanks very much for that. Yes, it is the loss of the knowledge of how the day to day operations were carried out that is such a problem. I will certainly have a look at the PDF. Thanks. 

[The Stationmaster]

On 05/07/2021 at 07:58, Nevermakeit said:

Going back to this photograph, there are a surprisingly large (to me, at least) number of wagons in the goods yard.  Presumably these would have taken some time to unload?  Would there be any health and safety rules in place in 1949 regarding what would happen if another train arrived whilst unloading was going on?  Would it have stopped whilst the new train was shunted, or would people just be told 'shunting is going on, hold on tight in case of bumps'?!  Would non-railway staff unloading demurrage wagons only be allowed on-site at certain times?  Thanks.

Busy yard with lots of coal wagons by the look of it.  The Rules required that before shunting commenced on any siding where men were likely to be working they were to be told that shunting was about to start and to keep clear - so yes, their work would stop.  The big problem with coal wagons was that the law of sod dictated that the empties needing to be shunted would invariably be blocked in by part or fully loaded wagons which would have to be shunted out of the way to get at the empties.

 

No doubt at times some work would - with  an element of danger  - continue to the last possible moment when shunting was taking place.  And no doubt at times someone loading or unloading a wagon would say they only needed 5 more minutes 'so could you please  hang on until I'm done' and the Shunter and engine crew would then find themselves kicking their heels for half an hour as the '5 minutes' grew and grew.  (I found that always seemed to happen when working with breakdown gangs - their idea of 'only 5 minutes' was very different from 5 minutes on my watch).

 

The problem was that at many places, especially the likes of Lampeter, shunting inevitably took place during teh normal working day and any train booked to work there could get involved in any amount of shunting.  You could usually reckon the goods shed staff would be able to start and work through without interruption but on mileage roads interruption was always a possibility unless there was only the one train booked to call and shunt.

 

On 05/07/2021 at 08:04, Nevermakeit said:

Regarding the 'Down Advanced Starter', presumably the fireman would need to watch the signal at the end of the platform, whilst the driver would watch the Down Advanced Starter?  Would this be unusual, or would it normally be the case that both would be watching out for signals?  Would the platform signal and Down Advanced Starter operate in sync, or would they control separate sections of track?  Would the Down Advanced Starter cover both the Down track re-joining the single line, and the exit from the sidings, and would those points operate in sync?

 

Thank you.

It was the Driver's job to lookout for signals but the fireman had a responsibility to assist when pt racticable.  Starting away from a station when the Driver was on the side away from the platform the Fireman would keep a lookout on the platform side and give the Driver the tip to start once the Guard had shown his green handsignal.

 

The two signals worked completely independently of each other with each of them being worked by its own lever in the signal box.  Thus - although unlikely at Lampeter most of the time - the Starting Signal could be lowered while the Advance Starting Signal was maintained at danger.  The main thing at a single line crossing station was that unless special provision was made in the track layout (it wasn't at Lampeter) if two trains were approaching at the same time both would be stopped at their respective Home Signals and one of them would then be admitted to its loop; the seciond one would not be admitted to its loop until the first one had come to a stand.

[Nevermakeit]

On 06/07/2021 at 11:47, The Stationmaster said:

The two signals worked completely independently of each other with each of them being worked by its own lever in the signal box.  Thus - although unlikely at Lampeter most of the time - the Starting Signal could be lowered while the Advance Starting Signal was maintained at danger.  The main thing at a single line crossing station was that unless special provision was made in the track layout (it wasn't at Lampeter) if two trains were approaching at the same time both would be stopped at their respective Home Signals and one of them would then be admitted to its loop; the seciond one would not be admitted to its loop until the first one had come to a stand.

Thank you for this information.  What would be the sequence of operation?  I assume the points would be set first, then the signals? Or is it signals first if setting to 'stop' and points first if the signal is being set to 'go'?  Would the platform signal be set before the Advance Starting Signal or the other way round?  Thanks.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Nevermakeit

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Thank you for this information.  What would be the sequence of operation?  I assume the points would be set first, then the signals? Or is it signals first if setting to 'stop' and points first if the signal is being set to 'go'?  Would the platform signal be set before the Advance Starting Signal or the other way round?  Thanks.

Stop signals are normally maintained at danger (although things were different in the early days of railways) and the DSignalman pulls a lever in teh signal box in order to move the signal arm to the clear position.

 

The process - very much in summary for - works like this -

1.  The Signalman will know from the STT/WTT and any supplementary notices when trains are officially due but he does nothing until he receives the relevant bell signals to ask 'Is Line Clear?' for the train.  What he then does depends on how many running lines there might be and, on a single line, whether or not he is expecting another train in the opposite direction.

2.  The latter means that he might be asked 'Is Line Clear?' for trains from both directions at around the same time.  Before he can accept each train the line has to be clear to what is known as the Clearing Point.  The Clearing Point at single line crossing stations is the stop signal at the end of the loop furthest from the direction from which the train will arrive.  For convenience we'll call this the Starting Signal as most such signals were officially titled Starting Signals.

3. By the process of accepting the train the Signalman operates the single line token instrument in such a manner that the Signalman at the opposite end of the section can withdraw a token to hand to the driver of the train which has been accepted.  The token is the Driver's sole authority for his train to occupy  a single line section.

4. What happens next depends very much on how trains will arrive at the Home Signal at the entrance to each crossing loop.  If the two trains are expected to arrive at around teh same time the procedure is as I outlined above and one has to enter its loop before the other is allowed to move.  If one train arrives well before the other it should be brought almost to a stand at the Home Signal before that signal is lowered to allow the train to enter the loop - where it will then stop; the Starting Signal will be at danger.

5. Once a train has arrived, complete with tail lamp, the Driver hands the token to the Signalman.  The signalman can then send the 'Train Out of Section' bell signal for that train and return teh token to his token instrument.  If he has - as he does in this example - a train approaching which will require to enter that section he then sends the 'Is Line Clear?' bell signal and the Signalman at the other end  )(if he can) accepts the train and operates his token instrument to allow a token to be with drawn for that train.

6. If that train has not yet arrived our signalman can then clear all his signals for it.

 

The difficulty with teh procedure of crossing trains is really a time constraint as the Signalman has lots of things to do at once - he has to collect two tokens - one from each train - send two lots of our t of section se ignals and two lots of Line Clear signals and put two tokens into their respectove instruments and get out two other tokens.  The important discipline is ensuring taht tokens are properly passed through the token machines - get that wrong and there might (and on rare occasions were) some very nasty consequences.Drivers also have a responsibility to check that they have been given the correct token for teh section they will nec xt be entering - iif they fail to do that they could potentially be signing their own death warrant. (and on very rare occasions some did exactly that).

 

Hopefully that explains how it all worked but it is a very basic summary.

[Nevermakeit]

53 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

The difficulty with the procedure of crossing trains is really a time constraint as the Signalman has lots of things to do at once

 

Hopefully that explains how it all worked but it is a very basic summary.

Would he also have to change the points separately, or would they be set by the same lever that set the signal?  Thanks.

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, Nevermakeit said:

Would he also have to change the points separately, or would they be set by the same lever that set the signal?  Thanks.

Excellent summary of the basic sequence by the Stationmaster.  Signals and points are worked by separate levers* painted red and black respectively, yellow in the case of distant signals.  A signal can only be cleared when the point(s) required for the route are in the correct position, and in the case of facing points, locked in that position.  Facing point locks (FPLs) are usually worked by a separate lever, painted blue although they can be worked by the same lever as the points they lock.  A distant signal can only be cleared for a train that has a clear route right through the station - either there is only one train, or it is the second train arriving after the first train is safely in its platform as described by the Stationmaster above 

 

The Normal position (ie when the lever is back in the frame) at a crossing loop is for the points to lie towards the left hand platform as seen by the driver.  So before you can clear the Home signal to let a train into the platform, you pull the FPL but leave the point normal.

And after the second train has entered the loop you unlock the FPL on its entrance point and pull the point lever for for the first train to leave the loop.

 

* Occasionally shunting signals to/from sidings were worked by the same lever as the relevant point, but that was an archaic practice, and they tended to be called point indicators rather than signals 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Michael Hodgson

[The Stationmaster]

One thing to remember was that at single line crossing stations on the GWR (and the WR until c.1960 but older installations were never altered subsequently) all distant signals were fixed at caution.

 

Lampeter was a little unusual in that the Up Distant signals for both routes approaching the remotely worked Aberayron Jcn were worked but a fixed distant then intervened between the junction and the stop signals at the station.  Oddly there was no distant for Aberayron Jcn in the Down direction so presumably the spillting signal was simply cleared as soon as the route was set and as part of the sequence of clearing Down signals at the station.

 

Incidentally the practice of having the point coming of the single line lying normally towards the route a train would take was not consistently applied on the GWR/WR for a Variety of reasons, especially where gradients were involved.   Another reason was that where trap points were provided at crossing loop exits they ofteneffectively worked as a crossover in conjunction with the single to double line connection.

[Nevermakeit]

13 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

One thing to remember was that at single line crossing stations on the GWR (and the WR until c.1960 but older installations were never altered subsequently) all distant signals were fixed at caution.

 

Lampeter was a little unusual in that the Up Distant signals for both routes approaching the remotely worked Aberayron Jcn were worked but a fixed distant then intervened between the junction and the stop signals at the station.  Oddly there was no distant for Aberayron Jcn in the Down direction so presumably the spillting signal was simply cleared as soon as the route was set and as part of the sequence of clearing Down signals at the station.

 

Incidentally the practice of having the point coming of the single line lying normally towards the route a train would take was not consistently applied on the GWR/WR for a Variety of reasons, especially where gradients were involved.   Another reason was that where trap points were provided at crossing loop exits they ofteneffectively worked as a crossover in conjunction with the single to double line connection.

So 'fixed at caution' means that the signals didn't have any levers connected, and didn't change, and the train could drive past them (presumably more slowly!) without having to wait for any further indication?

[kingfisher9147]

Found this very helpful with my model of the area. Apart from special freight trains what would be the other freight trains be? I know that in the area that there was wool, coal, coke, milk, timber, cattle, meat,lime. Would be there be fish, fruit, bricks, scrap, stone, chemical trains etc. 

Mike 

[Michael Hodgson]

Trains drive past distant signals whether or not they are showing Caution.  A distant signal showing caution merely warns the driver that he should expect the Home signal to be at Danger and he should be prepared to stop there - it isn't a speed limit in itself and it doesn't necessarily mean he has to slow down immediately - that would depend on how effective his brakes are, which would depend on the rolling stock, gradients, the state of the rail and the condition of the brakes. 

 

The signal won't have a lever associated with it, nor the wire running to it plus operating rod on the post.  The arm usually won't even be pivoted, although if it was formerly worked there typically won't be a lens corresponding to the off position but an empty hole in the spectacle plate where there had previously been a lens.  However on the GWR most commonly it would be as seen in this thread with a noticeable gap between post and lamp. 

 

[Tankerman]

Reading this has raised a question in my mind. At Penryn, my local station when I was young, it was common for a down goods train to be stopped at the home signal and then to enter the up loop. It is a long time ago now but from memory the home signal remained at danger.

 

Looking at the diagram on the SRS site there is a ground disc signal, identified as 25, adjacent to the home signal. I am assuming that this would have been used to allow the train to enter the up loop. In addition the up loop had a sprung catch point to prevent a train entering it from the down direction, this has the notation 'slotted by 21' on the drawing. Would I be correct in thinking that this sprung point could be manually controlled by the signalman to allow the down goods to enter the up loop?

 

Apologies for going off topic and thanks in advance for any replies. 

[Nevermakeit]

5 minutes ago, Tankerman said:

Reading this has raised a question in my mind. At Penryn, my local station when I was young, it was common for a down goods train to be stopped at the home signal and then to enter the up loop. It is a long time ago now but from memory the home signal remained at danger.

 

Looking at the diagram on the SRS site there is a ground disc signal, identified as 25, adjacent to the home signal. I am assuming that this would have been used to allow the train to enter the up loop. In addition the up loop had a sprung catch point to prevent a train entering it from the down direction, this has the notation 'slotted by 21' on the drawing. Would I be correct in thinking that this sprung point could be manually controlled by the signalman to allow the down goods to enter the up loop?

 

Apologies for going off topic and thanks in advance for any replies. 

No need to apologise for going 'off topic' - any and all information relating to train operation in the area and period is on-topic for me! Thanks

[Nevermakeit]

1 hour ago, kingfisher9147 said:

Found this very helpful with my model of the area. Apart from special freight trains what would be the other freight trains be? I know that in the area that there was wool, coal, coke, milk, timber, cattle, meat,lime. Would be there be fish, fruit, bricks, scrap, stone, chemical trains etc. 

Mike 

Is there a link to your model anywhere, please?  I would be interested to see it.  Thanks.

[Nevermakeit]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Trains drive past distant signals whether or not they are showing Caution.  A distant signal showing caution merely warns the driver that he should expect the Home signal to be at Danger and he should be prepared to stop there - it isn't a speed limit in itself and it doesn't necessarily mean he has to slow down immediately - that would depend on how effective his brakes are, which would depend on the rolling stock, gradients, the state of the rail and the condition of the brakes. 

 

The signal won't have a lever associated with it, nor the wire running to it plus operating rod on the post.  The arm usually won't even be pivoted, although if it was formerly worked there typically won't be a lens corresponding to the off position but an empty hole in the spectacle plate where there had previously been a lens.  However on the GWR most commonly it would be as seen in this thread with a noticeable gap between post and lamp. 

 

Thanks for this.  The picture in your message looks rather red - aren't distant signals usually yellow? Or is this a special one?  Thanks.