Jump to content
 

Kirley's Workbench


kirley
 Share

Recommended Posts

KIRLEY JUNCTION –Signals

 

Had a go at a Ratio plastic signals kit, the instructions says you can make four signals but I stretched it to six plus four ground signals. They are only cosmetic and not pro-typical but hopefully a hint at Irish ones.

 

IMG_0869x.jpg.d4890388c2d37142cda591bab9f76387.jpg

 

IMG_0895x.jpg.607dc6ba82e41183eea46cae65f640db.jpg

 

IMG_0896x.jpg.c8872354f06af232a57bf6c428e77255.jpg

 

IMG_0901x.jpg.ef092d0bc43cf774dae83c1ad410532b.jpg

 

I will have to place the signals on the layout first before I can cut the ladders to size and then fix them to the signals.

 

IMG_0904x.jpg.a2ca5f35de037ea90c6073c3bcb6fd75.jpg

  • Like 7
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
  • RMweb Premium
8 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

I believe the NCC  used somersault  signals in the main similar to the English GNR.

 

So says Midland Style, with photos and drawings. Didn't the Great Northern use somersaults as well, in yet further imitation of its English namesake?

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 27/08/2021 at 21:41, Compound2632 said:

Was that red-white-yellow chevron pattern standard for distants throughout Ireland? Or just GSR/CIE? (From what date? Having in mind that in Britain, yellow distants were adopted from c. 1927.)

No, only CIE and only in comparatively modern times.

 

Like Britain, most railways here had yellow distants after 1927.

 

 

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

So says Midland Style, with photos and drawings. Didn't the Great Northern use somersaults as well, in yet further imitation of its English namesake?

No, only the NCC used somersaults.

 

The general rule in Ireland on all lines bar the NCC (and NCC-controlled CDRJC) was lower quad signals.

  • Agree 1
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

I thought that there were almost no upper quadrant signals in Ireland. I believe the NCC  used somersault  signals in the main similar to the English GNR.

 

Correct; there were no upper quads at all, on ANY railway, to my knowledge; and somersaults were confined to the NCC area. The BCDR, GNR, MGWR, DSER, WLWY, GSWR and CBSCR, plus all narrow gauge lines bar parts of the CDR system, used nothing but lower quads.

Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'd supposed the LMS-owned lines would follow LMS practice.

 

Not really, actually! They inherited what the BNCR would have had, which were all probably standard lower quads as used elsewhere in Ireland. They were replaced by degrees with somersaults, but not LMS-style upper quads.

 

The LMS-owned Dundalk, Newry & Greenore Railway ended up with a mixture of lower quadrant LNWR-style signals, and Irish GNR ones.

Edited by jhb171achil
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

See starter signal:

 

20210828_231816.jpg

Yup - that's an upper quad.

 

Unique, I'd say - unless anyone has further info.

 

I checked more info since on the DNGR - it was all lower quad but many of its signals had grooved LNWR-style arms, rather than the wooden ones used here by all railways until well into CIE times.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

That looks very LMS-ish from here.

 

To go back to my original question, was @kirley's multi-coloured distant arm typical? (Even if not UQ.)

 

About 40 years ago, on a family holiday, I had a nose round a station on the Sligo line - I'm afraid I can't remember which. I was invited into the signal box and invited to pull a lever! I remember thinking the signal arms were quite distinctive, being (if I remember correctly) wider at the outer end than at the spectacle end.

 

I suppose most of the Irish lines used equipment from Saxby & Farmer or Mackenzie & Holland? (At least between the first adoption of block signalling and the 1920s.)

Edited by Compound2632
Link to post
Share on other sites

Larne Harbour (not Larne Town which kept somersaults while it remained a block post) was resignalled with Upper Quadrants in 1932. The whole place was resignalled by the NCC to bring the former narrow gauge platform into use as a second platform for standard gauge trains.

 

The UTA installed a pair of electrically operated automatic upper quadrant signals in each direction between Sydenham and Holywood. These had pointed ends to indicate automatic operation. As the UTA did not have any upper quadrant signal arms in stock they took old lower quadrant ones, reversed the colours in the spectacles and moved the lamps and the arm pivot to suit. These survived into the late 1960s at least.

  • Like 2
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 28/08/2021 at 23:35, Compound2632 said:

That looks very LMS-ish from here.

 

To go back to my original question, was @kirley's multi-coloured distant arm typical? (Even if not UQ.)

 

About 40 years ago, on a family holiday, I had a nose round a station on the Sligo line - I'm afraid I can't remember which. I was invited into the signal box and invited to pull a lever! I remember thinking the signal arms were quite distinctive, being (if I remember correctly) wider at the outer end than at the spectacle end.

 

I suppose most of the Irish lines used equipment from Saxby & Farmer or Mackenzie & Holland? (At least between the first adoption of block signalling and the 1920s.)


To answer the several questions - multi-coloured (yellow-white-red/orange) was not used anywhere ever, until CIE adopted it, seemingly in the 1970s or 80s.

 

The levers were indeed standard equipment from the British manufacturers you mentioned, even if the signal arms weren’t . The wide bit you remember was probably the plate in the front indicating which signal the lever related to.

  • Informative/Useful 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium
7 hours ago, jhb171achil said:

The wide bit you remember was probably the plate in the front indicating which signal the lever related to.

 

Sorry for the confusion - it was the signal arms I was describing there!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

The arms installed by the CIE S&T department were slightly tapered outwards towards the end as Compound recalls. Reflective surfaces were used towards the end as required for sighting purposes. They had quite a distinctive look and were unlike anything in GB or NI. They were all lower quadrant.

 

As the direction for GB distant signals to be yellow took place after independence, it was not applied as a requirement south of the border. CIE signal arms were not distinguished by colour in the way that British ones were, and they went even further their own way when reflective surfaces started to be applied to some of them. Distant signals in NI followed suit with GB and converted to yellow distants with a black chevron. As for the companies like CDR, Swilly, DNGR and so forth I, often wonder what colour their lower quadrant distant arms were as the photos are usually black and white. For instance, what did the GNR(I) do on either side of the border? The Sligo Leitrim just dotted various ancient designs of signal around as they took the notion.

 

The reflective coating applied to some CIE distants and gate signals was a yellow/orange shade on the outer section beyond the white chevron. The yellow outer and red inner reflective coatings were a bit pearlescent and seemed to be slightly different shades in certain light conditions. Apart from the outer portion the rest of the CIE distant arm remained technically red, but the red reflective version had an orange or pink look under certain light. Reflective home signals would also be different shades of red as only the inner part might be reflective (I would post a photo but I cannot get it to work).

 

NIR also used reflective coatings in some cases to improve conspicuity. The down distant at Dunmurry was an early one to have a reflective coating applied. That definitely looked yellow and black to me in all light conditions.

 

CIE shunting signals were generally round discs apart from some ex-GNR(I) rotating ones and some really old rotating indicators (as at Loughrea and Dunsandle for instance).

 

Gate signals generally followed the distant fishtail pattern with the stop board mounted on the gates, but some were fully signalled on busier lines. At the other end of the scale were ancient double armed gate signals on the Burma Road, the North Kerry and elsewhere.

 

So the vast majority of Irish mechanical signals were lower quadrant semaphores. Exceptions were the somersaults on the NCC, plus the few upper quadrants as noted. Then there were the Sykes banner signals on the Bangor line, one platform starter at GV St in Belfast, and a few other places. The UTA also put one somersault signal in at Queens Quay. The NCC was responsible for signalling policy on the CDRJC, though it remained standard lower quadrant territory. However, I seem to recall that the starting signal at the old CDR station in Derry (which was pulled off when the business which used the site in the 1970s was open) was a somersault. That is getting a bit off topic.

  • Like 1
  • Informative/Useful 4
Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Glen Arriff said:

Distant signals in NI followed suit with GB and converted to yellow distants with a black chevron. As for the companies like CDR, Swilly, DNGR and so forth I, often wonder what colour their lower quadrant distant arms were as the photos are usually black and white. For instance, what did the GNR(I) do on either side of the border?  
 

NIR also used reflective coatings in some cases to improve conspicuity. The down distant at Dunmurry was an early one to have a reflective coating applied. That definitely looked yellow and black to me in all light conditions.

 

CIE shunting signals were generally round discs apart from some ex-GNR(I) rotating ones and some really old rotating indicators (as at Loughrea and Dunsandle for instance).

 

Gate signals generally followed the distant fishtail pattern with the stop board mounted on the gates, but some were fully signalled on busier lines. At the other end of the scale were ancient double armed gate signals on the Burma Road, the North Kerry and elsewhere.

 

So the vast majority of Irish mechanical signals were lower quadrant semaphores. Exceptions were the somersaults on the NCC, plus the few upper quadrants as noted. Then there were the Sykes banner signals on the Bangor line, one platform starter at GV St in Belfast, and a few other places. The UTA also put one somersault signal in at Queens Quay. The NCC was responsible for signalling policy on the CDRJC, though it remained standard lower quadrant territory. However, I seem to recall that the starting signal at the old CDR station in Derry (which was pulled off when the business which used the site in the 1970s was open) was a somersault. That is getting a bit off topic.


A good many very valid questions here, and great info!

 

First, it wasn’t so much a “border” / “north-south” thing, just different companies had different policies.

 

The “joint” nature of the CDRJC resulted in the signalling area being looked after by the NCC, so there were several somersault arms - Derry being one location, and perhaps an obvious one. I’ve a notion there might have been one at Strabane too.

 

Most, of course, was normal lower quads, inherited from pre-joint committee days.

 

Yellow was used on at least some CDR distants.

 

The GNR used yellow going way back, throughout its system, from Dublin to Cavan to Derry to Antrim to Belfast. No railway would have changed its system due specifically to the border. 


In the early 1970s, CIE had at least some distants in all reflective yellow with a black chevron. I had one at one stage, prepared but never used, along with a home arm with all-reflective-red, with white bit. Both were on flat aluminium signal arms.

 

The yellow-tipped one with red elsewhere was not widespread; I saw very few myself, and certainly not before the mid 1980s, as far as I recall.

 

As you say, shunting signals varied; they are another story entirely!

 

jhb171Senior installed the somersault at Queen’s Quay, and at the same time a set of GNR arms in Bangor, about 1960! This, believe it or not, was deliberate!
 

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, jhb171achil said:

First, it wasn’t so much a “border” / “north-south” thing, just different companies had different policies.

 

No railway would have changed its system due specifically to the border.

This is true. I reckon that it was largely due to the supine nature of railway regulation in NI. The GB Inspector of Railways made the rules for the companies. The NI regulation was largely ineffective and sometimes downright unsafe - see Coakham on the Ballymacarrett accident.

I imagine, though I cannot be sure, that the companies in NI simply bought their material from GB suppliers and after a certain point it came with yellow arms so they standardised on that as best practice. I could be wrong of course. If they had made yellow a regulation in NI as it was in GB then I suppose all companies like the Swilly or the SLNCR would have had to comply for NI track, and that didn't happen as far as I know.

The modelling consequences are that we can do pretty well as we please. For semaphores anyway - lower quadrant unless it is Larne, somersaults for the rest of the NCC, and colours as we see fit for whatever era suits. As for small cross border set ups, anything goes. If really you want a signalling free-for-all, try the Bangor line where there was at least one of everything (even most shunting signals).

  • Like 2
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

KIRLEY JUNCTION - Shades of Grey

When I originally built B.U.T. Railcars back in 2016 I did two of the 900 series Power Cars in NIR Maroon/Light Grey and managed to get hold of some of the original NIR paints.  However, the light grey looked grey rather that the lighter (white) colour that appeared in photographs of that livery. 

 

IMG_5723.JPG.a39e192e5019cdd05eb8f1c4332e1334.JPG

 

So, I decided to replace the grey but that involved stripping out the roof and interior not to mention glazing, door and grab handles and masking.

 

IMG_1737x.jpg.544fa75cc9aed3bb97582af715f0e320.jpg

 

I believe it was worthwhile as the revised livery is more pleasing.

 

IMG_1759x.jpg.5ff7f6cdd07c5d139e9ec57bf3d838d2.jpg

 

IMG_1760x.jpg.caf2cde69122ec83d42fe6c42f88f6a0.jpg

 

 

  • Like 6
  • Craftsmanship/clever 1
  • Round of applause 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...