Castle Aching

[Compound2632]

Spoons?

[Annie]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Spoons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory

 

Spoon theory is something that most folk living with a chronic illness are familiar with.

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Annie said:

Bear in mind though that those green and pale yellow colours are the invention of the Late & Never Early Railway and aren't GER colours at all, - oh dear me no.

 

I'm reminded of those Polish friends of mine who say that they were taught Russian in school, but did not learn it. I don't speak LNER myself but know enough to translate where necessary. But this all begs the question, what were WNR structure colours? Presumably the more-or-less ubiquitous two shades of brown? And did the WNR S&T Dept use them or have its own preferences? Or was the signalling contractor also responsible for maintenance?  

[Schooner]

@Compound2632 A classic chronic illness analogy/management approach

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/01/14/spoon-theory-chronic-illness-spoonie/

 

with which I've picked up more familiarity over the past couple of years than I'd like. My sympathies James (and Annie, and us spooners all).

 

More incoming but for now, in case it helps parse the signalling requirements:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 19 by Schooner

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Schooner said:

More incoming but for now, in case it helps parse the signalling requirements:

 

Do we take it that all arrivals and departures must be at the platform road?

 

Which way is up?

[Schooner]

29 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Do we take it that all arrivals and departures must be at the platform road?

 

I believe so - I think we discussed other options previously and settled on this approach. Would this be more obvious if the loop were in a different colour?

 

Up is to the top of the image - the operating position is at the bottom, with access at the LH end. Was that the question?!

[Northroader]

Mon ami, Routier du Nord, il dit: “Les Signaux?? Pouff!!, tres simples…”

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

Up is to the top of the image - the operating position is at the bottom, with access at the LH end. Was that the question?!

 

Are trains approaching CA travelling in the up or the down direction (and is it the same on both routes)? Is CA the zero of the milepost mileage?

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

By no means. LQ was well nigh universal up until well into the grouping period. The perception of GW exceptionalism in this respect is a classic example of looking back through a BR steam lens - always bound to fog the picture.

 

Hope you are both on the mend. 

 

Thanks.

 

I can only attest to the reason I am biased towards LQ signals, but, yes, it is one of those details that helps set the period by being typical of it.

 

No yella Distant arms niver! 

 

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Oh James, - I wish both you and Miss T a swift recovery.  I wish you both many many spoons as well 🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄

 

Thanks, Annie, definitely a low spoon count in recent months.

 

Spoons and days. My parents' gaff needed sorting, packing up and the stuff moving out. In the Marie Kondo Universe, we, as a family, must represent the Antichrist. Fortunately, since none of us is a Millennial, we understand that the KonMari method is utter b0ll0cks.

 

That said, my parents' house was full. They've been there since '76, so their entire lives since then, and much of mine unto the third generation, was evident in the house and its attic, along with much of my deceased grandparents' lives. It's cumulative hording unto the third generation. 

 

It made me think. What it made me think was, I need a model railway executor for when my number's up.

 

This was the slow work of months, not least because I have a school-age sprog, two mentally school-aged dogs and a full-time job while my parents' gaff is 150 miles away. Latterly it became very pressured as we had an early offer and were being pressed to complete before Christmas. I narrowly missed that, did some more during the Christmas holidays, and when I returned to the house in early January with a week or so until exchange and completion, l found that a burst pipe had flooded both floors of the house at taken the ceilings down. This was not ideal. 

 

There was more packing and re-packing, a little soggier than before, then moving, then unloading here. This means that the large shed is now rammed with stuff, so nowhere for Castle Aching, and the overspill filled my reception rooms in the house. Again, not ideal. This last month has been spent clearing these rooms. Another couple of weeks and things will be to rights. I can certainly see the light at the end of this tunnel. And most of my sitting room.

 

Anyway, I haven't really had enough spoons for the job at any given point, so certainly no spoons left for modelling. 

 

The next task will be to go through the shed to determine the fate of each and every box until there is enough room to convert it to a railway room, albeit one with a lot of under-basedboard storage!

 

I do think that my little salvaged BLT might find room in the house, though, so I might revisit that.  

 

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I definitely approve of your signal box ideas, - but then I would wouldn't I  😄

 

Bear in mind though that those green and pale yellow colours are the invention of the Late & Never Early Railway and aren't GER colours at all, - oh dear me no.

 

As you know, I have a fondness for old scratch-built buildings. As little buildings are a my joy, I honour those folk who went before and cherish their models. I found what I thought was a very charismatic signal box on the Bay of Fleas. I don't recall much other interest in it and it was mine for £14. The model is in very reasonable nick, with really just the top of the stovepipe and some handrails to be replaced.  

 

I fancied it for Castle Aching, but decided that, regardless, I would use it somewhere on the layout. I had reviewed just about every model signal box going, but the style of this one just looked right in my eyes for the WNR. 

 

It features the three-by-three window pane arrangement that the Great Eastern finally adopted for their standardised design of 1886. For me the proportions of the windows seemed fair and I liked that the windows were in pairs, one inset, one set forward, so that the inner ones may slide behind the outer. This arrangement is also found on Saxby & Farmer boxes, such as Bearsted on the LC&DR and Combe Junc. on the Liskeard & Looe Railway. 

 

Thus, I can base the standard WNR type off this scratch-built prototype, using components from the Wills kit. The frontage of that kit could be shortened from 5 windows to the 4 of my model. It rather depends on how many lever frames each box is likely to need.     

 

As to the colour, yes, it is rather Late & Never Early Railway, and the WNR station colours are buffs and stone shades and such. That said, some pre-Grouping railways had it that the S&T department would do its own thing, so signal boxes were not always painted in the same colour scheme as station buildings. Green and cream/ivory is, of course, reflective of WNR livery and I had been wondering if it might apply these colours to its signalling infrastructure. 

 

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Northroader said:

Sorry to hear you’re having a bad patch (also miss T) hope things are picking up. As to signal box kits, I came across one maker on RMweb, and jotted it down for reference. No knowledge or experience of them, so anyway:

 

https://railmodel.co.uk/collections/frontpage

 

 

 

Thank you. 

 

Those are some lovely kits.

 

 

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm reminded of those Polish friends of mine who say that they were taught Russian in school, but did not learn it. I don't speak LNER myself but know enough to translate where necessary. But this all begs the question, what were WNR structure colours? Presumably the more-or-less ubiquitous two shades of brown? And did the WNR S&T Dept use them or have its own preferences? Or was the signalling contractor also responsible for maintenance?  

 

Ah, just seen this, but you have anticpated my response!

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Are trains approaching CA travelling in the up or the down direction (and is it the same on both routes)? Is CA the zero of the milepost mileage?

 

Err.....

 

Good question. Don't know. Up to the Birchoverhams and Down to CA, Bury and Norwich, or t'other way around?

 

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Do we take it that all arrivals and departures must be at the platform road?

 

Yes

 

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Which way is up?

  

The only way...

 

 

3 hours ago, Schooner said:

@Compound2632 A classic chronic illness analogy/management approach

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/01/14/spoon-theory-chronic-illness-spoonie/

 

with which I've picked up more familiarity over the past couple of years than I'd like. My sympathies James (and Annie, and us spooners all).

 

More incoming but for now, in case it helps parse the signalling requirements:

 

 

 

Thank you for your wishes and also for posting these. Very handy

[Donw]

Up and down on railways can be tricky for the major railways out from London down is away from London and Up is towards it.. For other railways up is generally towards  the important place they started from. 

However you get some odd results.  One of the oddest is Exeter where an Up SR train goes in the opposite direction to a GW Up train so if you ask which way is London both is the true answer.

Now I confess I cannot recall the History of the WNR at the moment but you have the some issues there say you decided that up was to Aching Constable from Castle Aching  and  the same from BM to AC.  Which ever you decide is up and down between CA and BM one of them will have up and down trains from the same direction.

 

As regards the signalling I will put down my thoughts.

 

Don

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Donw said:

Up and down on railways can be tricky for the major railways out from London down is away from London and Up is towards it.. For other railways up is generally towards  the important place they started from. 

 

Is not the convention simply that down is increasing milepost mileage and up decreasing milepost mileage? One goes up to the zeroth milepost. For the WNR, I imagine that ought to be CA as the fons et origo of the whole conception.

Edited April 11 by Compound2632

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Spoons and days. My parents' gaff needed sorting, packing up and the stuff moving out.

What a horrifying nightmare.  It must've seemed like an endless curse, - especially with that busted water pipe bringing down the ceilings and getting everything wet.

 

Now I'm considering my own jackdaw habits and looking around me in quiet horror in case I inflict the same on my own children.

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

As you know, I have a fondness for old scratch-built buildings. As little buildings are a my joy, I honour those folk who went before and cherish their models. I found what I thought was a very charismatic signal box on the Bay of Fleas. I don't recall much other interest in it and it was mine for £14. The model is in very reasonable nick, with really just the top of the stovepipe and some handrails to be replaced.  

Oh what a little treasure and definitely well worth rescuing.  As you say the colours are a match for the WNR carriage livery and it really would be a crime to attempt to repaint it.  By the look of it it has a modelled interior as well which is an absolute delight.

[Caley Jim]

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

By no means. LQ was well nigh universal up until well into the grouping period. The perception of GW exceptionalism in this respect is a classic example of looking back through a BR steam lens - always bound to fog the picture.

Fully agree there. In any case, the arms on your etch are too long to be GWR. There's were much shorter and stumpier. 

 

Jim 

[Andy Hayter]

11 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

By no means. LQ was well nigh universal up until well into the grouping period. The perception of GW exceptionalism in this respect is a classic example of looking back through a BR steam lens - always bound to fog the picture.

 

 

 

Which is perhaps a bit surprising given the Abbots Ripton disaster of 1876.  

Snow on signal arms (several in succession) set at danger,  weighted the arms so that they were forced down into a quasi open position.

 

Upper quadrant would be fail safe in the event of such a failure but it seems such a warning was ignored for many years.  

 

I wonder why the obvious lessons were not taken into account for 50 odd years.

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

14 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

Which is perhaps a bit surprising given the Abbots Ripton disaster of 1876.  

Snow on signal arms (several in succession) set at danger,  weighted the arms so that they were forced down into a quasi open position.

 

Upper quadrant would be fail safe in the event of such a failure but it seems such a warning was ignored for many years.  

 

I wonder why the obvious lessons were not taken into account for 50 odd years.

 

But at Abbots Ripton (on my reading of the report) there were a number of other factors at work, including the method of working by which signals were left at clear rather than normally at danger, the use of slotted posts, in which the signal arm could get stuck, and also the effect of the weight of snow and ice on the signal wires. It seems improbable that a lower quadrant arm standing normally at danger and counterbalanced by the balance weight would gain sufficient additional mass of snow to force it down.  

[Schooner]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Thank you for posting these.

 

Not at all, it was fun to revisit and re-check. The primary stations are now edited into the previous post - I think signalling for Doughton Abbey and the Aching Constable (North, or not!) Junction looks after itself?

 

Just to keep us/me on the pace, they were based on the routes ('tho not geometry) on the latest version of the scheme (I think):

[St Enodoc]

15 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Thanks, Annie, definitely a low spoon count in recent months.

Spoons? I reckon after what you've been through some bl00dy big ladles would be in order.

 

12 hours ago, Donw said:

However you get some odd results.  One of the oddest is Exeter where an Up SR train goes in the opposite direction to a GW Up train so if you ask which way is London both is the true answer.

This highlights the fact that, especially where you have junctions and especially especially where you have triangular junctions, the Up line can change to the Down line and vice versa. Further, the direction of lines and trains is not always the same (like those SR trains at both Exeter St Davids and Plymouth North Road).

 

9 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

the arms on your etch are too long to be GWR. There's were much shorter and stumpier

The GWR changed from 5' arms with built-up spectacle plates to 4' arms with cast spectacle plates sometime between the wars (can't find a precise reference at the moment) so the etch is probably correct.

[WFPettigrew]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

the Up line can change to the Down line and vice versa

 

Up Vs Down is perhaps overrated. The Furness Railway branches to Windermere Lake Side and to Coniston changed several times as to which way was Up! The main line was always Up towards Carnforth and by extension towards London. The Lake Side line had a triangular junction but the main access onto it was in the Up Direction, while the Coniston was from the Down, yet both were labelled the same Up or Down, changing depending on which Working Time Table you look at!

From a WNR point of view I don't think it matters regarding the signalling: the levers will be numbered from one at the left hand end of the box facing towards the track, with levers numbered from one for signalling movements left to right, then points and locks and the odd signal and spare, then at the right hand end the signals for moving right to left.

Edited April 12 by WFPettigrew
Spelling

[Compound2632]

The reason for the question "which way is up?" was prompted simply by the desire to be able to refer to signals as being for the up and down directions - up home, down starter, etc., rather than: "the starter signal for trains going from left to right on the plan"!

[Edwardian]

45 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The reason for the question "which way is up?" was prompted simply by the desire to be able to refer to signals as being for the up and down directions - up home, down starter, etc., rather than: "the starter signal for trains going from left to right on the plan"!

 

If the Bichoverhams to the North are Up, then everything else is Down?

 

Or the other way around!

[Northroader]

Up and Down was peculiar in South Wales, the Valley lines like the Taff Vale regarded them in accordance with the prevailing gradient, down through the valley towards the sea, but the lines absorbed into the GWR earlier on, such as the Llynfi and Ogmore, or the Monmouthshire, had the GWR thinking of down from London applied. The result was that up and down were opposite directions in adjacent valleys, and this stayed on into BR days. Then on the North to West line, the directions switched, a Plymouth to Manchester express was a down train as far as Hereford Barrs Court, then became an up train on to Shrewsbury.

[Compound2632]

Heck. I declare that the WNR mileage is measured from CA, so departures from thence by either the main or branch are down trains and arrivals are up. In which case, I believe one needs a pair of down starters at the platform end, one for the main and one for the branch, with down advance starters a train's length further on on both lines, so that shunting moves remain within station limits. There would be an up home on each line in rear of the junction, with up distants further out (offstage). Possibly outer homes, to protect moves within station limits up to the advance starters. Alternatively, shunting moves could be regarded as occupying the sections and the advance starters and outer homes dispensed with, though I'm not sure how that would work since the sections on both main and branch would be occupied. 

 

I doubt that at this period at a place of this sort there would be ground signals, shunting moves being controlled by hand signals.

Edited April 12 by Compound2632

[St Enodoc]

39 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Heck. I declare that the WNR mileage is measured from CA, so departures from thence by either the main or branch are down trains and arrivals are up. In which case, I believe one needs a pair of down starters at the platform end, one for the main and one for the branch, with down advance starters a train's length further on on both lines, so that shunting moves remain within station limits. There would be an up home on each line in rear of the junction, with up distants further out (offstage). Possibly outer homes, to protect moves within station limits up to the advance starters. Alternatively, shunting moves could be regarded as occupying the sections and the advance starters and outer homes dispensed with, though I'm not sure how that would work since the sections on both main and branch would be occupied. 

 

I doubt that at this period at a place of this sort there would be ground signals, shunting moves being controlled by hand signals.

There might be point indicators.

[Caley Jim]

You also had places like the Cathcart Circle where trains left Glasgow Central as up trains and became down trains as they ran round the circle and returned to Central. 

 

Jim