A new signal to me.

[St. Simon]

Hi,

 

I'm not saying that they are necessarily the right people to sign off, it's just that designers do there best to work with everyone to get the right outcome.

 

Simon

[Reorte]

As for an opinion -We haven't any of the fold down signals yet on our patch, but it would certainly avoid the huge furore we are currently going through about working at height on signal structures by removing the need to work at height and following the first rule of working at height - to remove the need to work at height wherever possible.

But saying all that I'm still a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to signal structure design and the 'type' of light they should emit.

That's the direction everything seems to push in but is there really any meaningful risk with a signal ladder (at least if you're not in an overhead electrified area)? I appreciate that you're not going to get the rules changed and made specific (they were moved away from that direction for very good reasons) but it all sounds like it's resulting in a slightly absurd result.

 

As for how they look, just different to most colour lights IMO, no better or worse (I actually thought the banner repeater had a slightly old-fashioned look to it that I can't quite put my finger on).

[TheSignalEngineer]

.....................................

I know of two people who have risen to very 'senior' ( a word I use advisedly) positions in TOCs who wouldn't even know if a signalling plan is the right way up let alone understand its contents.  One of them would no doubt immediately admit his lack of experience in dealing with such stuff because he is BR era and realises his limits and need for expert advice, the other most definitely would not because he hasn't got the first idea (as instanced by comments from another poster some time back on a thread about a totally different matter).  Sign off by operarting companies bears no resemblance at all to the old BR operating dept sign-off (although that anyway covered a wider range that TOC matters).

 

We also hear of changes to approved schemes, being made to  by Project Managers - some of whom have no railway operating or any sort of engineering experience at all - although that ought not to include changes to signalling.

From the inception of Railtrack I worked on only two projects where I had complete respect for the Project Manager. In the one case at his first meeting on taking over from the BR incumbent he gathered the engineering disciplines reps together in private, track, civils, signalling, telecomms and OLE plus the Operating liaison man. He told us "I know f*** all about railway engineering, that's your job to sort out. I'll deal with all of the politics and Sponsor." The job was a great success. The other was a person who had many years experience in a railway engineering discipline then going on into project planning and management at Regional and Sector level. 

[big jim]

An example of people on the ground not being listened to, I recently rode with a passenger driver who is on the signal sighting committee and dealt with the stafford resignalling, he spotted a flaw in the signalling which he addressed to the designers, installers, whoever and was told it's too late down the line and too costly to change

 

Basically from a certain platform you can get an S indication to take you towards the slow line however there are 2 crossovers, one at 40mph direct to the slow at the platform end and another at 30mph accessed by running along the fast line for a short distance (300m or so from the platform end), that route can't show F or the driver could think he was continuing on the fast and begin accellerating beyond 30mph then sudenly hit the crossover at too high speed when he suddenly crossed to the slow so if you get an S there the only indication you get as to which route you are taking to the slow is by looking at the point blades at the end of the platform!

[St. Simon]

An example of people on the ground not being listened to, I recently rode with a passenger driver who is on the signal sighting committee and dealt with the stafford resignalling, he spotted a flaw in the signalling which he addressed to the designers, installers, whoever and was told it's too late down the line and too costly to change

Basically from a certain platform you can get an S indication to take you towards the slow line however there are 2 crossovers, one at 40mph direct to the slow at the platform end and another at 30mph accessed by running along the fast line for a short distance (300m or so from the platform end), that route can't show F or the driver could think he was continuing on the fast and begin accellerating beyond 30mph then sudenly hit the crossover at too high speed when he suddenly crossed to the slow so if you get an S there the only indication you get as to which route you are taking to the slow is by looking at the point blades at the end of the platform!

If both routes are signalled moves then there should be two route indications, even if it's to the same destination, if a driver came to me with that, I and all of the designers in my office would of stood up and said about the problem, we would of worked out a solution somehow.

 

If there aren't signalled routes over both routes, then there is no problem, sometimes there are things that seem to be problems, but aren't, but either way, he should not of been totally ignored.

 

I totally understand that there are some people who don't listen, who do ignore drivers, but people shouldn't be so quick to label everyone 'in the office' thus so.

 

Simon

[TheSignalEngineer]

Basically from a certain platform you can get an S indication to take you towards the slow line however there are 2 crossovers, one at 40mph direct to the slow at the platform end and another at 30mph accessed by running along the fast line for a short distance (300m or so from the platform end), that route can't show F or the driver could think he was continuing on the fast and begin accellerating beyond 30mph then sudenly hit the crossover at too high speed when he suddenly crossed to the slow so if you get an S there the only indication you get as to which route you are taking to the slow is by looking at the point blades at the end of the platform!

 

Sounds like extremely poor specification at the initial scheme development stage. If they both couldn't be 40mph it would be safer (and cheaper) to make both 30mph.

[43110andyb]

That's the direction everything seems to push in but is there really any meaningful risk with a signal ladder (at least if you're not in an overhead electrified area)? I appreciate that you're not going to get the rules changed and made specific (they were moved away from that direction for very good reasons) but it all sounds like it's resulting in a slightly absurd result.

 

As for how they look, just different to most colour lights IMO, no better or worse (I actually thought the banner repeater had a slightly old-fashioned look to it that I can't quite put my finger on).

The problem with a fixed ladder signal structure is that it's mandatory on Network Rail to wear full harness equipment, this includes rescue kit and rescue plan and at least 2 fully trained staff on site and a third person to aid in contacting/meeting emergency services if required.

All these recent legislation changes have caused a headache with man power and logistics for working on signal structures.

A few years ago it was shin up the ladder get the fault fixed and get the kettle on, now it's a different kettle of fish unfortunately.

[Grovenor]

All these recent legislation changes

It is not legislation changes, the legislation on working at height has not changed for years, it is the management attitude to it.

Personally I would think that full harness is likely to increase the risks by making the job cumbersome.

regards

[43110andyb]

It is not legislation changes, the legislation on working at height has not changed for years, it is the management attitude to it.

Personally I would think that full harness is likely to increase the risks by making the job cumbersome.

regards

Sorry, yes I did mean railway legislation, we have been trained for several years now but your right management/RMT have upped the requirements needed with the introduction of a working at height steering groups to grind out the unanswered questions that had existed.

[The Stationmaster]

It is not legislation changes, the legislation on working at height has not changed for years, it is the management attitude to it.

Personally I would think that full harness is likely to increase the risks by making the job cumbersome.

regards

 

Something in that I think.  Interestingly one result of the Working At Height regs has been the addition of 'safety cages' to many ladders - bringing in new injury risks and actually resulting in a higher rate of injury than was the case before they existed.  Hooking-on makes a degree of sense to me but that's about it and I'd love to see the real figures for railway industry injuries incurred as a result of people falling off signal ladders (there don't seem to be any crystal clear statistics so it is impossible to quantitively asses the risk based on historical data AFAIK).

 

The worry for me with the various fold down signals and sundry other changes (we've had a totally daft one on our branch) is that somebody seems to have rather lost the plot about the purpose of lineside signals - they are there to enforce separation of trains from each other and from other things such asa  route not correctly set.  That should always be their first and foremost function and everything else in their design and construction and cost (and maintenance) should be absolutely subordinate to that primary function.

[russ p]

From the inception of Railtrack I worked on only two projects where I had complete respect for the Project Manager. In the one case at his first meeting on taking over from the BR incumbent he gathered the engineering disciplines reps together in private, track, civils, signalling, telecomms and OLE plus the Operating liaison man. He told us "I know f*** all about railway engineering, that's your job to sort out. I'll deal with all of the politics and Sponsor." The job was a great success. The other was a person who had many years experience in a railway engineering discipline then going on into project planning and management at Regional and Sector level.

 

I find these days I meet very few people on the railway which I have respect for.

In BR days there were a lot of managers and engineers which were master's of their crafts and people genuinely respected them

[Bon Accord]

It is not legislation changes, the legislation on working at height has not changed for years, it is the management attitude to it.

Personally I would think that full harness is likely to increase the risks by making the job cumbersome.

regards

 

To quote part of the Work at Height Regulations 2005:

 

A personal fall protection system shall be used only if—

 

(a)a risk assessment has demonstrated that—

(i)the work can so far as is reasonably practicable be performed safely while using that system; and

(ii)the use of other, safer work equipment is not reasonably practicable; and

 

(b)the user and a sufficient number of available persons have received adequate training specific to the operations envisaged, including rescue procedures.

 

In a nutshell: if work at height cannot be accomplished from an existing safe space or suitably risk assessed medium (e.g. cherry picker, rope access) then assuming it has been deemed safe/risks are ALARP then harnesses must be worn, with those undertaking the job trained in WAH procedures, equipment and rescue.

It has of course taken a number of employers some time to appreciate their legal obligations, but that's exactly what they are.

[43110andyb]

Something in that I think.  Interestingly one result of the Working At Height regs has been the addition of 'safety cages' to many ladders - bringing in new injury risks and actually resulting in a higher rate of injury than was the case before they existed.  Hooking-on makes a degree of sense to me but that's about it and I'd love to see the real figures for railway industry injuries incurred as a result of people falling off signal ladders (there don't seem to be any crystal clear statistics so it is impossible to quantitively asses the risk based on historical data AFAIK).

 

The worry for me with the various fold down signals and sundry other changes (we've had a totally daft one on our branch) is that somebody seems to have rather lost the plot about the purpose of lineside signals - they are there to enforce separation of trains from each other and from other things such asa  route not correctly set.  That should always be their first and foremost function and everything else in their design and construction and cost (and maintenance) should be absolutely subordinate to that primary function.

that's exactly what everyone affected by the introduction of harnesses asked "how many accidents/incidents of people falling of structures has their been?", as you say, no statistics can tell us. Seems the solution to a problem that didn't exist????

I doubt we will ever see folding signals up here (never say never) and I think even more rules and regulations will surround the dropping of a signal to complete faulting/maintenance, creating more mine fields.

[Dunsignalling]

The problem with a fixed ladder signal structure is that it's mandatory on Network Rail to wear full harness equipment, this includes rescue kit and rescue plan and at least 2 fully trained staff on site and a third person to aid in contacting/meeting emergency services if required.

All these recent legislation changes have caused a headache with man power and logistics for working on signal structures.

A few years ago it was shin up the ladder get the fault fixed and get the kettle on, now it's a different kettle of fish unfortunately.

It has been known to get pretty daft regarding signal post ladders and it's not a brand-new problem.

 

Before the West-of-England line recontrol of 2012, certain of the colour light signals at Honiton were mounted on ex-GWR tubular signal posts. It seems there had been an abundance of brand new ones discovered at Reading in the late sixties when the line was singled.

 

Some (though not all) of these were fitted with the GWR pattern ladders intended for such posts which, IIRC, were only 9" wide and a prohibition had been placed on climbing them for safety reasons.

 

The best example was the post for what used to be H2/4, a three aspect home with feathers for the route into the loop and approach control for both routes. In order for this signal to be serviced, the procedure was to send a road/rail cherry picker down on a transporter from somewhere in the Midlands, do the job in a T3 possession, then send it back. Not a cheap operation.

 

Having parked the cherry picker alongside, the tech began work and after a while, contacted me to request a proceed aspect so he could check that out too. This I had to decline because the cherry picker was activating the track circuit and prevented the signal from being cleared. 

 

The solution arrived at was for the tech to climb from the cherry picker onto the signal so that the machine could be moved clear and he could do the necessary. After he'd finished, the cherry picker would be moved back alongside the signal to permit him to dismount.

 

We all considered this to be a darned sight more hazardous than climbing the ladder but what do I know? I'm not a trained safety assessor..............

 

John

[TheSignalEngineer]

An example of people on the ground not being listened to, I recently rode with a passenger driver who is on the signal sighting committee and dealt with the stafford resignalling, he spotted a flaw in the signalling which he addressed to the designers, installers, whoever and was told it's too late down the line and too costly to change

 

Basically from a certain platform you can get an S indication to take you towards the slow line however there are 2 crossovers, one at 40mph direct to the slow at the platform end and another at 30mph accessed by running along the fast line for a short distance (300m or so from the platform end), that route can't show F or the driver could think he was continuing on the fast and begin accellerating beyond 30mph then sudenly hit the crossover at too high speed when he suddenly crossed to the slow so if you get an S there the only indication you get as to which route you are taking to the slow is by looking at the point blades at the end of the platform!

Working from what is in the Sectional Appendix, I'm not sure I can identify the move you are talking about, is it at the North end of P3?  

[big jim]

Yes, that's the one

[big jim]

Looking at the speeds Ive got them slightly wrong it's 25mph from platform 3 to the down slow direct and 40mph down to 30mph via the down fast, I think in reality they only use the 25mph move, when I get home I'll try and find the yellow peril for the resignalling

[TheSignalEngineer]

The 25mph move would be the logical one. The other would block through moves on the Down Fast, moves from P1 to the Down Fast, Up Slow to Up Fast and Up Slow to P1. It would not enable any extra parallel moves to take place by routing a train that way, so it would not be clever to put it in the interlocking. It can also be a nightmare for electrical isolation purposes.

 

In the days of Westpac Geographical Interlockings where all moves were inherently available we would have inhibited this route. A colleague of mine missed a similar one during an alteration at New Street and we only spotted it during Testers Playtime just before signing in. Designing, installing and testing a modification to a Westpac interlocking against the clock at 5am on a Monday morning isn't fun, Fortunately no commuters were delayed in this case. 

[phil-b259]

If both routes are signalled moves then there should be two route indications, even if it's to the same destination, if a driver came to me with that, I and all of the designers in my office would of stood up and said about the problem, we would of worked out a solution somehow.

 

If there aren't signalled routes over both routes, then there is no problem, sometimes there are things that seem to be problems, but aren't, but either way, he should not of been totally ignored.

 

I totally understand that there are some people who don't listen, who do ignore drivers, but people shouldn't be so quick to label everyone 'in the office' thus so.

 

Simon

 

As I have said before Simon, this is not  the case in all areas of the network. Both the 2010ish Platform 7 resignalling work at Gatwick and earlier mid 1980s era signalling at Three Bridges have examples that counter your assertion that every different route should be accompanied by its own separate indicator. In the case of Gatwick, a single feather can take you into any of 3 platforms while at Three Bridges a single feather can take you through a 30mph or 20mph crossover to get to the same platform.

 

Thats not to say that the principle you state is wrong (its actually very logical) - but clearly others outside your design office don't / haven't feel the same way.

[royaloak]

So are these the "pigs ears", the little group of LEDs on the right hand side of the the head?  And why called such?

 

R 20130710_143045.jpg Y 20130710_143134.jpg  G 20130710_143023.jpg GJ 20130710_143023.jpg

They are (sort of) but they are now designed into all LED heads (either as a pigs ear or a hot strip) because the driver will lose sight of the signal as he/she gets closer to it (not close just closer), it is a way of solving a problem that wouldnt exist if the signals were designed correctly in the first place.

[royaloak]

My final concern is how they will stand up to snow being driven against them although I presume this had been tested before they were approved for use?

You would think, I couldnt possibly post my views! 

[royaloak]

Pigs ears are an old solution to the problem of close up indication, for the most part they were replaced by lenses with a built in 'hotstrip' which diverted part of the main beam to become the close up indication.

Regards

But now they are fitting hot strips to every signal to cure a problem that shouldnt exist.

[HillsideDepot]

Another way of doing it - presumably because the limited platform length at Penzance means that the cab often has to be very close to the signal http://www.railsigns.uk/photos/p_clsig2/pic_mcus.jpg 
 

[Reorte]

The problem with a fixed ladder signal structure is that it's mandatory on Network Rail to wear full harness equipment, this includes rescue kit and rescue plan and at least 2 fully trained staff on site and a third person to aid in contacting/meeting emergency services if required.

All these recent legislation changes have caused a headache with man power and logistics for working on signal structures.

A few years ago it was shin up the ladder get the fault fixed and get the kettle on, now it's a different kettle of fish unfortunately.

Is that to justify the risk or the rules though, because on the face of it it sounds like the type of absurd over-the-top situation that makes me roll my eyes at them. I appreciate that I'm not the person on the ground going up ladders so there's probably all sorts of practical stuff that I'm unaware of, and a long history of people falling off signals and getting hurt or worse. There were some pretty tall semaphore signals back in the day that I wouldn't have liked to climb unprotected on a windy day but I don't think anyone's gone for 50' tall colour lights!

[royaloak]

 

 

 

No, I don't have an idealised view of the railway, there are things I don't agree with on the railway, and it's not perfect, I'll happily agree with that.

 

Simon

I wasnt having a 'pop' at you, sorry if you thought I was (I would say I was having a 'vent' in your general direction   ) and as you are on this forum you obviously have an interest that goes beyond the day job!

 

But signals are close to my heart (because getting them wrong could have serious repercussions about my ability to pay my mortgage) and these things just dont appear to have had any thought about the 'end user' in their design, for example, on 4 aspect heads the 2 lens are so much closer together they can blend in from a distance and when you go from 3 to 4 aspects it can be difficult to see if that first 4 aspect head is single or double yellow, something that never* happened with proper signals because the 2 yellow aspects are further apart than their modern equivalent.

 

* you should never say never because there is always an exception!