00 gauge colour light signaling

[Luke Palmer]

Hi all,

 

I’m in need of some help regarding signalling for my 00 gauge railway.

 

I’m not very knowledgable when it comes to signalling, as you will gather, but please bare with me.

 

I would like to know,

What aspect signal should I have?

Where should I have a feather signal?

Where do I put shunt signals

 

Any information would be a great help

 

Many thanks,

Luke

[beast66606]

We will need a track plan, what era and what company you are modelling to start.

[Luke Palmer]

This is my track plan, excuse the numbers/letters they were for something else.

I don’t have an era/company as I collect steam and Diesel & electric locomotives

[Luke Palmer]

I’m still in need of help.

Any questions please ask

[Free At Last]

I'm surprised that none of the signalling experts have come to help yet.

Placing your signals in the right place will give a more prototypical look and feel to your layout and you have done right by coming here and asking for help.

Maybe with it being the run up to Christmas they are busy with other things but I'm sure they will be back to show where you need to place your signals.

Like you, I am not very knowledgeable in that area either.

[imt]

Well it might be Christmas, or it might just be that there is no information to go on. Like no dimensions no indication of stations/freight facilities or whatever.  Both outer loops are marked to run the same way, the inner loop is marked as both ways.  Thus it apparently breaks a few rules to start with.  Trains drive on the left - so there is an unusual facing crossover middle right (but those lines are marked as same direction?). The bit marked "helix", is that out and back on the 2 lines shown (In which case left out right back would be usual) or a separate return on the two things that look like buffer stops middle centre?  Is the crossed line in the middle a crossing on the flat or a bridge?

 

Sorry but even the amateurs cannot help without a better diagram and some description of what goes where and direction of running etc.

[Luke Palmer]

 

Right so here is my updated track plan.

 

Red - Mainline (LOCOS RUN BOTH WAYS)

Green - Sidings

Purple - Track to helix

Orange - Track to Lower Level

 

I don’t have any Stations on this part of my layout

 

Thanks

[Junctionmad]

This is a duplicate thread

 

This is a 10 x10 layout , and almost impossible to signal in any prototypical manner , you could place a few " scenic " signals in front of a few junctions etc , but that's about the height of it

[Dungrange]

I agree with Junctionmad, a three track mainline is unusual, apart from on the Island of Sodor (I always thought that when watching Tomas the Tank engine, which also had three track lines) and even more strange that all the mainlines seem to be bi-directional.  Apart from single track branch lines and the approaches to busy termini, bi-directional operation isn't that common because it would seriously reduce capacity.  It makes more sense for all trains on one line to proceed in the same direction.  Therefore, since it would appear that genuinely prototypical operation is probably unlikely, I wouldn't worry too much about prototypical signalling.

 

I'd say three aspect colour light signals would be the most common and therefore best as a scenic representation of signals, but it's up to you.  Feathers indicate a diverging route, so would appear on approach to a facing point on the mainline - ie when signalled for the mainline the feather would not be lit, but when signalled for the diverging route, the feather would be lit and indicates the direction of the diverging movement.  That is, a feather pointing to the left indicates that the diverging route is to the left.

 

For shunt signals, either omit these entirely, or put them at a point where you envisage having to give a driver undertaking a shunting movement an instruction either to stop or proceed.  Controlling access from your sidings would probably be the most appropriate location for these signals.

[Luke Palmer]

Thanks everyone for your input, I’ll try and put a signalling plan together for my layout.

[DCB]

You need to decide which era you are working in. The earliest colour light signals simply replaced semaphore signals on a 1 for 1 basis, these did not have feathers and were often yellow/ green Distants and red/green Homes/ Starters etc.    These would be normally kept at Red or Yellow except when a train was coming.

Later systems in BR Diesel days were robotic and each signal generally had red/green/yellow lamps and were green until a train passed going Red then yellow (or yellow- yellow/yellow) finally green in sequence as the train passed further signals.    Your track while unusual for the UK could well run the later type signals, just dot them around randomly as BR does, Junction signals would be in the next room if not three doors down the road at scale spacings so forget them and set up an automatic system based on Irdot or some such to change the signals from green to red when a train passes and then to yellow and back to green.  Simple but expensive.   I abandoned my system when I realised it was going to cost more than my car.  My present system has change over microswitches for each (of a few token)  two aspect signals and I just press the switch extension lever as the train approaches to turn it green and let go to return to red.

Edited December 30, 2017 by DavidCBroad

[FPH 603]

Hope nobody minds if I crash this thread, but I model the BR North Eastern Region in the mid 1970's to the early 1980's. What sort of signalling was used at that period?

[beast66606]

Your track while unusual for the UK could well run the later type signals, just dot them around randomly as BR does,

 

Really ?

[beast66606]

Hope nobody minds if I crash this thread, but I model the BR North Eastern Region in the mid 1970's to the early 1980's. What sort of signalling was used at that period?

 

Google your chosen area for images and see what was around - some places had early installations and some had been recently modernised - some still had semaphores.

[DCB]

DavidCBroad, on 30 Dec 2017 - 04:49, said:

Your track while unusual for the UK could well run the later type signals, just dot them around randomly as BR does,

Really ?

 

Colour light signal spacing is usually by distance unlike Semaphore which was usually by station or within a mile or so of a signalbox so signals seldom line up with anything like station platforms any more and splitting junction signals are usually so far back from the fouling point of the junction that they would be at the far end of the Hall in 00 at the average exhibition. Equally bizarrely at some congested places stop signals are beyond the fouling point so they can be hung from a nice gantry.

[beast66606]

 

DavidCBroad, on 30 Dec 2017 - 04:49, said:

 

Colour light signal spacing is usually by distance unlike Semaphore which was usually by station or within a mile or so of a signalbox so signals seldom line up with anything like station platforms any more and splitting junction signals are usually so far back from the fouling point of the junction that they would be at the far end of the Hall in 00 at the average exhibition. Equally bizarrely at some congested places stop signals are beyond the fouling point so they can be hung from a nice gantry.

 

Colour light signalling is usually by speed and required headway along with other considerations like sighting, speed control for junctions - distance is implied by speed and headway but it's not the main driver.

 

Not sure what you mean about signals beyond the fouling point, however there can be restricted overlaps or controls on previous signals so that points are within the overlap (sic) or within the route.

 

There are plenty of examples of colour lights near to junction points and plenty far away from junction points and are we talking approaching the divergence or the convergence ? 

200yds overlap is about 2.5m from the points, so not exactly the other end of the hall, a mile would be around 21 - which in hall terms is not huge.

[St. Simon]

Hi David,

 

You must be working on an entirely different set of rules for colour light signalling than I design to in my working life, no signal is placed randomly as you claim!

 

Colour light signal spacing is usually by distance unlike Semaphore which was usually by station or within a mile or so of a signalbox 

 

As Beast says Colour lights are spaced according to braking distance, speed, required headway, sighting and other rules. Semaphores (Distants to Stop Signals) were also spaced according to these rules as well.

 

so signals seldom line up with anything like station platforms any more 

 

I completely failure to understand this comment, if you go down to most stations in the country, there will be a signal at the end of the platform!

 

Equally bizarrely at some congested places stop signals are beyond the fouling point so they can be hung from a nice gantry.

 

 NO Main Aspect signal is positioned beyond the fouling point or clearance point, simple as. It is true that we true to make signals parallel so we can put them on a single structure, but we don't position them to evoke a wrong side failure. 

 

Simon

[iands]

Hope nobody minds if I crash this thread, but I model the BR North Eastern Region in the mid 1970's to the early 1980's. What sort of signalling was used at that period?

The BR North Eastern Region covered a very large area, so just about any type of signalling could be found depending on where were at the time. Can you be more specific with a location or line?

 

Regards, Ian.

[FPH 603]

I had a little look around, and I found majority of the area I model still had semaphores in 1981. Scarborough had some colour light signals in the station itself at around 1972, so it is mixed up. Although I think I'll go with the semaphores, as coming to think of it, to me it makes more sense to have semaphores for the semi rural area I model.

[iands]

I had a little look around, and I found majority of the area I model still had semaphores in 1981. Scarborough had some colour light signals in the station itself at around 1972, so it is mixed up. Although I think I'll go with the semaphores, as coming to think of it, to me it makes more sense to have semaphores for the semi rural area I model.

Most of the "rural" signal boxes of the BR(NE) in that period had a mixture of semaphore and colourlight signals, and retained them in that format for many years, even well into the 2000s. I would imagine this was pretty much the same on all regions, in fact some still exist today. I think you're on fairly safe ground to provide both semaphore and colourlight on your model for this period.

 

Regards, Ian.