retrofiting signals - advice needed.

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

I have resumed work on a shelf layout of mine called west canal sidings. for those who havent seen the main thread some picture are attatched.

 

It is a fictional branchline roughly set in the mid to late sixties, operating a mix of steam and deisel. 

 

I want to add some signals to add realism and interest and want to know what people would recoomend. 

owing to limited height (the layout folds on itself and i dont think there is enough height for semaphores)  and space i am thinking of using coulor light signals, would this be acceptable for a 60s branchline probably a few miles from a larger town?

 

my current thoughts are dwarf light signals for the pointwork between the main and the sidings, stop signals at both tunnel/ bridge entrances and then simple hand throws/ ground frames for the rest of the points.

 

what colour signals would be realistic for 1964-66 ish and where would they go. im willing to flex rule one a little.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[5BarVT]

Simple signalling looking fairly new - at the fringes of one of those new panel type boxes being commissioned around then!

Colour light signal at the toes of the points on the platform just red/green with a subsidiary signal (two white lights) (offset to the left if you can).  Green into the tunnel, white into the yard.

Ground frame operating the “crossover” 3 levers Blue for FPL (and possibly also acting as release lever); black for points and red for the white lights.  Coming out of the sidings under instruction of the shunter.

And that’s it.  Works whether the line stops at the platform or goes on to somewhere else.

Paul.

P.S. If you want more, you could do, but you don’t actually need more than that.

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

I'll look I to the ground signal, sounds ideal. Would a full height green and red at the bridge end of the platform be OK too. To signal into the "fiddle stick" 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

46 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

 

Colour light signal at the toes of the points on the platform just red/green with a subsidiary signal (two white lights) (offset to the left if you can).  Green into the tunnel, white into the yard.

Sounds daft can you do a quick colour sketch of the signal heads just do I can check my understanding 

[PaulRhB]

I agree with Paul although I’d add another ground signal to protect the yard end point too from both directions (or possibly a stop board might be permissible?)

I’ve also added a second starter signal on the right as the line looks to continue?

Note the sub signal under the red on the left hand main aspect signal as Paul described. 

 

 

[Grovenor]

No need of those 2 ground position lights when the points are on a ground frame as all moves controlled by the shunter on the ground working the frame. The sub is only needed to permit passing the main red.

[PaulRhB]

2 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

No need of those 2 ground position lights when the points are on a ground frame as all moves controlled by the shunter on the ground working the frame. The sub is only needed to permit passing the main red.

You’d need the one on the left as an absolute minimum to exit from the yard onto the mainline. The other or a board is purely to protect the point from being run through as it isn’t just a headshunt. 
Never seen a shunter authorise moves out of a yard into the main with a hand signal. 

[5BarVT]

Thanks to PaulRHB for the sketch.

1 hour ago, 5BarVT said:

P.S. If you want more, you could do, but you don’t actually need more than that.

Which is what PaulRHB has done.  With two shunt signals inside you would probably not have a ground frame, but motor worked points all controlled from the remote panel.

 

19 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

I’ve also added a second starter signal on the right as the line looks to continue?

Again, part of ‘more if you want’ but not necessary to signal the line. (Some would argue that the driver needs to know if he is to stop and go back.  I argue that if he doesn’t know where his next working takes him he shouldn’t be driving!)

10 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

No need of those 2 ground position lights when the points are on a ground frame as all moves controlled by the shunter on the ground working the frame. The sub is only needed to permit passing the main red.

Agreed, which is why I did it that way.

:-)

Paul.

[PaulRhB]

Just now, 5BarVT said:

With two shunt signals inside you would probably not have a ground frame, but motor worked points all controlled from the remote panel.

Probably depends on region but we had twin ground signals protecting the yard end point on a GF at Andover and Dinton and a single at Quidhampton (it has no yard beyond just a trap).

[PaulRhB]

3 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

Again, part of ‘more if you want’ but not necessary to signal the line. (Some would argue that the driver needs to know if he is to stop and go back.  I argue that if he doesn’t know where his next working takes him he shouldn’t be driving!)

Yes the right hand main aspect could be further on in the section a mile or more away. A driver terminating there would as you say just change ends and return on the authority of the main aspect on the left. No requirement for a stop signal for a booked stop it if it’s mid section. 

[5BarVT]

5 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Never seen a shunter authorise moves out of a yard into the main with a hand signal. 

Depends which part of the country you come from!

With a simple trailing GF on a double line all moves in and out are under the authority of the shunter.  If it’s a shut in GF, other trains may have passed in the interim, so the aspect on the signal when entering the section to use the GF cannot have any relevance.  O.K., it’s different here as it comes out onto a single line, but us (cheapskate?) WR 60s types had a clever trick that when taking the release to come out, route lights (and locking) were triggered.  If the train reversed after coming out, they just died as the train departed.

And for a new or resignalled installation these days PaulRHB would be right with a signal coming out.
Apologies to the OP for going a bit off topic with professional detail.

Paul.

[PaulRhB]

14 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

And for a new or resignalled installation these days PaulRHB would be right with a signal coming out.
Apologies to the OP for going a bit off topic with professional detail.

No it’s an interesting regional and era detail  When they resignalled Basingstoke in 2008 the dummies did go on the panel leaving just a single lever groundframe but before that the old multi lever ground frame at Andover had those on it and you as the gf operator cleared the signals for the mainline crossover and in and out of the yard.

Unfortunately I can’t find one of the diagram in the GF from those days but this move onto the main was signalled from the GF, I guess that’s either a SReg. thing or 70’s addition and I’ll try to find out if I can find the old diagrams. 

So the Southern obviously did it differently to the Western in the 70’s and 80’s resignalling if they never put yard exits on a gf, I wonder what happened on the Midland and Eastern though?

I’ll see if I can find more on George Pryers diagrams for the earlier Southern signalling as my experiences have mostly been with GF’s installed in 70’s and 80’s so it will be interesting to compare. 
This is the still extant Grimstead frame that still has the siding exit lever 4 on the gf even though it’s now disconnected. 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by PaulRhB

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Probably depends on region but we had twin ground signals protecting the yard end point on a GF at Andover and Dinton and a single at Quidhampton (it has no yard beyond just a trap).

I think the critical thing here - as has become apparent from various remarks above is that if we are talking mid 1960s resignalling with colour lights then practice varied very considerably between the BR Regions.   Thus you could do it with no signals at all and a two lever ground frame working the connection to the yard (very much what the WR would have done) right through various permutations up to the sketch drawn by Paul RhB  which is almost how the SR would have done it - a STOP board being more likely than a second GPL I think).

 

The OP would is obviously only be well advised to read and consider what others have already said in this thread but it might well prove useful to look out some prototype examples from the area the model is set in because that could well give it an identity.  And that's before we even talk about differences (considerable) in the colours used by the different Regions for painting colour light signals, including GPLs, at that time

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Thank you so much for the help. 

 

I realise I may never find a truly realistic solution however I feel woth the advice given I can add some lights to both add interest and aid operation. 

 

 I have the main signal for entering the tunnel and two ground signals protecting entering and leaving the yard. 

 

A starter at the other end of the platform-this will also aid me in remembering if I have or haven't got the fiddle stick attached and when I have parked something on it already. 

 

A three lever gf for the crossing and signals and then a simple lever throw at the rest of the points. 

 

I may well add the recommended stop board if I want to go belt and braces. 

 

 

Is this layout reasonable? Again this project is highly fictional and only has loose regional basing... the track plan is not nesescarily realistic anyway and is only intended for fun shunting puzzle operation but I feel signals are key to add extra interest. 

 

 

 

 

[PaulRhB]

Yes as we’ve established the solutions were rather varied, but as long as you know that when someone says, “you wouldn’t do it like that on the xxx region”, it’s not really a problem  

[bécasse]

8 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

I think the critical thing here - as has become apparent from various remarks above is that if we are talking mid 1960s resignalling with colour lights then practice varied very considerably between the BR Regions.   Thus you could do it with no signals at all and a two lever ground frame working the connection to the yard (very much what the WR would have done) right through various permutations up to the sketch drawn by Paul RhB  which is almost how the SR would have done it - a STOP board being more likely than a second GPL I think).

 

The OP would is obviously only be well advised to read and consider what others have already said in this thread but it might well prove useful to look out some prototype examples from the area the model is set in because that could well give it an identity.  And that's before we even talk about differences (considerable) in the colours used by the different Regions for painting colour light signals, including GPLs, at that time

I have to disagree in respect of Southern Region practice. Very little of the SR was equipped with colour light signals in the mid-1960s, schemes were either close to London, the Brighton Line (1930s scheme) or parts of recently electrified Kent. A single line branch like this definitely wouldn't have had colour lights and the "signalling" would almost certainly have been exactly what Mike Romans suggests for the WR - viz a 2-lever ground frame (without ANY signals), the only difference from the WR would be that a "Stevens" knee frame would have been used because that was standard SR practice. ("Stevens" because that company allowed their patent to expire and subsequently the LSWR, SR and BR(S) thereafter bought the basic components from whichever company offered them at the lowest price - on the ground, many were actually mongrels, put together from whatever was in the stores at the time.)

[The Stationmaster]

Couple of things about SR schemes from the early 1960s.  There were examples on all three Divisions in the early '60s (I've looked at 1962 -65 where ground frame worked siding connections (all on double lines) had fixed signals, in the shape of a ground disc or semaphore, to read out onto the running line but no fixed signal to read into the siding from the running line.    The SR of course doesn't appear to have started to use GPLs instead of electrically worked discs until the South Western schemes in 1966 but they followed the same principal - no signal reading in, signal reading out - except at what could more properly be called 'shunting frames' where signals did read in being slotted or operated accordingly.  In one case there was a position light signal to read into the sidings mounted on a semaphore signal for the main route.

 

That was the exact opposite of the most common contemporaneous WR practice where a signal (usually slotted) was used to read into sidings in some situations where there were other signals on the vicinity but no signal was used to read out.  But even then there were exceptions to that - for example Sonning Down Siding GF had no signals at all for a trailing siding connection but Sonning Up Siding GF (commissioned on the same day, also for a trailing siding connection) had a slotted siding reading in but no signal reading out on the Up Relief Line. 

[5BarVT]

9 hours ago, Horsehay Railway Modeller said:

A three lever gf for the crossing and signals

With a signal to come in and another out, you need four levers.

Your track layout is actually reasonably realistic and the signals will add a nice touch.

Paul.

[dave55uk]

Unrelated to the OP's question, but can you tell me please @horsehay where that little station building came from?

[bécasse]

The BR(S) started to use GPLs in the Kent Coast schemes of 1959 as Sittingbourne box and the Sheerness branch definitely had them (I have my own photos to prove it) but I am not certain that motor-discs weren't used at some of the other boxes in that scheme. Motor-discs were definitely used at Cannon Street (new box December 1957). GPLs were used in the 1962 Kent schemes even though junction indicators were still 3-lamp SR ones (the first 5-lamp one that I noted was a replacement at Lewisham c1965). However, with the very special exception of the Sheerness branch, they were all double-track routes, and the Southern Region simply wouldn't have got the financial authorisation to install colour lights on a single track branch line at that era, a requirement to formulate a closure proposal would have been the most likely response to a request (and, indeed, the majority of such lines did close in the early 1960s). A small yard on a single track branch would have been worked using an Annett's Key on the staff (or equivalent arrangement with the more likely Tyer's token) to unlock the ground frame, with signals neither required nor provided.

 

I forgot to mention before that the knee frame might well have been in a small hut of pregrouping design but certainly could have been free-standing, exposed to the elements.

[Grovenor]

Plenty of ground frames, and shunting frames here,

http://www.norgrove.me.uk/signalling/plans/Derby.gif

Shunting frames are repurposed signal boxes so the operator is not on the ground with the train so signals are needed. For ground frames there are generally no signals as the required interlocking conditions are included in the ground frame release so getting the points reverse requires it to be proved safe to enter the main line.

At least one on the above plan has a main signal close to the point toe with a subsidiary provided, worked by the GF, to pass the red exactly as suggested above, (Sunny Hill East Frame, release 922).

[5BarVT]

Apologies for the sideways photo, haven’t learnt how to rotate on the tablet.  This is a typical early 60s: this one is Perth (ScR) but WR at Reading (1965) were the same design, though perhaps not quite as tall.

2 lever and 3 lever GFs at Temple Meads (commissioned 1970).

 

TM photos were taken in 2018, back in the day the tops of the levers might have been painted silver (aluminium) not white.

Paul.

Edited April 3, 2022 by 5BarVT
Reload photos

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

4 hours ago, dave55uk said:

Unrelated to the OP's question, but can you tell me please @horsehay where that little station building came from?

Much more detail on the main thread but it is an old Hornby scale Dale building that I have cut in half and re painted. 

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/155768-west-canal-sidings-university-portable-shelf-layout

 

 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

Thank you for all of the input I can know start looking at implementing some ideas on the layout and I'll post some updates when I get around to purchasing signals in a few weeks. 

[Horsehay Railway Modeller]

I wasn't going to order them for a while however due to lead times I'm thinking of ordering some custom signals soon ish. 

 

For the bridge end of the platform what type of pole would be used? Would it be offset or would I get away with a normal post