signaling help

[jimmer]

Please can somebody offer some advice as to where I should place the signals on my layout. I thought I would be original and model the GWR in the 1930s. Thanks

[jimmer]

Sorry about the size of the thumbnail thought it would be bigger and can't work out how to make it any bigger. For those who need to know there is about 2ft of track to the left of the crossing. Thanks chaps

[Coombe Barton]

Question - how is freight handled? You have a cattle doc bot no obvious goods shed. And teh bay platform - is it a bay, handling passenger traffic, or something else?

 

And when you ask for signalling - do you want full signalling? (that was a bit of a trick question)

[The Stationmaster]

Is it a through station or is that a longish headshunt for locos to run round at the right hand end?

 

PS it's easy to make it bigger now it's posted - just click on it

[jimmer]

Thanks for your interest chaps. The bay will have a goods shed either over it or a building near it to handle the freight, I dont have enough stock to use it as a platform. The station itself will be a terminus with everything entering and leaving from the left handside,

To be honest signalling is a bit of a blind spot for me, so any information about where it should go will be gladly received.

 

 

[Coombe Barton]

This is going to be marked by Mike the Stationmaster as he's the expert and is teaching me how to signal, so please excuse using your thread for this purpose. I've made up what I think is a wrong way round signal box diagram for your layout, and positioned the signal box adjacent to the level crossing. I've done it this way round to correspond with your plan. I've given it full signalling and some facing point locks (5a, 5b) as well as numbering the levers. What I haven't done is given any control to the level crossiong gates, so that is something that Mike will have to comment upon. In fact Mike will have to comment on all of it. I think that this is about as full a signalling as you'd get.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Notes

 

1. There is no Facing Point Lock (FPL) for the engine release. Very few GW terminii had them.

2. There's an additional catch (trap) point on the goods shed road to protect the running line.

3. You don't need one on the loop because the cattle dock road serves as the protection.

4. The signal box is the dot and line beside the level crossing - it should have a box round it but Microsoft won't let me!

5. The distant is fixed.

 

Levers

 

1 Engine release

2 Dummy (ground signal) for engine release

3 Starter

4 Advanced Starter - protecting LC

5 a and b - FPL, both controlled by same lever

6 a and b - goods shed road and trap

7 Dummy goods shed to main

8 a and b - engine release loop to main

9 dummy loop to main

10 dummy main to loop

11 dummy main to goods shed

12 Shunt ahead - clear to main for shunting

13 Home - protecting LC

[The Stationmaster]

This is going to be marked by Mike the Stationmaster as he's the expert and is teaching me how to signal, so please excuse using your thread for this purpose. I've made up what I think is a wrong way round signal box diagram for your layout, and positioned the signal box adjacent to the level crossing. I've done it this way round to correspond with your plan. I've given it full signalling and some facing point locks (5a, 5b) as well as numbering the levers. What I haven't done is given any control to the level crossiong gates, so that is something that Mike will have to comment upon. In fact Mike will have to comment on all of it. I think that this is about as full a signalling as you'd get.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Notes

 

1. There is no Facing Point Lock (FPL) for the engine release. Very few GW terminii had them.

2. There's an additional catch (trap) point on the goods shed road to protect the running line.

3. You don't need one on the loop because the cattle dock road serves as the protection.

4. The signal box is the dot and line beside the level crossing - it should have a box round it but Microsoft won't let me!

5. The distant is fixed.

 

Levers

 

1 Engine release

2 Dummy (ground signal) for engine release

3 Starter

4 Advanced Starter - protecting LC

5 a and b - FPL, both controlled by same lever

6 a and b - goods shed road and trap

7 Dummy goods shed to main

8 a and b - engine release loop to main

9 dummy loop to main

10 dummy main to loop

11 dummy main to goods shed

12 Shunt ahead - clear to main for shunting

13 Home - protecting LC

 

Is this one of these things where the student overtakes the teacher I wonder

 

What I would like to see is signal 13 co-located with discs 10 & 11 but we have the complication of the level crossing in this instance. The reason for the relocation of 13 is partly to avoid an incoming train having to pass the ground discs at danger (although I could delve out some examples where just that was done) but more importantly the matter of facing point lock bars. In real life if signal 13 was that far back there would be nothing mechanical to prevent the Signalman moving the points after an arriving passenger train has passed signal 13 = naughty.

 

The problem we face is translating prototype (well GWR to be precise) signalling practice to a model situation and at the same time trying to avoid a look of 'over signalling' (which can be just as bad in appearance terms as 'under signalling'). What is not clear from the layout sketch is how far it is from the toe of the points to the loop etc back to the level crossing? The answer to that would be useful if possible please?

 

In the meanwhile what I suggest is that you have a Home Signal some distance in rear of the level crossing - right back at the beginning of your 2 feet of approach trackage woudl be quite ok and would look much less crowded (what happens beyond that - is it just a 'scenic fiddle' to hide the railway or is ita bridge or tunnel?) and you could then put signal 13 next to those two discs as I suggested first off.

 

Going in the other direction the level crossing creates a bit of a problem operationally (= more fun when running your railway) and knowing the distance it is from the station throat becomes more important. Here again we are trandferring a potential prototype sitiuation into a space compressed model so we have to think carefully about how you want it too look as well as making it look prototypically correct. This really relates to signal 4 and its subsidiary 'Shunt Ahead' No.12 - in many respects these are of limited use in that position if you could only stand a loco between that signal and the points although it does offer the advantage that a loco could run round without opening the crossing gates (depends how busy the road traffic is - I think I can guess ). So to some extent you have to also allow for 'what looks right' and avoid a lot of overcrowding - in which case you could move signal 4/12 beyond the level crossing, quite legitimately.

 

John (Coombe Barton) has said little about the Level crossing so it's worth opening up that one a bit. The crossing might or might not be worked from the signal box by means of a gate wheel - this would be situated at the end of the 'box nearest the crossing. A gate wheel is advantageous if regular shunt moves have to be made across the level crossing but the level crossing on a line of this nature might just as easily have hand-worked gates (i.e. somebody goes out and shoves 'em). If there's a gate wheel there would usually be two gate stop levers in Western practice at that time. if the gates are handworked there would most likely only be the one gate lock lever.

 

Whichever arrangement is used on usual GW practice the stop/lock levers would be part of the main lever frame - at the end nearest the level crossing. And these levers would be interlocked with the signals to ensure that the crossing gates are locked closed before any rail movement can be signalled over the leve crossing.

 

Making sense so far, I hope. What would be useful now is to have a look at your proposed layout dimensions and adjust - if necessary - the signalling to suit them.

[Coombe Barton]

Is this one of these things where the student overtakes the teacher I wonder

 

 

No Mike, your further comments prove that this is not the case. I didn't say anything about the level crossing becuse I haven't got to that bit yet in your tutorials.

 

Point to jimmer - what we're trying to do it to provide a complete signalling layout. If you'd translate this into 'Ashburton with a level crossing' then you'd only have number 1, 3, 4, 6a and b, 8a and b and 13 - a total of 6 levers, not 13. You'd leave out all the other stuff. You wouldn't have a signal box, either, just a couple of ground frames and a single point lever (no 1). But to make this reduced scheme work you definitely wouldn't shunt across the level crossing. The only difference bewteen this scheme and the prototype Ashburton is the advanced starter (4) which is needed for the level crossing. Ashburton didn't have a signal box - the trains being controlled by a porter/signalman accepting/releasing trains with the block instruments in the Booking Office and then belting round the ground frames located on the platform and next to what is your cattle dock to set the roads.

[jimmer]

Thanks very much, that's brilliant. It never ceases to amaze me the depth of people's knowledge on this forum. The scenic part of the layout will be 6ft with the track disappearing under a bridge/through tunnel into fiddle yard.

[Donw]

You could always go for a one engine in steam branch. Then all you would really need to wory about would be protecting the level crossing. Spoils the fun somewhat but perhaps more likely than full signalling on such a small terminus.

Donw

[Coombe Barton]

But I will cite Moretonhampstead as a fully signalled branch terminus. Unusual, perhaps, but it existed.

[The Stationmaster]

But I will cite Moretonhampstead as a fully signalled branch terminus. Unusual, perhaps, but it existed.

 

Not very unusual by GWR West Country standards tho'. Every GWR passenger branch terminus west of Totnes had a signalbox (even if a couple of them were ground level buildings ). In fact overall I would think, without doing a line-by-line check, that the large majority of GWR passenger branch termini had a signalbox although in some cases the 'signalling' was fairly simple.

[Coombe Barton]

Now you have me checking my westcountry records:

 

• St Ives - fully signalled with a box
• Helston - fully signalled with a box
• Bodmin - ditto
• Newquay - certainly
• Kingsbridge - ditto
• Kingswear - handled expresses and Kings - so had to have full signalling
• Moretonhampstead - fully signalled
• Brixham - ditto
• Minehead - fully signalled

Those that had basic signalling

• Ashburton
• Princetown
• Hemyock
• Abbotsbury

We could go further afield - Mike's point is well made.