Yellow Discs

[Ian Blenk]

Hi All, I wonder if someone can help? In the sketch below a yellow disc can be placed in the location shown. This protects the main, but can be passed at danger if shunting into the neck. Were miniature signals ever used in such a situation, if so what would the board be? I have heard of yellow boards (not fishtail)

Thanks as ever for your help

Ian B

[LNERGE]

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Yes, they were but the specific type depends on your chosen prototype, usually a Ground Signal but for instance the GWR only used a red stripe on a white background but without a red aspect, it showed white, in WR days a yellow background was introduced, they usually had a black stripe but there were instances of white, amber aspect also introduced. I believe the Southern used black stripe on yellow background. A veritable minefield if you ask me.

[bécasse]

The Southern used a miniature yellow arm signal, with a black vertical stripe and yellow and green spectacle glass, from about 1931 until about 1958. Two changes then occurred, such signals which gave direct access to a block section (and there were only around a dozen of them in total) were replaced by rail-built post signals with a rather larger (but not full length) yellow/black semaphore arm, while for new works or necessary replacements from the same date, a standard SR/Westinghouse disc with a yellow stripe on a black background was used instead of the miniature arm. The miniature arm and disc signals used exactly the same Westinghouse mechanism, it was only what was bolted to the front of that mechanism in the way of arm or disc that varied.

 

When the Southern first started using the Westinghouse mechanism in 1930/31, "red" dummies also used a miniature arm (red with a white stripe) but red stripe on white discs were substituted within a year or so - although inevitably odd examples remained around the network well into BR days - so that yellow/red signals could always be differentiated even when plastered with snow. Red dummies that led straight into a block section (again few in number) were also replaced by post signals circa 1958, but they were less obvious since identical signals were already quite widely in use on non-passenger routes.

[Ian Blenk]

1 hour ago, LNERGE said:

 

Thank-you for taking the time to post this, it's very useful showing the yellow board. I had wanted to build a miniature, because it is a little different.

 

[Ian Blenk]

48 minutes ago, bécasse said:

The Southern used a miniature yellow arm signal, with a black vertical stripe and yellow and green spectacle glass, from about 1931 until about 1958. Two changes then occurred, such signals which gave direct access to a block section (and there were only around a dozen of them in total) were replaced by rail-built post signals with a rather larger (but not full length) yellow/black semaphore arm, while for new works or necessary replacements from the same date, a standard SR/Westinghouse disc with a yellow stripe on a black background was used instead of the miniature arm. The miniature arm and disc signals used exactly the same Westinghouse mechanism, it was only what was bolted to the front of that mechanism in the way of arm or disc that varied.

 

When the Southern first started using the Westinghouse mechanism in 1930/31, "red" dummies also used a miniature arm (red with a white stripe) but red stripe on white discs were substituted within a year or so - although inevitably odd examples remained around the network well into BR days - so that yellow/red signals could always be differentiated even when plastered with snow. Red dummies that led straight into a block section (again few in number) were also replaced by post signals circa 1958, but they were less obvious since identical signals were already quite widely in use on non-passenger routes.

Thanks for that, very informative, I fear knowledge like yours is slipping away. I model NE Region circa 1960 (elsewhere on here Warkworth Harbour), although I haven't posted for a while. I did want a miniature semaphore as they are something a bit different I like the idea of a yellow board with back stripe

[LNERGE]

42 minutes ago, Ian Blenk said:

Thank-you for taking the time to post this, it's very useful showing the yellow board. I had wanted to build a miniature, because it is a little different.

 

I have the real post in my garden albeit with a main arm on it now. It used to be the Cambells Soup siding.

[Michael Hodgson]

13 minutes ago, LNERGE said:

I have the real post in my garden albeit with a main arm on it now. It used to be the Cambells Soup siding.

Yellow arm for lentil soup, red arm for tomato soup, green arm for pea soup  😁

[LNERGE]

1 minute ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Yellow arm for lentil soup, red arm for tomato soup, green arm for pea soup  😁

Levers actually.

[Flying Pig]

53 minutes ago, Ian Blenk said:

Thanks for that, very informative, I fear knowledge like yours is slipping away. I model NE Region circa 1960 (elsewhere on here Warkworth Harbour), although I haven't posted for a while. I did want a miniature semaphore as they are something a bit different I like the idea of a yellow board with back stripe

 

As the NER would probably have signalled your location with two stacked lower quadrant miniature arms, quite likely on a slotted wooden post, perhaps you could just remove one of them and paint the other yellow?  The top arm would originally have read to the headshunt, so probably that's the one to go.

 

I've no idea whether such a thing actually existed but it's a bit more interesting than a uq arm on a tubular post.

[Ian Blenk]

3 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

As the NER would probably have signalled your location with two stacked lower quadrant miniature arms, quite likely on a slotted wooden post, perhaps you could just remove one of them and paint the other yellow?  The top arm would originally have read to the headshunt, so probably that's the one to go.

 

I've no idea whether such a thing actually existed but it's a bit more interesting than a uq arm on a tubular post.

Thanks for that, I like the stacked lq. I have made a few lq slotted posts for Tynebank in the past, I'm hoping for something just a bit different. I will be putting the build on my FB group 'Ian Blenk's model railways and musings' if you are interested 

[RailWest]

8 hours ago, Stephen Freeman said:

Yes, they were but the specific type depends on your chosen prototype, usually a Ground Signal but for instance the GWR only used a red stripe on a white background but without a red aspect, it showed white, in WR days a yellow background was introduced, they usually had a black stripe but there were instances of white, amber aspect also introduced. I believe the Southern used black stripe on yellow background. A veritable minefield if you ask me.

Sorry, not for WR discs - it was a yellow stripe on a black background, as was also the case for SR discs.

[Stephen Freeman]

sorry got it the wrong way round, there are/were some instances of a yellow stripe with a white background on the WR at least the photos suggest this though it might just be a preservation aberration.

[The Stationmaster]

On 20/08/2023 at 13:01, Stephen Freeman said:

Yes, they were but the specific type depends on your chosen prototype, usually a Ground Signal but for instance the GWR only used a red stripe on a white background but without a red aspect, it showed white, in WR days a yellow background was introduced, they usually had a black stripe but there were instances of white, amber aspect also introduced. I believe the Southern used black stripe on yellow background. A veritable minefield if you ask me.

Not quite correct.  A GWR white light disc was not the same as a yellow ground or shunting signal.  As far as i can trace conversion of some GWR ground discs from showing a red light to showing a white light began in the 1890s and it was in fact a consequence of the lack of conditional locking on GWR designed lever frames that led to its introduction.   A GWR white light disc invariably eventually read towatds one which showed a red light.  However once the principle had e been established (it also applied to Siding and Backing Signals) it was extended in use even after tappet locking frames - which therefore allowed conditional locking - began to be installed on the GWR.  The WR adopted yellow arm discs from January 1950 in new work and they had a. yellow stripe on a white painted disc.  The yellow on black colour was a later change and was a standard throughout BR although whether all Regions used it is debatable.  However on the WR it never reached all yellow arm disc signals and I photographed one with a yellow stripe on a white background at Lostwithiel in the early 1990s.  There was also a GWR pattern haif disc at witham which was altered  - by paint brush - from red to yellow stripe in connection with a locking alteration in the early 1970s and as far as I know it remained yellow on white until it was removed in the mid 1980s.

 

As far as the OP's question is  concerned, and as already mentioned, the ER very definitely used miniature semaphores witn a yellow arm (with a white vertical stripe exactly as it would be on a signal with a red arm).  To what extent the LNER used them I don't know but the yellow arm principle dates from the 1930s if not earlier.  The ER (?LNER?) definitely used miniature yellow arms on multiple route signals with the arms arranged vertically in the normal manner for such signals - I think the most such arms I saw on such a signals was four - somewhere on the ECML

[pete_mcfarlane]

To confuse things further, the Southern had a few ringed goods signals with yellow arms and the white ring doing the 'access to a block section' job. In some cases these seem to be adaptions of earlier signals. There was at least one on the hundred of Hoo line.

 

Some photos of the various SR examples here: https://sremg.org.uk/proto/semaphore_5-mob.shtml

 

 

[RailWest]

6 minutes ago, pete_mcfarlane said:

To confuse things further, the Southern had a few ringed goods signals with yellow arms and the white ring doing the 'access to a block section' job. In some cases these seem to be adaptions of earlier signals. There was at least one on the hundred of Hoo line.

 

Some photos of the various SR examples here: https://sremg.org.uk/proto/semaphore_5-mob.shtml

 

 

Curious....AFAIK the ring on SR arms was always black, at least in later years. Also, I've never seen any example of ringed 'yellow' arms - that's not to say they never existed, but I can't find any on the SREMG site to which you refer....

[The Stationmaster]

6 minutes ago, RailWest said:

Curious....AFAIK the ring on SR arms was always black, at least in later years. Also, I've never seen any example of ringed 'yellow' arms - that's not to say they never existed, but I can't find any on the SREMG site to which you refer....

As a ringed arm signal on the SR was the signal controlling the entrance to a goods etc line I don't see how it could have had a yellow arm as it was bracketed from a signal with a red arm.

[RailWest]

3 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

As a ringed arm signal on the SR was the signal controlling the entrance to a goods etc line I don't see how it could have had a yellow arm as it was bracketed from a signal with a red arm.

Usually, but....:-)

 

Certainly there were pair of ringed arms at the exit from the Lower Yard at the former Templecombe No 3 Junction post-1933. There was also one at the exit from the loop at Westerham IIRC. Using them on exit signals appears to have been the older practice before the use for entry to goods lines was adopted, but not sure when the SR did the latter.

[The Stationmaster]

33 minutes ago, RailWest said:

Usually, but....:-)

 

Certainly there were pair of ringed arms at the exit from the Lower Yard at the former Templecombe No 3 Junction post-1933. There was also one at the exit from the loop at Westerham IIRC. Using them on exit signals appears to have been the older practice before the use for entry to goods lines was adopted, but not sure when the SR did the latter.

The Southern Railway 1934 Appendix shows them as a Siding Signal with a red or yellow arm,  So pract9ce clearly changed at some time - probably in the 1930s  0r the '40s.

 

George Pryer describes the ringed arm Siding Signals as obsolescent (they appear to have been Pre-Grouping survivors) and replaced by ground signals although he doesn't give a date for that.  So presumably some survivors with ringed arms hung about for a while?

[pete_mcfarlane]

The example I was thinking of (at Sharnal Street) is in the left background to this photo from the Kent Rail site .

 

 

There's a better photo in the Peter Sqibb book on scratchbuilding signals. The ring looks dark so I may have misremembered them being white.

 

Looks like an early SR latice post signal, so probably a direct replacement for an earlier SER one. I'm using this as a excuse for a similar signal on my layout, when I get round to doing the signals.

[RailWest]

Yes, I would say that ring was black.

[St Enodoc]

On 22/08/2023 at 16:57, RailWest said:

Yes, I would say that ring was black.

Slightly off topic but on my layout I have a model of an ex-GWR 3ft arm ringed fixed distant (on the Carbis branch approaching Bugle). I've never seen a photo of the real one though.

 

In your opinion, Chris (and others), a) should the arm be plain yellow or carry a black chevron; and b) should the ring be white or black?

 

Appreciate any thoughts.

[RailWest]

Well, I know the GWR had such things, and indeed I have seen a photo of one somewhere, but forget the details now. IMHO the  arm would have a black chevron - after all, it was essentially a 'normal' distant - and the ring would be white, which was the usual GWR practice.

[bécasse]

There was one at Westbourne Park, the only photo I could find shows the back, rather than the front, of the arm but, given that the back bears a chevron, one can be certain that the front does too (within the ring), and the ring certainly appears to be a dirty white.

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, RailWest said:

Well, I know the GWR had such things, and indeed I have seen a photo of one somewhere, but forget the details now. IMHO the  arm would have a black chevron - after all, it was essentially a 'normal' distant - and the ring would be white, which was the usual GWR practice.

 

34 minutes ago, bécasse said:

There was one at Westbourne Park, the only photo I could find shows the back, rather than the front, of the arm but, given that the back bears a chevron, one can be certain that the front does too (within the ring), and the ring certainly appears to be a dirty white.

Thanks gents. That's lucky, because that's what I did: