Red for Danger

[TheSignalEngineer]

 

Incidentally I have long understood that Nock was in fact a brake engineer although he was a long time member of the IRSE - perhaps I sometime got the wrong end of the stick on that one?

 

A bit off the OP but here is an extract from the potted bio of O. S. Nock in the IRSE Proceedings for his Presidential year

 

".............he joined the engineering staff of Westinghouse Brake arid Signal Company Ltd. in July, 1925, under the late Major L. H. Peter. After his early training, and experience in the Chippenham Works, he became a senior draughtsman in the Power Signal Department, and his activities were later extended to mechanical signalling and colliery work. In 1945 he was appointed Chief Draughtsman (Brakes), and in 1949 Chief Draughtsman of the company, embracing not only signalling, colliery, and brakes, but also rectifiers, steam heating, and, later, automation. On the divisionalisation of the design activities he was appointed to the Signal and Colliery Division, becoming Chief Mechanical Engineer in January, 1960. He was appointed Planning Manager in December, 1965, and Liaison Engineer, Special Products, in January, 1968. He retired from Westinghouse in January, 1970.

Mr. Nock joined the Institution as a Student in 1926, becoming Associate Member in 1929, and Member in 1936. He is the author of many papers contributed to the Proceedings, and also of the Jubilee book “Fifty Years of Railway Signalling†published in 1962. He became Editor of the Journal of the Institution in 1961. In 1963 he was elected Member of Council, becoming Vice-President in 1967. ......."

I had the good fortune to meet him around 1970. His knowledge on many facets of engineering, not only signalling and locomotives, and railway operating was immense.

 

Much of the signalling design in his period would have been based at the Head Office in York Way, roughly opposite where Kings Cross PSB was built. IIRC the London office moved to Chippenham around 1971.