Signal box farewell

[AberdeenBill]

Hi all,

 

Note sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but anyway...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19435464

 

I make no editorial comment, but in four words: get your camera out.

 

Thanks,

Bill

[beast66606]

Cable theft at an all time high, anyone heard of a line controlled by a traditional box and signals being disrupted by thieves?

 

A couple where the instruments have been stolen and when the first train was due to pass there was a block failure.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Cable theft at an all time high, anyone heard of a line controlled by a traditional box and signals being disrupted by thieves?

 

Frequently in the days of open line wires. I spent a lot of time chasing arournd putting in temporary cables during the late 1960s. Again in the 1990s I remember cable thefts being a weekly occurrence at Bestwood Park between Nottingham and Mansfield

[Guest stuartp]

Ditto - yes, frequently. Even in a mechanical box a lot of stuff is electrically proved or released by another box, so you're back to working by telephone because the block bells and instruments have failed, and passing signals at danger because you can't get a line clear release from the next box.

 

However, the advantage of a manual box in those circumstances was that you could (once upon a time) implement time interval working if the phones were out too, but even that's been eclipsed by mobile phones. Also cable theft on manual signalling tends to affect one comparatively small location rather than taking out several counties, and there's immediately someone on the ground to implement whatever temporary working is required rather than having to wait for the handsignalman to turn up.

[beast66606]

Also "official" vandalism - all signals at danger after "enthusiastic" tamping ...

[Pugsley]

Are those orange pipes not things to aim for, then?

[PaulRhB]

but even that's been eclipsed by mobile phones.

Pretty much everything has to be pilotworking or limited, either time or number of trains, Modified Block Working now.

 

Also cable theft on manual signalling tends to affect one comparatively small location rather than taking out several counties, and there's immediately someone on the ground to implement whatever temporary working is required rather than having to wait for the handsignalman to turn up.

Yep, although it'll be pilotman rather than handsignaller, and then the poor pilotman has nowhere to warm up or dry out inbetween trains in inclement weather as the boxes are gone.

Handsignalling is pretty much reduced to Single line working now.

 

Unfortunately cable theft is regularly affecting the various token signalling systems with both local to me suffering recently. We even had to have security guards to protect one bit from a particularly persistent bunch of scrotes.

[peanuts]

cable used to get nicked at hagfold station every sunday would walkden would open on monday morning and sure enough block failure .

if it didnt happenb first train from crows nest would cut the damn cable at the same location and of course railtrack managment would NOT allow us to caution the first train in

[Guest stuartp]

Pretty much everything has to be pilotworking or limited, either time or number of trains, Modified Block Working now...Handsignalling is pretty much reduced to Single line working now.

 

Gosh. I'm more out of touch than I thought, thanks. That's what comes of signalling a desk for nearly 20 years. Mind you, I bet I could still do 1988 "Working of Single Lines By Pilotman" without reading it up first !

 

On my first ever day in charge, as a spotty 19 yr old, I walked up the steps at Huddersfield Junction at 05.30 cursing the late turn for forgetting to leave a light on and making me walk up two flights of stairs in the pitch black. When I eventually got in it quickly became apparent that there was no power at all, domestic or signalling, and a large note left on the TRB:

 

"Kid - there is a total block failure between you, Dodworth and Clayton West. Mr Selman will be here at 06.00 to put pilot working in. Love Harry."

[flyingsignalman]

I remember working at Port Sunlight Sidings about 1978 when the cables had been taken off a pole route and replaced by a cable laid along the down line sleeper ends prior to putting in troughing.

A class 47 LE to Birkenhead passed at about 7.30pm and about 2 minutes after it had passed the down line block instrument needle dropped from train on line to normal and the up distant light repeater started buzzing also the arm repeater for same showed "wrong".

Yes, there was a total block failure between Sunlight and Rock Ferry. I was able to ask Hooton to ring Rock Ferry on the ETD (Sunlight only had a 'bus phone) to let him know I was introducing reg 25a4, time interval working.

The S&T arived and told me the cable had been looped over the down line and the 47 had neatly chopped it up!

Thoughts of being stuck in till midnight were fortunately not realised when the S&T fixed it in about an hour or so.

 

Somewhere in my collection I also have a letter sent to boxes on the Woodhead route advising that as the block instruments had been stolen from Dunford East, the box there (in view of the short time the route was left open) would be permanently wired out of circuit and the box abolished.

The letter was sent in, I think, May/June 1981 (I'll have to find it to check the exact date).

[flyingsignalman]

Gosh. I'm more out of touch than I thought, thanks. That's what comes of signalling a desk for nearly 20 years. Mind you, I bet I could still do 1988 "Working of Single Lines By Pilotman" without reading it up first !

 

That's what I thought until I entered the surreal world that is "COGNISCO" yesterday- loads of blues and a yellow

[Guest stuartp]

That's what I thought until I entered the surreal world that is "COGNISCO" yesterday- loads of blues and a yellow

 

Yikes. Just reading their homepage is making me wonder where my voluntary severance ready reckoner is. We do 'greens and reds' at work (well we do when HR are watching). You could tell all the ex-signalmen and drivers on the course because we were the ones getting told off all the time for calling them reds and greens.

[flyingsignalman]

Yikes. Just reading their homepage is making me wonder where my voluntary severance ready reckoner is.

 

That's was my thought when I finished - my brains felt like mashed spuds (all soft and fluffy).

[PaulRhB]

Cognisco or pin the tail on the donkey as it was known when I was little . . . .

[Eggesford box]

Trouble with COGNISCO is that it is based directly on each section of the rule book and is not always phrased that well.Typical example 'you can put in pilotworking on a single line after talking to one signaller' (sic). Well if its no signalman key token or something along those lines there is only one signalman so you put true. WRONG, what they are after is if there is a signalman at each end of the section when, obviously, you have to talk to both of them. But thats not what it said in the question.

 

In fairness they have now (or its succesor) tried to make it more scenario based to get around that particular type of misleading question.

[Oldddudders]

Cable theft at an all time high, anyone heard of a line controlled by a traditional box and signals being disrupted by thieves?

Yes. Between Hurst Green and Edenbridge Town, on a regular basis 40 years ago, as persons of no fixed abode nicked 10 bays of telephone wires linking block instruments and bells.

[Oldddudders]

Also "official" vandalism - all signals at danger after "enthusiastic" tamping ...

Particularly effective at Gatwick Airport about 40 years ago, when the tamper cut the low-plane tripwire, thus setting everything to danger on all lines for several miles!

[flyingsignalman]

Trouble with COGNISCO is that it is based directly on each section of the rule book and is not always phrased that well.Typical example 'you can put in pilotworking on a single line after talking to one signaller' (sic). Well if its no signalman key token or something along those lines there is only one signalman so you put true. WRONG, what they are after is if there is a signalman at each end of the section when, obviously, you have to talk to both of them. But thats not what it said in the question.

 

In fairness they have now (or its succesor) tried to make it more scenario based to get around that particular type of misleading question.

 

However, what I would call a shunt move into a siding, features in a question on wrong direction working.

I could have done with a box marked "I do not understand the question" and for the first time I marked a couple "Don't know" mainly because they involved Absolute Block working which I've had no dealings with for nearly 17 years.

[phil-b259]

Particularly effective at Gatwick Airport about 40 years ago, when the tamper cut the low-plane tripwire, thus setting everything to danger on all lines for several miles!

 

Ahh yes the tripwire. Recently renewed (but only after several of the rotting second hand telecoms poles had colapsed and it was run along the ground at certain points) and a right pain in the arse to test given it knocks out the 3rd rail between Salfords & Balcombe junc / Crawley and both Southern & FCC run hourly throughout the night to Three Bridges.

 

Thing is with Gatwick being the high tech airport it is and the size of planes using it today (1) you would think that the tower would have a pretty good idea if a plane was in trouble well before it activated the tripwire and be able to take apropreate action. (2) if a plane did opperate the trip wire it would probably take out any vehicles on the parallel A23 which doesn't have any protection at all.

[flyingsignalman]

........ rather than a far distant panel where the trains under control were never anything more than lights on a screen / panel.....

(snip)

 

Tell me about it....................

 

Sandhills Northern line panel tonight at about 8pm (AKA play time with stocks).

[TheSignalEngineer]

Particularly effective at Gatwick Airport about 40 years ago, when the tamper cut the low-plane tripwire, thus setting everything to danger on all lines for several miles!

 

There used to be one at Birmingham Airport for the cross-runway many years ago. Used to regularly get pulled by the local scroats and put everything to danger. Following the lengthening of the main runway the cross runway was not much used except by smaller planes.

 

We worked out that a if a plane coming in to land hadn't already hit the buildings below the flight path on the approach to the railway it was 99% certain to clear the OHLE. A plane taking off would hit the OHLE about 0.1 second after taking out the tripwire, so we decided that hitting the tripwire was not necessarily going to be effective in warning trains of the obstruction and there was more risk of a train accident due to human error when the signalling had failed due to vandalism.

[SM42]

Make the most of those boxes while they last.

 

When mass re-signalling was first talked about in the Midlands and I was a boy signaller at Blakedown (mid 90s) it seemed a long way off, but its here now. Aug 28th saw the abolition of Kingswinford (container behind a steel fence) Stourbridge Jn, (all GWR and brick built latterly housing an NX panel), Blakedown ( McKenzie & Holland latterley housing a chip fryer style panel,) Kidderminster Jn (1953 vintage BR with proper levers) and Hartlebury Station (McKenzie & Holland type 2 I believe, again with a chip fryer panel) All now worked by video game at Saltley.

 

Happily Stourbridge is likely to remain having been bought by Chiltern Rlys. Blakedown has been given to the local community who are now looking to raise funds to move it across the road to a piece of land donated by the local housing trust. The future for Kidderminster and Hartlebury (possibly unique) are less rosy unless someone knows better.

 

It's quite sad to be anywhere near the railway at these places now. Old colour light signals bagged over, signal posts devoid of arms and no idea when a train is coming. It was a sad day when they closed, like losing an good friend

 

The strange thing is the new signalling has effectively re-instated signal sections that used to be there; controlled by Cutnall Green, Hartlebury Jn and Hagley signal boxes, so I suppose we have come full circle in terms of line capacity

 

We've already lost the Nuneaton - Coventry and WCML boxes. The Cannock line will go next year and even Saltley PSB looks a bit sad with just a small portion of its signalling panel left in action.

The traditional signalbox and even powerboxes are becoming seriously endangered in the West Midlands.

 

As AberdeenBill said "Get your cameras out" but please stay on the right side of the fence

 

Andy

[Beep87]

Shrewsbury & Worcester are still havens for Semaphore Signalling & signal boxes. Although, it is sad to see photos of how grand a gantry of semaphore signals can be replaced by a traffic light pole. But hey, this is the modern world and everything is becoming simpler, nobody wants history and character, just characterless modern comforts.

[SM42]

If you are getting your cameras out, don't forget to capture the back wall if you can. Nothing more frustrating of trying to model somewhere or something with only detail for two or three sides. Its surprising sometimes how many signalbox back walls are not just plain old walls.

[beast66606]

If you are getting your cameras out, don't forget to capture the back wall if you can. Nothing more frustrating of trying to model somewhere or something with only detail for two or three sides. Its surprising sometimes how many signalbox back walls are not just plain old walls.

 

When I photographed Mollington - an LMS ARP cabin (my photos were used in the artwork for the Exactoscale skin (I can't remember what they called it now, textured surfaces, you built a plain former and applied the covering to the outside)) - I was (silently, the rather peculiar game keeper, I presume, never spoke, despite me explaining what I was doing, he just looked at me with the gun in his arms) threatened with a shotgun when photographing the back wall - happy days.