Unusual PW configurations thread both real and model.

[iands]

I believe the signal base had been buried in ballast for a considerable time, allowing it to rot away unnoticed for such a long time - all the more reason for it to haver been inspected as part of the original works survey for changing the signal heads.

 

My 44 years (and counting) in the railway industry has taught me that to avoid making mistakes you need experience, to gain experience you'll need to make a few mistakes - this is how we learn! 

 

Regartds, Ian.

[jonklein611]

Here's a weird one:

 

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/638084/

 

[Waraqah]

Here's a weird one:

 

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/638084/

 

Imagine getting caught behind that! 

[DavidBird]

Not so much an unusual PW configuration, just unusual PW.  Any thoughts?

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85326-dave-fs-photos-ongoing-more-added-17th-november/?p=2928321

[Compound2632]

Not so much an unusual PW configuration, just unusual PW.  Any thoughts?

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/85326-dave-fs-photos-ongoing-more-added-17th-november/?p=2928321

 

The Oldmaps link doesn't work if you're not a subscriber. The beach railway can be seen on the 1914 OS 25" maps at the National Library of Scotland here and here. It's mostly above mean high water except around Featherbead Rocks.

 

Good old postcard view here. I can't imagine that locomotives were used but the trestle doesn't look that well-adapted for horse traction either.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Compound2632

[Pacific231G]

Here's a puzzle for you all.

What do you make of this?

 

 

Clue: it is fixed and has no moving parts.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Pacific231G

[St. Simon]

It's interesting Mike that the two ground signals SB 6413/6411, despite being almost side by side, that one has red/white lights and the other red/red. I would have thought that some consistancy would have been applied with the yard or at least adjacent signals would be the same type. I realise that drivers would of course know what the meaning was, but ....

John

The photo was probably captured during the conversion to 'Red-Red' shunts in the yard, so one is still waiting conversion, after all it doesn't all happen overnight!

 

Simon

[iands]

Here's a puzzle for you all.

What do you make of this?

 

mystery point.jpg

 

Clue: it is fixed and has no moving parts.

 

At first glance I would have said either a single rail Catch Point or Trap Point (dependant on which direction traffic was running). But if there are no "moving parts", I then thought about a rail expansion joint, but the gap between what looks like a switch rail and the stock rail is too big. Stumped for now on any other ideas, but I might have a "light bulb" moment tomorrow.

 

Do trains traverse it in one direction only?

 

Regards, Ian.

[Gordon A]

I was thinking lt allows movements in one direction only.

 

Gordon A

[Budgie]

Here's a puzzle for you all.

What do you make of this?

 

mystery point.jpg

 

Clue: it is fixed and has no moving parts.

Is it French?

[Grovenor]

It's a mixed gauge seperation switch but the other narrow gauge rail has not been fitted.

And the check rail is both to short and incorrectly placed!

Regards

[Pacific231G]

Is it French?

This one is but it may have been used elsewhere. rolling stock would normally pass over it from left to right but there'd be nothing to stop a movement the other way.

The check rail is fine for this situation

It's not mixed gauge.

 

I'll provide the answer tomorrow (Monday) it's quite interesting.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

The Oldmaps link doesn't work if you're not a subscriber. The beach railway can be seen on the 1914 OS 25" maps at the National Library of Scotland here and here. It's mostly above mean high water except around Featherbead Rocks.

 

Good old postcard view here. I can't imagine that locomotives were used but the trestle doesn't look that well-adapted for horse traction either.

It's quite a long run from the northern end of the railway to the bottle works and to Seaham harbour and unless it had been timbered between the rails locomotive working looks like the only way it could have been worked.I have seen images of small ng locos running along equally insubstantial looking trestles and I think the sand railway at Pentewan (which came long after the old railway) used IC locos.

 

In 2006 I  came across the remains of something similar at Honfleur which is on the southern bank of the mouth of the Seine.

I've no idea what it was used for though given its location sea defences seem likely. The track runs down a ramp onto the foreshore from near the end of the esplanade/jetty that runs along the shore from the town  but I could see no trace of anything further east. At its western end it seemed to simply peter out as it ran along the shore towards the sea.

 

 

It may have been running along some kind  of groin that's been washed away leaving the rails and sleepers behind.I think the track is metre gauge though I didn't measure it.

Edited November 19, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Coryton]

The driver's treatment of an incomplete/incorrect aspect is clear in the rules so not really an issue. But the use of two reds is an obvious improvement that could have been done before LEDs by making a 4 lens unit but LEDs made it possible to have both red and white available in the same lens.

 

And in some cases was indeed done by using four lights - there's still at least one around because I saw one recently. 

[Grovenor]

And in some cases was indeed done by using four lights - there's still at least one around because I saw one recently. 

I don't think there were any 4 lamp GPLs in the UK prior to LED versions, but some makes of LED versions do have 4 lights.

Four lamp versions were used abroad on some railways, it would need some research to find them, however.

[Coryton]

I don't think there were any 4 lamp GPLs in the UK prior to LED versions, but some makes of LED versions do have 4 lights.

Four lamp versions were used abroad on some railways, it would need some research to find them, however.

 

Oh OK. I thought they had been around for longer. I think I assumed that as it would be easy enough to make an LED one with three lenses that still showed red-red when required, anything with four lenses must be older than that.

[russ p]

Here's a puzzle for you all.

What do you make of this?

 

mystery point.jpg

 

Clue: it is fixed and has no moving parts.

Is this a trap for skates used in foreign hump yards?

[newbryford]

I don't think there were any 4 lamp GPLs in the UK prior to LED versions, but some makes of LED versions do have 4 lights.

Four lamp versions were used abroad on some railways, it would need some research to find them, however.

 

Four LED version - third image down.

http://www.railsigns.uk/photos/p_shuntsig2/p_shuntsig2.html

 

I believe there may be a working model version of this type at the NEC next weekend...................

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Pacific231G]

Is this a trap for skates used in foreign hump yards?

Well done Russ, you win the imaginary prize.

the skates, known as sabots in French, were placed over the top of the rail in a carefully judged position ahead of a cut of 1 to 4 wagons coming off the hump by personnel known as enrayeurs (literal translation "stoppers") or sometimes saboteurs.

 

The wheel rose onto the sabot which acted as a friction brake until it met this piece of trackwork called an ejecteur which pulled it aside. At that point the wagons should have been moving at walking pace and another enrayeur would use a sabot to bring them almost to a halt on the sorting siding before they reached the wagons already there. 

There is a description of the operation here that claims the job of the enrayeurs as the most dangerous of all work on the railways

http://jacques.tourtaux.over-blog.com.over-blog.com/article-gare-de-triage-sncf-de-somain-59-suppression-de-20-a-30-enrayeurs-le-metier-le-plus-dangereux-de-la-profession-72363373.html

The implication from this 2011 blog is that this method of operation was still being used in some hump yards

 

The drawing was from a 1950 SNCF training manual on "appareils de voie" (a generic term covering points, crossings, cast frogs, trap points, check rails and so on and a lot more elegant than "switches and crossings") but two version are also listed  in later internal catalogues including one from 1968. 

 

I've seen a photo of an enrayeur in action and will post it if I find it.

Edited November 20, 2017 by Pacific231G

[Southernman46]

The bottom of the post that was visible looked fine, the rust was well hidden deep in the ballast so would have been invisible without digging all the ballast away first.

Yes that was exactly the situation ...................... I have some inside info on this particular incident ............

 

The organisation who are contracted by NR & responsible for routine examination of such signal posts (classified as structures) including this particular one are prevented from clearance of anything obscuring the structure being examined including vegetation, soil, ballast, cornflakes etc, etc. by NR BECAUSE this constitutes work under the terms of the SSOW Group Standard and means that a single examiner can not be used to undertake the exams and NR are not prepared to pay for the extra staff required. We would have to report any structure obscured (such as this signal) and rely on NR getting it cleared so the exam could be properly undertaken - Absolute feckin' madness and typical of NR's penny-pinching attitude on essential items that has gotten them up ######-creek in the past and as usual they got VERY, VERY, lucky in this case as the full linespeed through Newbury is 100mph but fortunately despite the darkness no severe derailment resulted from the HST striking such a solid object.

 

The situation may have changed since I have left in 2016 - I certainly hope so !!!!

Edited November 25, 2017 by Southernman46

[martin_wynne]

prevented from clearance of anything obscuring the structure being examined including vegetation, soil, ballast, cornflakes etc, etc

 

Which for some reason reminded me of: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/77909-bad-weather/page-4&do=findComment&comment=1205206

[Coryton]

Well done Russ, you win the imaginary prize.

the skates, known as sabots in French, were placed over the top of the rail in a carefully judged position ahead of a cut of 1 to 4 wagons coming off the hump by personnel known as enrayeurs (literal translation "stoppers") or sometimes saboteurs.

 

I like the idea of "saboteur" as a job title.

[Pacific231G]

I like the idea of "saboteur" as a job title.

I suspect that was why they called them enrayeurs instead.

You'll know of course that sabots are clogs (though sabots de frein are brake shoes) and during the industrial revolution throwing them into machines was an effective way of, well, sabotaging them hence the word which came to us from French. I'm now wondering whether to clog something (like I've just unclogged the drain from my kitchen...Yuck!!) comes from the same idea.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Pacific231G

[Grovenor]

Oh OK. I thought they had been around for longer. I think I assumed that as it would be easy enough to make an LED one with three lenses that still showed red-red when required, anything with four lenses must be older than that.

Remember that the concept of these signals was as 'position lights' not 'colour lights' to make them clearly different from main aspect signals. Hence they showed 2 white lights at horizontal for stop, and at 45 degrees for off. Changing the one lamp to red was a later afterthought.

Regards

[Coryton]

You'll know of course that sabots are clogs (though sabots de frein are brake shoes) and during the industrial revolution throwing them into machines was an effective way of, well, sabotaging them hence the word which came to us from French. I'm now wondering whether to clog something (like I've just unclogged the drain from my kitched...Yuck!!) comes from the same idea.

 

I did "know" that but sadly a quick web search suggests that it isn't actually true.

 

I've also wondered about "clog" but it seems to have a different origin, being the name for a large lump of wood used as a sort of ball-and-chain to stop oxes (oxen?) from wandering too far.