Midland Railway lever frame colours

[clecklewyke]

My friend Bob Ellis is building a P4 model of Hawes Station as it was in the late 19th century and is needing some information to allow him to compIete the lever frames for the two signal boxes at Hawes. He writes:

 

I am in the process of building lever frames for Hawes East signal box (12 levers) and Hawes West box (8 levers). I have reached the point where I want to paint the levers in prototypical Midland Railway colours and have found the following information about lever colours on p.55 of Midland Style by George Dow: "The lever colours were: distant signals, olive green; stop signals and ground signals and discs, red; points, Oxford blue; ground frame controls, yellow; level crossing and wicket gates, brown; and spares, white." But there is no mention of facing point lock levers. Can anyone tell me what colour they were painted?

One lever in Hawes East box controlled "Disc Signals & Crossover between Platform Line and Sidings." Would this lever have been painted red for the disc signals, Oxford blue for the points, or red over blue (or the reverse)?

[RailWest]

Only guessing but....as the MR was a great lover of economic FPLs, maybe they did not have a separate colour for them? And perhaps the "discs and crossover...." example was non-independant discs", in which case I would sugegst that you went with just the colour for the points.

[micknich2003]

I have seen it documented somewhere, that the Midland painted point levers Blue, makes since as they used EFPL. I pressume trailing points were blue for comfirmity.

 An interesting aside, I see from the above list, on the Midland GF Release levers were Yellow, on the North Eastern Rly, Yellow levers worked "Fouling or Clearence Bars". Lever colours, like many things railway, are a mine field.

[LNERGE]

I have seen it documented somewhere, that the Midland painted point levers Blue, makes since as they used EFPL. I pressume trailing points were blue for comfirmity.

 An interesting aside, I see from the above list, on the Midland GF Release levers were Yellow, on the North Eastern Rly, Yellow levers worked "Fouling or Clearence Bars". Lever colours, like many things railway, are a mine field.

An EFPL in operation..

 

[micknich2003]

• Dear Richard, far easier to understand than the "Text Book" description. Where did you take the "Movie"? Thanks, Mick.

[LNERGE]

 

• Dear Richard, far easier to understand than the "Text Book" description. Where did you take the "Movie"? Thanks, Mick.

 

It was taken at Orton Mere on the Nene Valley Railway. The Bobby was quite happy to swing them a couple of times for me. 

[Grovenor]

Here's the model version.

Keith

[LNERGE]

I believe the MRC at Butterley have a Midland economical facing point operated from a signalbox when it's open and a ground frame when it's closed.. That will be an interesting mechanism. 

[micknich2003]

Pressumably done with a "Floating Lever", or I beleve sometimes called a "Scale Bar". Rough sketch attached, the lever is pivoted/supported on the two roding runs, the point roding/connection is taken from the centre of the lever.

[bill-lobb]

 

My friend Bob Ellis is building a P4 model of Hawes Station as it was in the late 19th century and is needing some information to allow him to compIete the lever frames for the two signal boxes at Hawes. He writes:

 

I am in the process of building lever frames for Hawes East signal box (12 levers) and Hawes West box (8 levers). I have reached the point where I want to paint the levers in prototypical Midland Railway colours and have found the following information about lever colours on p.55 of Midland Style by George Dow: "The lever colours were: distant signals, olive green; stop signals and ground signals and discs, red; points, Oxford blue; ground frame controls, yellow; level crossing and wicket gates, brown; and spares, white." But there is no mention of facing point lock levers. Can anyone tell me what colour they were painted?

One lever in Hawes East box controlled "Disc Signals & Crossover between Platform Line and Sidings." Would this lever have been painted red for the disc signals, Oxford blue for the points, or red over blue (or the reverse)?

 

 

According to this:

http://www.derby-signalling.org.uk/Midland.htm

the Midland worked the facing point locks from the same lever as the point. There were no separate levers for the FPLs

 

Bill

[The Stationmaster]

According to this:

http://www.derby-signalling.org.uk/Midland.htm

the Midland worked the facing point locks from the same lever as the point. There were no separate levers for the FPLs

 

Bill

Bill - I see your a recent arrival so a little tip for you.  It's great to have a chance to add something to a thread and shows your interest and knowledge but it's usually a good idea to read through other responses before joining in.  This can be difficult in a long thread over several pages but this is, so far, a very short thread which can easily be read in a few minutes.  Enjoy the forum - it's a great resource.

[clecklewyke]

Many thanks for all your comments - I've learnt a lot about a lot of things - except the colours the Midland painted its levers - as is the way of things but it was all fascinating!

 

However, Bob has been doing his own delving and has come up with this:

 

“Thanks to Dave Harris of the Midland Railway Study Centre and his friend Tony Overton, I have a partial answer to these questions. A lever that operated a crossover and disc signals was painted blue and red, but it is not clear whether blue over red or vice versa. I suspect blue over red. It also seems likely that levers operating FPLs and EFPLs were painted black....unless anyone knows different!”

[Squirrel]

Bill - I see your a recent arrival so a little tip for you.  It's great to have a chance to add something to a thread and shows your interest and knowledge but it's usually a good idea to read through other responses before joining in.  This can be difficult in a long thread over several pages but this is, so far, a very short thread which can easily be read in a few minutes.  Enjoy the forum - it's a great resource.

I am also new here, and was reading through the topic when I found this comment. I'm afraid I don't understand the point you are making, as Bill's contribution seemed reasonable. This signalling is so complicated that I may well fall into what ever trap Bill tripped.

[The Stationmaster]

I am also new here, and was reading through the topic when I found this comment. I'm afraid I don't understand the point you are making, as Bill's contribution seemed reasonable. This signalling is so complicated that I may well fall into what ever trap Bill tripped.

 

Posts 2 & 3 referred to economic FPLs and while that might not mean too much on its own post 3 referred to the working of trailing points as well as facing points.  And then it was made very clear in post No. 4 where there is a video of an Economic FPL in operation.  Thus there were those three posts before a couple more were added including an illustration of a model.

 

Bill's contribution simply said the same as a number of other posts had already said and two had illustrated in action.  No doubt many of us could have posted that the Midland used Economic FPLs because we happened to know that they did and that the practice continued for years after both the Grouping and nationalisation but as it had already been said there was no point in saying it yet again.

 

It is a trap we can all easily fall into of reading the initial question in a thread and banging out a reply without bothering to read on - only to then find that we are doing no more than repeating what has already been said, hence my tip (which was of course meant in a friendly manner).