RailWest

1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

Bedlington South’s Down Section and Bedlington North’s Distant less than 300yardsto to the Home board!

 

Even shorter perhaps, circa-1900 the Up Distant for Highbridge 'A' box was underneath its own Up Home! Admittedly the latter was slotted as the Up Home for Highbridge 'A' and also  'B' had 'control' over 'A's Up Distant.

11 minutes ago, bécasse said:

Sorry, Chris, a senior moment! They were installed at the approach to some rural stopping places which were devoid of signals........

Ah well, that would fit Henstridge then :-)

53 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Some lines were worked under "One Engine in Steam" regulations 🤣

 

 

...but none on the S&DJR :-)

24 minutes ago, bécasse said:

On the Southern ....White marker lights were used to mark the approach to intermediate stopping places devoid of pointwork.

A distinction apparently not employed at Henstridge on the ex-S&DJR, where white marker lights appeared circa-1955 but the siding points remained in use until 1965 :-)

14 minutes ago, 5BarVT said:

The Penwithers Jn diagram shows the same post with a worked distant so one of them is wrong. It would be more logical if Penwithers was right.

Paul. 

But the diagram for Penwithers Jcn would not show whether the distant belonging to another box was fixed or not - that would be shown only on the diagram of the other box.

On 16/10/2023 at 12:07, The Stationmaster said:

 

7 is basically co-located with 11 & 12 but a lot depends on its exact position.  If it was in advance of 11 &12 at the point toe it should have had a white light - especially in view if the wording of the lead.  But if it was co-located at 11 & 12 it wouldn't have needed to be a white light signal as it would be one arm of a group of splitting signals.

There is a SLS photo from 1936 which clearly shows the disc 7 some distance in advance of the Down Home, so presumably (not visible in the photo) close to the point toe (or end of the FPL locking bar).

I would agree with the Stationmaster as regards using just a single yellow disc (or perhaps the miniature-arm version thereof). The GF seems totally unnecessary.

I'm dubious about the need for a BR for sighting simply by trains coming out of the bay or goods yard, as any such trains are going to be moving slowly enough that IMHO a delay in sighting the actual stop signal is unlikely to be a problem.

What is the purpose of the facing crossover? Such things were usually avoided like the plague unless absolutely necessary. If the sidings at the bottom are for goods, then how can anything coming across the facing crossover into the yard do any shunting when there is no run-round facility.

If the 'DMU line' at the top is for passneger traffic, then there needs to be a trap-point at the exit from the loco yard to protect it.

Rule 1 - work out your layout signalling before you start laying any track, it avoids a lot of messy alterations later :-)

Actually, it was neither ! The line from the goods yard crossed the Down Main by a plain diamond crossing and connected into the Middle Siding only.

1 hour ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Just found a pic of the turntable here:

http://somersetanddorset.blogspot.com/2009/03/evercreech-junction-6768.html

Errr.....that's the new TT in the New Yard, not the old one in the goods yard.

AFAIK that turntable was removed when the new one was installed in yard at the Junction. I'm not aware of any photo of it. As late as 1930 the points (No 10) leading into the goods yard were still known as the Loco Yard points.

Prompted by the emergence of that photo, I've done a few updates to my 'signals' web-page . Mostly about ground signals and such topics as those used as repeaters and the various methods used to 'elevate' some. To a large extent such variations do not appear in official records, so they only come to light when a suitable photograph turns up at random somewhere.....so keep posting any you find please :-)

www.trainweb.org/railwest/railco/sdjr/signals.html

'Recycled' by the RAF :-)

On the subject of captions...on looking at the splendid view on Page 218 at Wincanton, where the camera is clearly pointed southwards, then I would suggest that the photographer must have climbed the Down Starting signal and not the Up as quoted :-)

If only we could still do the same sort of thing these days <sigh>.....

11 minutes ago, Stephen Freeman said:

A photo of the ringed distant appears on page148 of Vaughans book along with an explanation of why. He does state that the signal is thought to have been unique.

I think he may be mistaken.....for a start, I'm sure the SRS diagram for St Dennis Jcn shows one on the line from Drinnick Mill.

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.

Yes, I would say that ring was black.

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.

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....

Looks nice...but a shame that the diagram on the cover of Part 2 appears to be incorrectly numbered...:-(

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.

I saw this in operation (if that's the right phrase!) at RailWells today.

As an aside, the GWR signal-box at North Crofty, which controlled access to the branch, was unusual that it was a block-post and had signals on the Up line only.

By that time the 'standard' for electrical releases was top half of the lever blue, bottom half brown. Sadly the only interior photo that I have seen is too dark and from the wrong angle to tell if the lever was two-tone or not.

'Mice' have a lot to answer for.....:-)

Errr....nice lever-frame, but - sorry to say this - it has been put together the wrong way round! The catch-handles should be at the back of the levers, not the front.

Lever 27 seems to be a curious colour and, as an electric release, should have a cut-down handle - as can be seen in a interior view of the prototype photo - not that many people will see into the box that far to notice :-)

>>>Initial sales in the last month have been very strong.......

I must have missed any announcement then :-(