Avonsidefan

I in no way meant to sound flippant about this. I had not considered the potentially disastrous consequences of such accidents in a yard. It makes perfect sense to me and it is on the bits of the ground signal that stick out. Good call becasse, I think you may have nailed it.

SIGTECH, sadly no - but Peter sounds just like the kind of chap my father would have nattered to for hours! becasse - you make a very interesting point. I had not considered the wartime service of these devices, but as a UK rail commuter I regularly see rail ends and other potential trip hazards picked out in bright paint, so the practice is obviously still a useful one. Having stubbed my toe on the counterweight of this device more than once already, I can see the practical sense of this, particularly in blacked out goods yards.

I had a long awaited chance over the Easter break to work on the renovation of this signal. It really is an elegantly simple piece of 1920's engineering. The lamp sits on a circular plate inside the box lamp casing. This plate is screwed onto the top of a slender fixed spindle running down through to the plinth base to a fixed bar attached by bolts. The lamp casing itself is bolted to a tubular shaft that fits over the spindle, with a C shaped cam bolted at the end inside the plinth housing. When the counterweight L crank is pulled, it pushes on the C cam causing the tube shaft to turn and thus the whole casing revolves around the fixed lamp so the light shines through the appropriate bullseye. In the event of signal cable failure the weight causes it to return to the danger position. My father had it in working condition but it has since seized up. I am hopeful that liberal applications of oil may restore long lost function. This is an earlier picture at the beginning of the renovation.

Thanks for that.

My father purchased a shunting disc from Cambridge S&T dept in the early 70's when the yard modernised and it has been in the family ever since. He passed last year and I now have it in my back garden. It is looking sorry for itself and I wanted to repaint it as much to protect it from the elements as anything else. My recollection was of the whole stand and lamp mount being black with white lettering picked out. I'm not sure whether I'm committing heresy of not, but in the course of scraping back the crud of ages (waits for screams) I came across what looks like vestigial white paint on the neck where the counterweight lever is situated. I'm wondering if at some point in its life such ground signals had portions of their structure painted white. I cannot find any photos on the web to confirm or deny. Does anyone out there have any information on these things? BTW the white lettering on the disc was where he used it as a house sign...

BernardTPM - Now THAT's what I call a livery! I wargame 1:144th scale model WW1 aircraft and there's a white Fokker triplane in JG.1 documented with b/w chevrons all over. A real pig to paint that was! These kinda remind me of that. I'm provisionally modelling Post war to 1950's. Wasp markings were obviously about in the early 1960s, Can they be pushed back any further? I think my Bagnall might look rather nice with Wasp markings on front and rear, but I think that might look a bit 70s to me.

I have inherited one from my Dad, in green with a yellow front (though I have to check if it is a respray or the original bodywork). I have seen some lovely detailing ideas here. Apart from changing the lettering, his detailing was a classic actually observed while visiting a railway depot in the 1960's - a bicycle slung on the back (how else is the driver going to get home for his tea?) Such a simple addition that added character to what was one of my favourite locos on his railway when I was a kid. I have to say the headlight was a clincher for me, especially since Dad had lots of tunnels on his old layout. I shall be adding a lamp and lots of weathering I think. Does anyone here know when wasp hazard markings came to be introduced? I noticed a lot of early diesels with yellow fronts, but wasp hazards seem to be a later phenomenon - a change in H&S legislation perhaps?