5BarVT

That's what I THOUGHT, but I knew Mike would KNOW.

That's the opposite of early TOPS problems. Mis-allocate a loco and send it to Inverness by mistake (only on TOPS) so remedy it by sending it from Inverness to much closer to home. Problem solved . . . . except TOPS then requires it for maintenance as it has done c1200 miles in only a few minutes. Paul. P.S. Really enjoying this topic!

I thought of a Central too - they were grey, but it was a matt metallic type of paint possibly some sort of aluminium base which had been brighter and had weathered down. Paul.

That is Loughborough in my book. The platforms have been extended North quite a lot since then. In those days, most of the platform was south of the road over bridge in the background. You were just careful going through as there wasn't much room! Paul.

And you can’t even add sound! Through they do look really rather nice. I suspect I could sit and watch them for hours. Paul.

Mayfield station beside Manchester Piccadilly had such a ramp. There are photos on the disused stations website showing the ramp itself, but I haven't found one yet of the retaining wall supporting it. The Metcalfe kit looks suitable from the views that are available. Paul.

Are you sure? I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the beach near some of the Denes I knew in the 60’s. Jesmond of that ilk had the ouseburn running through it and in the summer, sight was not needed to know it was there! :-)I like the name Brian, well done. Paul.

I suspect that ‘off’ and ‘on’ refer to the toggle: when it is towards ‘on’ the two terminals are connected together, when ‘off’ they are isolated from each other. It doesn’t matter which terminal you use for th3 bus wire and which one goes to the rail. Paul.

Roker Sluice? Seaton Grange? Etc. Paul.

Ed,The search function in RMweb is quite good. If you put 'plan' in the search box and select 'This topic' one pops up not very far down. You can't get quite a long way without waiting for others this way. Paul.

A long time ago I used wire in tube into the Peco centre tiebar hole. I was using surface mounted tube so just stopped the tube clear of the points. If you bury in the cork, you can run the tube part way under the points. I dont think you will have any trouble: could you do a test run to see? CPC (Farnell) do slide switches and post free for orders over £5. Paul.

With two separate 3 lever frames the easiest way to do the locking between them is back in the main box: each release locks the other so you can only give one at a time. The engineer at Sheffield Exchange was (is) sensible. My assumption for wanting a separate release lever is to protect the electric lock. If the release went straight onto the FPL, then a shunter who thought he had been given the release when he had not would put more oomph onto the FPL than he would a release lever. With the (G)WR Annetts Key release, the lock on the frame was square not tapered so no amount of pressure on any of the levers would apply a releasing force. Paul.

Almost, but not quite. For every release lever in the box you need a corresponding release lever at the GF, so 3/Middle/4 needs a six lever frame. That’s how I think LM(S)R did it. Someone with more detailed Northern knowledge may be able to confirm. There is always Irwell Bridge GF between Deal St and Victoria West Jn - a 15 lever miniature lever GF. They say the research is the interesting bit: I’m enjoying looking at the plans and stuff that I can access for Deal St and Lime St and trying to work out the principles that have been applied. Thanks. Paul.

Perhaps Mike might tell you how I know WR do it differently and which company installed a lot of 5BarVT frames! Paul.

Afternoon Clive, Thanks for posting again about shunt signals. I intended to but didn't get round to it (a characteristic of mine!). Rather than write a very long post, answers will come quicker if I do bits at a time. So here is: Part 1 Ground Frames At the box end, you will need two releases for the plat 3/4 GF because there is no reason why you wouldn't want to be using one for a signalled move (in or out) whilst the other is in use for run round. 7/8 is correct with only one release as you need both platforms to do the move. At the GF end of 7/8 you only need one lever for both FPLs but you will need a GF end release lever. (*). For 3/4 one lever for each FPL as shown but two extra for the release levers at the GF end. * For completeness, G(WR) didn't use a release lever at the GF end as they had a different way of achieving the same thing. Paul.

A printed paper overlay? Or would the pink show through? Paul.

Evening Clive,Only just got to looking in detail at your supplementary questions, but you have found the website that I was using to make my assertions. You are right, the top four lamps look like the signal aspect indications (though quite how they worked for the multi headed beast I'm not sure) and below that the three indicators for the route set. Note that the 'route' is illuminated even though the signal is red (inside, not to the driver) so that the signalman knows he has pulled the right points before clearing the signal. From the signalling plan, there are DF and DS for North and South lines: the indicators show DF DS and (annoyingly) 'D?'. I would love to know what the third indication was to know whether they were fitted left to right or right to left. Paul.

Oops! But I like it. ;-) Paul.

And like Eastleigh Yard, expect things to derail? !

From the days when an intercity could stop at Masboro’ and reversal at Nottingham only took 5 mins. Memories . . . Paul.

Thanks to Regularity for the drawings as that is exactly how Newcastle Central looked and worked (saved me a lot of effort). However, as Clive says, his tracks are arranged differently and don’t lend themselves to that approach. I like the idea of the swivel drive described by Clive, but the problem will be getting both blades to make up at the same time: some form of individual springing in the drive to each blade will be required. Have you seen St Enodoc’s approach to his double slips? But the opposite direction motion still needs to be overcome. Paul.

Black Foives through Tip'n and Dudloi?

With difficulty I guess, just like it is on the big railway because they move in opposite directions to each other. Going back to the L frames, both Deal St (Exchange) and Lime St as well as using one lever per signal for junction signals also used one lever per group of signals with a common destination. The examples I can see on the L frame web site for Deal St are all nice and simple as only one common destination exists. Lime St is more complicated (like your plan) as some platforms read to two destinations. I haven't yet got enough detail of the pull plates to sort out what is going on. Paul.

Carstairs Junction has a pair Down Loop and Down Main (Northbound) mounted off the footbridge. A search for Carstairs Station brings up a few photos where they appear in the background of shots.Paul.

West Coast north of Lancaster had a whole field of black sheep yesterday. Amused me as I was reading this thread at the time!Paul.