5BarVT

9 hours ago, gingerangles said:

Gave the DCC Concepts alignment dowel things a go but I'm not impressed,the bolts grab it well so not really sure the dowels bring anything to the party.

New holes with tightly fitting bolts, probably not.  Depending how often you separate and rejoin the bolt holes will wear.
I think you will be glad you added them in due course.  :-)

Paul.

5 hours ago, zr2498 said:

albeit a strange stride length.

Agreed.  Takes a while to get used to it but then becomes natural!

Paul.

Like your wiring philosophy - mainly because it’s the same as mine!  Clean at the front, dirty at the back and try and keep them separate as much as possible.  Like you, I have one set of boards where (due to the supports) it’s not quite so easy, but it happens to be close to the control box so the ‘clean’ wiring will be separated along rather than across the board.

Paul.

23 hours ago, gingerangles said:

Thanks Paul, very helpful 👍

 

I'm not sure if the timing aligns track wise @5BarVT but 5 being 2 boxes would make sense as Clipstone Junction (triangle) was next in that direction. So I think the boxes may have been Clipstone East and Clipstone South.

Prompted by the above, I’ve been into NLS maps.  Yes, the distances between the boxes on the triangle mean that requiring all signals clear at both boxes (Clipstone E plus Clipstone S or N (or is it W?)) before clearing the relevant lower distant on 5 is quite possible.

23 hours ago, gingerangles said:

If you don't mind a further question... obviously the signal at 44 is simply 1 Lever, yet there are 2 arms... so, am I right in saying Lever 44 operates the stop arm and the distant on 44 operate automatically if 44, 43, 42 and 40 are all off?

Further explanation of slotting required!

Lever 44 will prove 40, 42, 43 reverse using mechanical locking in the box.

At the bottom of the post are three balance levers, one for the stop arm exactly as normal.  This is operated by the lever in Clipstone E and clears the stop arm.  A second operated by lever 44 at Edwinstowe isn’t connected to anything.  In between the two is a third (with the balance weight stuck out in the opposite direction) connected to the distant arm and has a plate that passes across the other two.  That plate prevents the distant arm moving until both of the other balance levers are off.

It’s working as a mechanical .AND. gate - both levers (one in Clipstone E and 44 in Edwinstowe) must be pulled before the distant arm will respond.

Paul.

5 hours ago, gingerangles said:

 

That's great, thanks @5BarVT 👍 

Am I right in thinking that all subsequent 'stop' signals have to be at off to allow the distance to also be at off for a given section?  Or in my case here the current and the subsequent section?  So taking signal 44 above, the only circumstances where the distance arm would not be at danger would be if this section and the next section were all set to off?  Essentially the distance signal covers all stop signals between it and the next distance signal effectively.  A train passing signal 44 wont therefore see another distance till the one applicable to the section 2 sections away?

Almost, but not quite!

All stop signals need to be off before the distant can be cleared - for 44 that means 43, 42 and 40.  But pulling lever 44 won’t actually clear the distant unless the stop arm above it is also off (but only that stop arm).

Going the other way, when the all the stop signals are off at the next box (depending on the routing as it is a splitting distant) the the distant lever can be cleared, but the arm won’t move until 5 is off.  1 requires 2, 3 and 5 off.

I’m wondering whether I’m correct about the ‘next two boxes’ for 5 - it may be that the company concerned just used that symbol for any form of slotting and it’s just referring to 5 and one other box.  (In the practice with which I was trained, slotting of lower distants was assumed because there was a stop arm shown, the symbol was only used where it wouldn’t otherwise be apparent - usually stop arms shared by two boxes.)

Paul.

That symbol indicates slotting - operation by more than one signalbox.

The lower one is operated by lever 44 in the box for which you have the diagram and the next box along (further to the left).

The upper one is operated by the next two boxes to the right.

It will be because the boxes are close together and there is insufficient braking distance, so both of the relevant boxes need all of their stop signals cleared before the distant can come off.

Only one arm, but more gubbins at the bottom of the post.

Paul.

2 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

I'm not sure what purpose the headshunts serve in the fiddle yard?

Top’n’tail loco?

Paul.

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Manchester Piccadilly (not London Rd) only had one set of points I think for running round on one platform and generally the loco sat at the blocks till the train departed again.

Used by the Harwich boat train I recall, where the same diesel loco ran round and took the return working back.

All other passenger were either electric or DMU.

Paul.

Glad you got it sorted.

Mr Random really wasn’t your friend this time, was he!

Paul.

Would like to have attended the York show to see Wentworth, but I’m expected elsewhere.  Family comes first.

Paul.

Not come across a verynear before.  I rather like it.

Paul.

33 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

What is the significance of your username? I read it as a voltage transformer, but is that what it means?

The last incarnation of the GWR locking frame built at Reading signal works.

Obvious to signal engineers (particularly WR) and meaningless to almost anybody else !!

Paul.

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Observant readers may notice that EST&T now have a loco, but close inspection will reveal that it isn’t really a very appropriate one. I went to the shop to look at both 48DS and 88DS, and when I encountered the famous (to railway enthusiasts of a certain age) ‘Shunter 20’, it sort of leapt off the shelf into my hand. There really is no credible excuse for it being in Sussex, since it spent all its time at Reading, and as someone wrote in another thread “….. went nowhere, and lived under a bridge.”, but it was a loco I saw several times.

 

With my user name, I can do nothing but approve, having walked past it on many an occasion.

Paul.

1 hour ago, ian said:

Filling the potholes in the parade ground?

No, the stage before that - creating the potholes for someone else to fill in later.

Paul.

Do you have to arrange for the hire car to be returned when you get a changed turn at short notice?  Or do Control do Road vehicles too?

Paul.

Assuming your not using a live frame on one side, or having front axle only for one side, don’t you need a further cut in the PCBs?

Paul.

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Yep, that’s as I remember it, but not all the wagons were the same, there were many variations on a theme, and they leaked sand wherever they went!

2 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

These days Network Rail have a premium track access charge for 'dirty wagons' that leak payload!

Back in the early 80s, sand traffic was routed off the ECML onto the GN/GE route between Doncaster and Peterborough because leaking sand was causing too much delay on the main line.  (Got into the clamp lock point mechanisms and ground them away til they failed.)

Paul.

No help here, but those sound like the problems i have had, so thanks for the heads up on where to go looking.

Paul.

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

More to the point though, this is a tiny model railway, built using off-the shelf track, to fit particular size baseboard modules, and all the points are fixed down now, so it is what it is.

More thinking aloud then!

Really off the wall (and I’d want some input from other engineers and operators to confirm I’m not raving . . .) operate the loop trap off the FPL lever, just leaving three ends on the point lever.

Or, more conventional, operate the siding traps off a separate lever and probably the single hand point too.  (Risk management - don’t want a guard/shunter forgetting and either running through traps after just swinging the hand points, or dropping off on mis set hand points after just operating the traps.)

i.e. for modelling purposes, an extra lever on the GF.
Paul.

22 minutes ago, WFPettigrew said:

The closure of the Bourne End - High Wycombe line in 1970 led to the line from Maidenhead to Bourne end being worked by some sort of tablet/token in the 70s, which was placed by the crew into a cabinet at Bourne End to allow the points to be changed to reverse round to Marlow.  That also changed the point at the throat of Bourne End to allow two trains on the branch, one locked into the Bourne-End Marlow section, the other then able to run up from Maidenhead into the other platform at Bourne End.   The driver would take a tablet/token at Maidenhead released from Slough panel box.

Electric token M’head to Bourne End.  That released the GF at Bourne End which in turn released the staff for Bourne End to Marlow.  With the train shut in to the Marlow section the token could be handed back and another train run down to Bourne End.

That used to be the peak operation, off peak one train down to Marlow and all the way back.

Paul.

20 hours ago, big jim said:

into the station where a brand new 805010 was sat waiting to go to Holyhead,

First one I’ve seen with the branding on.  Is it just the end cars with all the others still white?

Paul.

15 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That diagram looks much better. The left-end formation could be worked from a single lever as a crossover, with the switch on the left and the three on the right working together.

Technically, yes.

With a trained signalman (in those days) and not too far from the box, no problem.

But with a guard, even if they had more practice back in those days, I’m less sure.  The GF would be right on top of the points, so not a desperately long run, but still not convinced.

I’m currently about 48 1/2 years ago reading the Oxford Techs fault book:

Radley GF O.O.O.

Guard instructed in use of ground frame. . . .

But as well as keeping the signalling as simple as possible, the pway should also be the minimum required.

Is there a need to both sand sidings to be accessed from the running line? Making the slip two single ends (or a Barry slip if you must), saves one of the traps.  A bit more simplification could get it down to one trap.

Empties in the exchange road.  ES&T Propel fulls down onto empties, shunt out to 2nd siding, shunt fulls to exchange, back onto empties and take away.

Likewise, the BR train - down into loop, run round and brake into platform (never shunt with a brake, spills the tea, spoils the fire) collect fulls into platform with brake, empties into exchange siding, back onto train in platform and away.  Obviously, not all achieved in one session.

And I’m pleased that your shunting timetable doesn’t start until the passenger is back down at Berwick.

Paul.

15 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

As a mere rolling stock engineer, I don't know either. Let's try to wake up a proper S&T man. Paging @5BarVT...

Some may say that, I couldn’t possibly comment!

Paul.

19 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Ah, yes.

 

Had that been invented in c1935, or perhaps had it been used in Britain? I’ll have to see whether I can find out.

As far as I know NSKT was a BR invention, and not that early.

Shut in ground frames with an intermediate instrument were about earlier I think, but my assumption is that there would have been a signalman at each end.

This century we did something clever at Stranraer to permit staff working most of the time but token working when two trains needed to be down there at the same time - that did require the box to be staffed for one shift a week.

Thinking ‘out loud’, I could envisage a staff released by one lever at Berwick (for the EMU) (could be a mechanical release) interlocked with a separate lever for the shut in staff (released electrically).  Each reverse to release the staff and requiring staff in to be normalised.  The clever bit is allowing the release lever for the ‘shut in’ staff to be normalised if the staff was locked in at the Cuckmere end.

From the guards point of view, this arrangement is very similar to a normal shut in GF, except that the staff is received from the signaller at Berwick and returned there later, but the GF operation is no different.

Having seen examples of clever stuff that SR engineers did, this seems well within the sort of things they might have tried.

Paul.

10 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

They also suggested that I should have used their own-brand RoS218.4.2 decoder (which appear to be a rebranded DCC Concepts Zen Black DCD-ZN218.6) but still haven't confirmed what the decoder settings should be to activate all the lighting functions. I'm still pursuing this with them.

There is a ZN218.6 and a ZN218.4.2 and they are not the same (to do with whether the extra 2 outputs are logic level or not (‘12V’?). So I would imagine that the RoS is similar.  I haven’t managed to get all the lights to work on my SPCs and I suspect this might be something to do with it.

Paul.