TheSignalEngineer

I would go but can't get there because there aren't any trains running.

For those of us working around there at the time they were a little light relief from an almost continuous diet of 20s, 25s, 45s and 47s.

I was looking at a timetable for when various environmental surveys and removals can take place during a meeting with NR yesterday. To comply with all of the various conditions would take 12 months at least. At one project I was involved in we spent several weeks chasing sand lizards and putting them outside the animal barrier. Elsewhere we had to build a newt pond in good time to get it in the right condition for the relocation window, and an environmental survey found a rare chalk loving butterfly living on the water softener sludge from an old steam shed.

Beats a bus on a bridge any day.

Well done to those concerned, I'm glad to see that the old spirit and determination is alive and well at the sharp end

Agree that the best option and possibly only one depending on the remote control configuration is as two single lines. You only need to get points moved for changing sets for fuel and maintenance. Exeter box was originally done in fairly primitive days, when the override control just set the main routes up and down, with a few selective locations such as allowing two alternatives at busy junctions. I don' know what the current configuration is there. The problem was that the override control often went in the same route as the main control as it was intended to cover for TDM failures rather than losing the cable route. More modern installations have diverse routing. This is by BT lines in cases where thee is no convenient railway route but that is fraught with problems as they are prone to changing the routing without notice and using a line which doesn't comply with the transmission requirements, particularly with SSI. I remember a time when Leeds worked on one half of the SSI system only for an extended period because of such a change. BT denied it had happened but the railway diagnostics proved otherwise.

During a signalling commissioning a fire knocked out the signalling on most of the surrounding lines that were still open. It was Saturday afternoon. With the Operators and maintainers we worked out what we could do to get things back as quickly as possible. Emergency diversions and turn backs had quickly been put in place and getting extra buses on the road was underway. We decided on a revised work schedule and emergency timetable for Monday morning, with hopefully near normal working by the evening, then met with the Head Man at about 1am on Sunday morning. After we presented the plan he asked what was the alternative and was told no trains on half of the area until Wednesday. He told us to get on with it and update him on Sunday afternoon.

Travelled to Ivybridge last summer getting on at Exeter. The HST from Paddington was busy in 1st and heaving in Steerage. Comparing pictures I took to the east side of Bigbury on sea last summer with some I took in 1973 it was difficult to pinpoint because of the difference in the sand levels at the cliff.

Sorting a few old negative I found this taken at Tyseley in 1987. It was the last train from the old Moor St hauled by Clun Castle. I had been messing around at the time trying night shots so set the camera to the get the station exposed correctly. The camera was Pentax ME Super with HP5 film which I had been using earlier to get some retro atmosphere shots at Moor St. Quite accidentally I got a Ghost Train effect as the loco passed me. Photo C E Steele

A single line from Dawlish Warren to Teignmouth would take about half of the existing service allowing for the speeds through connections at each end and stopping patterns.

Probably get shipped in from China if price has anything to do with it.

That's right. The top of the sighting board extended above the top strap - it was the curved part that was up there.

I remember walking down that platform when I bunked the shed in 1961. Sadly i didn't take any pictures.

The sighting board on the UQ signal appears to be a standard LMS type. IIRC they were fitted to the post on two strips of angle or channel section. The distant signal at Georges Road in the top post on this page appears to have the remains of a sighting board bracket. http://forum.signalbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1193&p=12715&hilit=sighting+board#p12715 As for the double post option, this example at St Albans showed another variation. http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_addison/4859465983/. This is a much higher signal than Walton and in the open, so the wind loading would be a lot greater. This signal also had a distant arm underneath at one time. The reason for putting the second post behind the signal was due to restricted clearances to the sidings which used to be there. Note the weight bar is high up with a second ladder to get to it.

The medium goods wagon, if ex-revenue earning, would have been in worn grey or bauxite livery depending on whether or not it was fitted. Some were unpainted and a few got painted in engineers livery. It would just have a 'D' prefix to the number and possibly some engineers branding depending on Regional preferences, such as 'DCE Birmingham' and 'EM'. Here's an example from the Signal Box Construction Gang at Crewe. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/lms3plankopen/h2d12bd52#h2d12bd52 and another converted High belonging to the DCE at Kings Cross http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/lmsopen/h3ca4f47b#h3ca4f47b

Ha Ha! A bus under a bridge instead of on one.

Twelve months on I caught up with the layout again. I've put the latest picture against the original cabin for comparison. Photos Copyright C E Steele I think it came out quite well considering that all I had to go on was a faded colour slide that the top picture was extracted from and the size of a ridge tile on John's shed roof. The crimson colour is probably a bit too strong but the original was very faded when the picture was taken about 1967, probably only having been painted once since nationalisation.

Except when they are being pushed.

When I was training in the 1960s Signal Engineering Students and Management Trainees did a spell in the Apprentices School at Crewe Works followed by the Signal Shop and the Telegraph Shop. The purpose of this was not purely about our jobs, but to give us basic skills if we didn't succeed in our chosen course. I learnt stuff about sheet metal bashing, soldering, rivetting, blacksmithing, welding, casting, how to use a file, building an electric motor and a multi-way lighting control circuit, turning and milling lumps of metal into useful shapes, and operate a turret lathe. I'm still using the cantilever tool box and some of the small tools I made when I was there. I may not have used many of the physical skills in my career but some come in useful for modelling! The brain drain being such that I have been dragged out of retirement three times.

The Glossop/Dinting/Hadfield triangle is reputed to be the third biggest rail passenger journey generator in Derbyshire, after Derby and Chestefield.

Looking through a box of old prints last night I found this one and immediately thought of BCB. Apologies for the quality but it was taken with a 110 pocket camera during a site visit. Two Class 20 locos at Ryecroft Junction, January 1982. The bridge is the disused North Walsall line from Wolverhampton to Water Orton.

Most gas lamps were about as good as a candle in a coal 'ole so unless you are intending to operate in total darkness they wouldn't be seen if giving out a scale amount of light.

Knowing what goes on in other disciplines was a big help in my later roles developing and managing infrastructure works. At times i was not only looking after the signalling side but also co-ordinating input from telecomms, track, earthworks, structures and electrification. I didn't have to know the fine detail, I knew men (and ladies) who could do all that, but the important part was getting the system interfaces in place so that everything happened in the right order and worked properly when joined up.

I didn't remember that train running on a Saturday. We used to look out for it at Snow Hill. By that time it was usually an Oxley Brush 4 turn but on Fridays the diesel worked the 17.50FO passenger and the parcels was steam hauled.