Ground mounted Signals

that implies I am not confused top begin with

:)

Steve

AHAH!

like a get-ready-for-more-info

hmmmm interesting - it might pay to have a couple of these scattered throughout

just to totally bamboozle

:)

I like the idea of concealing the arm internally - just don't like the automation implications

Steve

.....and what about "ground mounted" signals?

you know .... the little (and easy to make) lights-only signals

And as a total aside: were semaphores ever placed on the ground as well?

Steve

There were occasionally exceptions, to do with sighting.

With AWS and its earlier GWR equivalent, an alarm was sounded in the cab if a distant signal was at caution (ie the next signal was at danger). If the brakes weren't operated it would do an emergency stop.

The message from "kim" contains these words:

Eerrr, not if your ae driving a GWR loco - to quote from LTC Rolt's book "Red for Danger":

"Their drivers drove from the opposite side of the footplate to those on other lines .." The layout of signals was a contributory cause of the accident at Norton Fitzwarren in 1940

No it wouldn't since they are only red on one side, if the arm was at

3 o'clock to you it would be white not red. Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

You got an anticlockwise clock as well Jim! Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

Thought this was where we started, 'ground mounted' signals were usually for shunting and were miniature semaphore arms, revolving discs or drop flaps and a few other odd designs depending on railway. When the main line signals changed to colour lights the ground signals usually remained mechanical, often using the rotating discs with floodlights. The present day style of position light ground signals only came in the 1950s. Keith Make friends in the hobby. Visit Garratt photos for the big steam lovers.

"kim" wrote

counterbalanced

There were exceptions. The NER slotted post lower quadrant signals didn't always fail safe. There were instances of snow packing into the slot and preventing the arm returning to danger.

The last of these survived into the (pure guess here) 1980s (at Haxby?) near York, and was at one time preserved in the concourse of York station.

John.

They use them on the North York Moors Railway.

There is a book called 'Midland Railway Portrait" which is a collection of large plate photographs of the period you are interested in. It has sections on locos, carriages, wagons, stations, buildings and infrastructure including signals and an explanation of how they worked. The detail in the pictures is quite staggering as the latest technology has been used to transfer them to print. Except for being in black & white it's like looking through a window at something which happened 100 years ago. Although concerned with the Midland railway company, it has details which are relevant to every part of Britain at the time. I can't recommend it highly enough.

(kim)

Keith,

Yeh, I know :-) Like someone else, I copied another poster's description. I should have noticed since he was talking about North American signals which are usually oriented the other way and that was the point of my message :-)

Jim.

In message , Christopher A. Lee writes

In 1914 such a signal was erected at the end of No. 1A platform, Paddington. It was an upper-quadrant three-aspect affair, looking very like contemporary American practice. ... Wolverhampton South box had a similar signal for its up starter from 1923 to 1945, ... [Vaughan, Pictorial Record of GW Signalling, p.25]

On page 154 of the same book are shown two designs of power-operated upper-quadrant three-position signals.

In message , kim writes

Correction.

Nornally left, however they could be placed on the right when sighting was bad, such as on a sharp curve.

In message , kim writes

A distant signal cannot be pulled "off" unless all the stop signals (home and starting) controlled by the signal box are also pulled "off". So the distant signal tells the driver to slow down and be ready to stop before entering the next block section.

Some distant signals were fixed in the "on" position.

If a driver ignored a distant signal he wasn't likely to last long as a driver, as his train would probably crash into some obstruction and he would be killed.

brilliant Kim! Do you have it? I would like to get the ISBN if so.

Thanks

Steve

Steve,

If you are looking for books on British signalling, consider these.

Railway Signal Engineering - Lewis - ISBN 1-899890-04-1 Mechanical Railway Signalling Part 1 - H. Raynar Wilson - ISBN

1-899890-20-3 Mechanical Railway Signalling Part 2 - H. Raynar Wilson - ISBN 1-899890-21-1

All are published by

Peter Kay, Orchard House, Orchard Gardens, Teignmouth, Devon. TQ14 8DP

The Lewis book is a re-print of a 1932 publication and the Raynar-Wilson books are re-prints from the pre-Grouping era. There are full of details of the equipment used and also on the whole signal operation, and they are all chock full of excellent drawings with dimensions, etc..

They are also useful for details of railway signalling in the old empire since a lot of the commercial signal equipment providers also exported their goods. In fact, most of the pictures in the Raynar-Wilson books are of Indian and Australian installations.

Jim.