TheSignalEngineer

Birkenhead was London Midland so any train to the Western would have been V. In January 1963 the railway spent most days on chaos and confusion, with lots of substitutions, diversions and short turn rounds so headcodes may have been last on the crew's list of what to worry about.

For some over-track station buildings try Small Heath, Tyseley or Acocks Green. All are still substantially in the GWR form. on the LMS side Duddeston rebuilt in the 1950s or Stechford pre 1966 are good examlpes.

This photo of New Street by D J Norton may give you some ideas. The LNW side to the left is higher than the Midland side to the right because Worcester street was on a hill. http://www.photobydjnorton.com/RailwayPictures/NewStAtWork/41226NewStStn.jpg

The last Management Staff Vacancy list that my office received during the run up to our privatisation had 42 jobs. 39 were for accountants and lawyers, the other three were for building and operating the railway.

I remember Derby Research trying a similar thing around 1970/1? they had a simulation based on traffic through Weaver Junction to Crewe Coal Yard IIRC. We played with it on a visit by young S&T engineering staff and trainees. None of the party were trained as signalmen but we managed to beat the machine's performance after about 15 minutes of working the system manually. When ARS was introduced there were some performance trials done at a major power box. It was found that even in the rush hour an experienced signalman was better at keeping traffic moving than the machine was until he had been doing it for more than about six hours into a shift. The machine is, after all, only as good as the system knowledge of the person specifying it and those interpreting that specification..

This should give you what you need. The diagram at the end is what was in the Requirements in 1950. It was what would have fitted most stock at Nationalisation and that built for normal use by BR. http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Requirements1950.pdf

They probably knew a lot about it. The Russian Military had quite accurate maps of the system, probably better than Railtrack ever had during their brief existence. They were so bad it was better to go to Ian Allan down the road and buy a Quail atlas then ride the route you were interested in to check if anything had changed recently..

In the opposite direction, when the original Cambrian RETB transmitter near Harlech was switched on for testing it played havoc with RTE television around Dublin.

In my 40+ years involved in the railway industry I saw an alarming decline in the understanding of what was required by opposite sides in putting things together. Before Sectorisation we had District Signalling Inspectors who had all been long-terms signalman, Footplate inspectors who has all been drivers, the people who worked in the Divisional Manager's signalling works office had largely started as signalmen or in places like the timetable section. Signaling designers and testers started as either probationers in the wages grades or engineering students in the salaried grades. The latter was no boil-in-the-bag job as we spent five years before being let loose unsupervised starting with learning how to put up a signal, as the junior in the gang you got to dig the hole if you wanted to get respect in future, set up points, wire circuits, cut locking for frames etc. In the early 1980s I was involved in producing documents which became a regional standard on specifying operational and signalling design requirements for projects which were later translated into BR standards. By 1992 we even had a manual on how to specify and implement infrastructure projects. Railtrack binned it on day one. Privatisation of operations only made things worse. I had a Traction man from a FOC at a Junction Risk Workshop i was running for a 125mph line. He said he wasn't interested in route knowledge as his trains only ran at 60mph so if we were sighting for 125mph it wasn't necessary. He wasn't in the job by the second meeting, wonder who put a spoke in his wheels. I was only too glad to get out and just act as an casual hired hand as soon as I was able to take an early pension

Lamp failures certainly were a big problem on power boxes to the extent that we used to under-run SL35 lamps at about 11.2-11.5 volts instead of the rated 12 volts. The reason why you didn't see black signals was the auto changeover to the second filament which raised an alarm either on the panel or at the techs monitoring panel. The driver didn't get one as the controls were arranged to need the signal lit or the one in the rear reverted to red. There was an exemption to this especially at 1960s LMR boxes where the signal could clear to a single yellow if the one in advance was not lit but the relay controlling the yellow at that signal was energised, As for experiencing it for real, I never did personally in BR times as we had a rule that said if a first filament fails then you change the bulb within 24 hours. Into privatisation things changed and when I did an analysis of faults and delays on an area for a maintenance contract bid in 1999 I noticed that they were a weekly occurrence on one of of the main lines out of London causing signals in rear to be held at red and drivers being talked by, thus delays racking up at an alarming rate plus the risks involved when the human takes over. On power supplies, when we relied on the local electricity supply we ran via trickle charged batteries which were specified to give power for at least 10 hours in the event of losing the mains. Because the equipment ran from the battery there was no down time at changeover, and we used to test on a regular basis to make sure it worked. Even at PSBs I remember putting in 50 volt batteries to maintain certain vital circuits in the event of power problems.

During my training and later in early years in management roles I had the good fortune to work for a man who became one of the top signalling men at both region and BRB. He always impressed on us that in designing anything the only thing you made by sitting at the drawing board was mistakes. He made us get out and walk the track, talk to our own installation and maintenance teams as well as visiting signal boxes we were involved in and getting rides up front to see how the whole system worked. This type of approach has unfortunately disappeared in the days of the disintegrated railway.

Wasn't it in the Sunday Sport just before they found the B52 Bomber on the Moon?

Garratt were shopped at Crewe as Derby reportedly couldn't cope with anything that big. Scrapping details on the web are sketchy but those listed were all cut up at Crewe.

The first mainline diesels in Egypt, ordered in 1945 and delivered in 1949, were powered by a 1600 HP 16SVT engine with EE823 Generator and EE801 Exciter. The wheel arrangement was somewhat different 1-A-DO-A-1 Egypt Railways - Egyptian State Railways Diesel Locomotive Diagram 140 - ESR class 3000 (English Electric, Vulcan Foundry) by Historical Railway Images, on Flickr

A Saltley man would probably have made it right through to the seaside.

Brian Kirby has recently done a thread on repainting Bachmann LMS Portholes.

Yes, it is quite difficult to thread a pass or shot though nine men in the penalty area.

So far TMC have been in the wagon department for their specials. I would go for a proper 4 wheel iron ore hopper. There were numerous types both BR, pre-nat and PO so plenty of choice for variations.

He gets a sniff of MEK and goes into overdrive.

Kingswinford Junction South, December 1982. The Rat is 25051 and it was propelling our Inspection Tour using Saloon M45026. Not sure if I used this one before, but it captures some of the death throes of the 'Old Railway' we knew as lads. The yard at Moor Lane is still being used for wagonload steel traffic. Old GWR signals have been refitted as Upper Quadrants. The facing points still have a lock bar, no track circuit. The line curving off to the left was the branch through Pensnett, Baggeridge and Wombourne to Oxley. It was only completed throughout in 1925. Passenger services only lasted for seven years and the line was progressively closed from 1965, the last bit in use being to LCP at Pensnett. The main OWW line to the right closed as a through route beyond Dudley to Wolverhampton in the 1960s, the South Staffs line from Dudley to Bescot closed c1993. The box was burned down by vandals in 2001. There is about one train a day now as far as Round Oak.

I think you would win. Definitely the right type and size of box and that signal behind the loco looks familiar.

I remember some double slips being put in at New St and they were an absolute PITA. I think on the last relaying of the West end there was a lot of bespoke design because standard FB components just wouldn't fit into the available space between the platforms and the tunnels.

Regarding the Bullhead, there were a few bits of point work around Birmingham and Wolverhampton that were difficult to bend up in flat bottom. They had to be specially made whereas they were virtually standard bits in BH. The bits of plain line in between were thus easier to do in BH as well.

I don't know about Pendolinos, only use them about twice a year but the Voyagers used to be terrible. There didn't seem to be any sync between the a/c units at each end of the coach, I think they must have had independent sensors. If one was pumping out hot air and the two were not set the same the other could be freezing.