TheSignalEngineer

Yes, I've got a picture of an AL6 at New Street in 1967 and the roof looks darker than the window surround.

If I was producing a plan for this situation the measuring track would be before the berth track which releases the signal. In relay interlocking terms depending on the length of the train it picks a relay which stays in the energised position, effectively rememebering whether the train approaching is a 3-car or 6-car. If the route from the signal is set, on the train reaching the berth track circuit which will generally be 100-200 metres long, the signal circuitry will check if the train will fit in the available space, and if OK it with all other conditions met it will energise the relay controlling the signal aspect. The relay which remembered the train length will then de-energise as the train occupies the replacment track circuit beyond the signal. The circuitry controlling the signal in rear will check that the measuring circuit has returned to the starting state before it can be cleared.

I remember on one scheme where I provided three track circuits in a long platform. It regularly had 3x3-car to and from depot arriving or departing on different services. The incoming signal had a track circuit 6 cars long which was split into two 3-car sections on the approach. It would only show the Call-on if the approaching train would fit into the space available in the platform.

Some examples lined up at Longsight in 1962. E3069 was about 2 months old at the time of the photo. https://www.rail-online.co.uk/p1050452084/ed565537b Note the slight difference of the blue band on AL1 and AL5

I thought that it was a GWR/BR(W) rule that except for named expresses and B sets no train should have coaches of the same type coupled together if they had been in service more than one month. 🤔

They were white and depending on how long since painted covered with a spattering of pantogragh and catenary dirt.

I've never tried turning that.

Originally the "Railway Employees Priviledge Ticket Association" now known as the Railway Employees and Public Transport Association. Reciprocal travel concessions were started by the GER in 1890. REPTA was formed in 1893 to co-ordinate arrangements between companies. https://www.repta.co.uk/

I still have a last which I used for shoe repairs in my younger days. It came to me from my grandfather, who said it belonged to someone in my grandmother's family who were in the shoe trade. My Dad used the spit and polish method, working the mixture into the leather with the warmed handle of a tablespoon when first building up the shine. He had been in the Military Police during the war and then the Fire Brigade. When I joined the Cadet Force at school he did the toecaps of my boots. The CO accused me of varnishing them.

Thanks for your efforts. It looks like my lt stash should be fairly safe, only a Venerable K's kit for a panelled Autocoach appeatred in the Top 50. This year only two other items of interst appeared in the Top 50 where I have already upgraded/converted RTR or built kits. I must be slipping. Eric

Probably akin to the ones I produced around 6am one morning at Watford Gap. There was a Policeman running up the other side of the barrier towards me waving frantically. He had seen a lorry come out of the Northbound slip road and sideswipe a lorry passing at speed. That one had veered across the carriageway and gone on its side with the trailer resting on top of the Armco overhanging my lane.

Perhaps Modelu could do an irate resident ripping one off. I think we abandoned installing them in the early 1970s on the LMR. When I was working setting up lineside telecomms at Saltley in 1969 the local scumbags used to steal the amplifiers for adding to ghetto blasters to make big noise.

I wanted some non-corridor LMS stock long before Hornby made their P3 version. From two Airfix /Dapol lav brakes and two lav composites and a few whitemetal bits I made a P2 six compartment Brake 3rd, nine compartment all 3rd and a Push Pull Driving Trailer. Not the most detailed examples but they pass the test of "Do they look like a ....?" from 3 feet when running on the layout.

I found that just collecting readily available stuff was not that satisfying so I focussed on running stuff which appeared in a particular area over a time period of about 5 or 6 years. My layout is a ficticious location in the Black Country and everything that runs appeared within a 10 mile range between 1955 and finishing before the introduction of SYP on diesels. My other modelling 'vice' as a few here will recognise is buying up things like old RTR stock and kit wagons that have seen better days. I bought some Replica/Bachmann LMS P1 corridor Brake Thirds and Composites. I cut them up and stuck the bits back together to make a Corridor Third and Brake Composite. These two were never made by Mainline, Replica or Bachmann so I got some unavailable stock to improve my trains. The leftover bits are booked for making a 57ft BG of the type built by the LMS when the ones which had been converted to Ambulance Trains were returned to them after WW2. Kits get stripped down and rebuilt, converted or improved. I built a rake of ten 16 ton minerals from Airfix, Cambrian and Parkside wagons which cost me about £20 from club sales stands and toy fair oddments boxes. Some already had metal wheels and good couplings. I needed one pack of wheels, some bearings, a packet of couplings, paint and transfers. Wagons were weighted by lining the floor inside with a thin steel sheet. Removeable loads were made from crushed real coal on scraps of foamboard. Currently I'm renovating three wagons bought for £5. All had good metal wheels which were worth at least the purchase price. One was a ply body 12T van which needed properly numbering and some couplings. Second was a SR 20T 8-plank which was missing some brake gear and needed some re-glueing. Third was a bit of an unexpected gem. It was a van in LMS livery on a Parkside chassis, but I didn't recognise it. On researching it I found it was a scratch built body for a type which is not available RTR or kit. A couple of small repairs and a repaint and I will have a wagon for about £4 that no-one can buy without commissioning it.

That's probably because it didn't have any in the first place. Seriously, I find my Hornby Dublo a useful diversion from the more serious stuff. My collection started with a small amount of stuff I got for £8 in 1958. It included a second hand Montrose which still runs perfectly. It all got put away for many years then when I got back into modelling it came out occasionally for maintenace. Swapmeets and eBay led me to filling the gaps, working back to the introduction of BR liveries in the mid 1950s and forwards to the end of production. Many of the rolling stock items can be picked up in good condition for a few pounds.

These were a Westinghouse product used on WCML Electrification. I'm not sure when they started but the ones I worked on were mainly on New Street, Walsall and Wolverhampton areas. I think they were also used for some of Euston, so I would put the main period of use on the LMR as about 1964-66. They were the same material as used for the body of Westinghouse control panels at the time. They were prone to the doors cracking round the hinges and a nightmare in use. Fine indoors but no use trackside. We spent a lot of time several years later replacing them, which fortunately was not too difficult as you could unbolt from the base and remove without disturbing the equipment frame. It was then possible to drop a steel case in place and bolt it down.

You really worry when it gets to the path with the railings on it. That's about 3 feet above the road. I've seen a car completely submerged there.

Nothing new about that. It used to flood when I worked down there in the 1960s

I remember some tests with an 87, I think 87101. It put out so much electrical noise it dropped off the radar in Kilsby Tunnel. When we were doing testing on the DC Lines SSI scheme in 1988 we had a lot of problems at Harrow & Wealdstone. We had an oscilloscope on the Data Link and signalling power supply to look at the interference. Within a couple of hours I could tell 100% accurately what type of loco or unit was coming just by what rubbish it was putting out.

When interval timetables were introduced, mainly in the 1960s, there were a number of key points where the whole thing interlocked. These included Crewe, Birmingham, Bristol and York.

We got some strange results when we took measurements on the Midland line from Farringdon. Track had been laid in the tunnel but not joined through. We had already taken some measurements and had found quite a large amount of background DC which matched in with train movements on London Underground and around Blackfriars. One Sunday night we clamped big traction bonds across the gap in the running rails. We had arranged for the last DC substation on the way into Blackfriars to be disconnected so that the feed was coming from south of the river to increase the length of the return path and maximise the amount of local leakage. We calculated that the highest load we could get would be two Class 455 units coupled and starting away from Blackfriars into Holborn Viaduct. We connected pen reorders to measure the volt drop along the return rail at the Moorgate and Kings Cross legs of the junction at Farringdon, St Pancras Main Line station, Kentish Town, West Hampstead and Hendon. Besides the unexpected result at Farringdon we managed to measure a change in the DC level in the rails at Hendon. The strange thing was that the DC out there was suppressed by the train at Blackfriars. When the results were all viewed together we surmised that there must have been some very interesting effects in the West Hampstead area where you have the Metropoliotan/Bakerloo and the North London (still 3rd rail at that time). The MML sits half way between the two other lines and they seemed to be working in opposition. Another place we got an unexpected drop was around Kings Cross were the Fleet River (Sewer) goes across the roof of the Widened Lines tunnel. As the area is AC with a Return Conductor and Earth wire bonded to the structures in the roof it is also connected to the sewer pipe. Happy Days probing the mysteries of how electricity gets back to source after it has been used to drive things. Makes the black art of signalling seem simple stuff.

I look forward to seeing those as it will but what I have sketched out into context. I will try to fit in a gantry, although I can do it without subject to spaces available for posts and sighting. I do have the possibility of some three-doll brackets that would be interesting structures.

Disclaimer:- I'm speaking from memory and anything quoted is from the standards which applied in my working days and may be different from what applies since privatisation. Yes, the fouling point, 6ft from the line measured at right angles, is where you start from for converging lines. On top of that if you want the track circuit clearing point you then need to add on extra for overhang. In my day this was generally considered as 16ft as I think that covered the nose end of the prototype APT. In cases where standage was critical like station areas you could do a calculation to reduce the distance of the track circuit joint beyond the fouling point from the where the 16ft applied in the case of a right angle crossing to zero if the two lines ran parallel going away from the fouling point. The signal would then be placed between 5ft and 65ft from the clearance point. The standage length also needs to take into account the train stopping position based on the driver being able to see the aspects from his seat, unlike the North Bay at Wolverhampton which was fine for a 3-car 57ft DMU but when a Class 120 was put in there the driver had to go back to the first passenger door to check if the signal was off. There were a few exceptions but these get increasingly more complex and would be decided on a case-by-case basis. Birmingham New Street was a good example where all moved were 10mph maximum and it effectively had its own set of rules.

Thread Drift Warning. Especially in electrified areas. In AC electrification bridges and structures are bonded to the traction rail so it is inherently a big earth rod. A broken rail in the traction return rail can be bypassed by earth leakage and also cross bonding between parallel tracks. I had an interesting case when doing immunisation tests on the original Thameslink job. When we joined the running rails through near what is now City Thameslink station the pattern of DC traction leakage from the Southern 3rd rail network at Farringdon was not as predicted. I followed the track towards Barbican checking the current flowing in the structure bonds attached to the rail. About three bonds into Smithfield Tunnel there was a much greater current than anywhere else. I looked up and saw it was all bonded to the roof girders above me, which were part of the structure of Smithfield Market. Upstairs this carried a spiders web of conduit which was in turn connected to the local electricity board earth in the substation. Added signalling details to an accident inquiry plan for a PW machine wedged under the front of a Class 47 at Lapworth many years ago. Route had been set out from a siding at Hatton. Signalmen changed over whilst it was running towards Dorridge and it was forgotten about. New signalman saw routes set but no tracks showing occupied, pulled the route and buttoned up for an express. Oh $**T. In the days of us Dinosaurs, our understanding was that in any working system faults are inevitable. Many will be protected as the system will cease to function when the fault occurs. Occasionally the subsystem affected will continue to operate incorrectly causing a potential hazard. Sometimes the overall system will recognize this and protect against it. Sometimes it will be noticed by the signalman, train driver or other person and they will take action to stop 'The Machine'. On a very few occasions it will get through all of the checks and cause an accident. Our job was to reduce this to as near to zero as possible.

One of my design checking jobs IIRC. Barriers, colour lights and switch panel in lieu of frame in c1875 box, installed December 1982. Went on a saloon tour there during the installation. If they didn't dissolve into the aether during the meltdown there may still be a couple of my pictures on here somewhere.