TheSignalEngineer

If gantries are used on the three loop platforms they will all be restricted to the length of the shortest one. The two main platforms can probably be done with a straight post or bracket at each end.

Some photos would give a better idea as to what will fit on each platform. I have an idea how I would signal it, just details of position and style required.

And I think that if you scout around in the long grass to the left of it there is still a set of four crossing gates rotting away in the undergrowth. I suspect they have been there for about 40 years and may have come from one of our renewals at Hartlebury or Blakedown. There are also some Western style crank frame legs.

About 50 years ago we had a 'contactless wheel detector' mounted on the rail at an AHB crossing. It was wired to a pen recorder to along with the clearout treadle to check its reliability at detecting trains. We got a ghost reading several times each week. A site visit after working out the pattern discovered that it was the length walker's spanner coming close to it.

And not just on the tyres. I've had new locos where the contact rubbing area has been dirty from new and I now clean them before running in.

Platfirms 7,8,9 and 10 had colour lights on the footbridge for the normal running direction. The platform end signals eastbound on 8 and 9 and westbound on 10 were lower quadrants in the 1960s. There was still a lower quadrant at No.5 box for the end of platform 2 in 1964. It got replaced during stagework for the rebuilding. I also remember two on the bridge face coming into the Stour Bays worked by No.6 box but I am not sure when they went, possibly when the bays were knocked through.

A very long time. It belongs to Birmingham Railway Museum or Tyseley Locomiotive Works or whatever they call themselves these days. From what i remember many years ago some of the people involved wanted to have a working crossing within the depot.

My early years on BR were very similar but with the alterations for the closure of Snow Hill and then Saltley PSB either side of a year at Crewe Works and Pedley Street depot. The signals on the Midland side, middle of platforms 7 and 8 were the first. There was a rear ender with several fatalities on what became Platform 7, No.4 Line as it was called in November 1921 when the accident occurred. The Inspecting Officer criticised the signalling arrangements and suggested colour lights, which were the hot topic with the IRSE at the time.

Having know it during its last few years of freight I always fancied doing a model of the Harborne branch. It will never get built now but I till have a sketck I prepares for the connection to the Mitchells and Butlers branch at Rotton Park Road. It may get done if I am lucky enough to live another 25 years' My real big ideas had two alternatives. The first was that the LSWR got through from the Wadebridge area to Newham at Truro and had a joint station with the West Cornwall Railway there. The line tried to attract traffic from the GWR in the China Clay area. It would be transported to a new deep water port near Falmouth. My second option on that line was at station called Indian Queens where it crossed the GWR line to Newquay. It would have a connecting incline line between the GWR and LSWR and a mineral railway branch towards St Dennis. Sadly it would have needed a large barn and an evel larger fortune to build.

So the end of an era. New Street was where I started my career when the box was only a few weeks old. The station reconstruction was still ongoing and not completed until 1967. I was there when the last colour light signal was put up. My Grandfather was on the gang there at the time and had been involved in putting up the first colour light signal at New Street following a collision caused by misreading the old semaphores c1924.

It looked at the end as if they were making it up as they went along. I don't know what had happened yet. The controls in New Street Interlocking took a lot of understanding due to the complex PWay and confined space. Organising blockages and disconnections required detailed knowledge of how it worked as some things were not obvious when looking at a schematic plan or the signalling panel. There were a lot of cases where you were allowed to get from A to B via different routes depending on what was already set, by selection buttons or sometimes preferred routing unless that one was already in use. In a couple of places I actually removed some of the alternatives in the early days due to operators tying themselves in a knot by granting possessions and isolations that meant although you could signal a route it couldn't be used by an electric train. If the driver took it te train would grind to a halt half way across the junction and the Jocko would have to push it onto live wiring. I expect all of that knowledge had disappeared over the years as those of us who had been on it since 1966 are long retired now and the fragmentisation since privatisation broke the learning cycle.

1M68 terminated at Bromsgrove and unit is now heading along the Camp Hill line bound for Tyseley Depot. Wonder what they did with any passengers still on board? A few stragglers have just been cleared to Barton-under-Needwood and Wolverhampton, so I think 1626 was the last departure.

Although it may get a short reprieve as 1M68 was 38 late living Cheltenham

At about 1552 this afternoon the last ECS is due to leave the station for Tyseley. This was the TD display at the start of the last operational shift.

Jim Smith-Wright can be found here https://p4newstreet.com/

The only thing she ever bought for my railway was when I was looking for a new controller. I don't think she has ever bought me a train, although she does know that a 37 and Deltic make different noises, and knows they don't fit in my modelling period, stricty pre-SYP.

Thanks for the drawing. It prompts a few questions to move to the next step. Have you laid any track yet? Regarding the main station, is it intended that the two outside lines are for passenger use? If that is the case you will need five trap points. What is the traffic pattern for each platform, do passenger trains terminate and turn back to where they came from? Do you want them depart in either direction from all platforms (other than shunt moves)? Are both stations to have a signal box? This will affect what distant signals you need to provide at the main station. How long are the platforms and what is the approximate date you are looking for? These will have a bearing on whether the main station would have one box or two.

Going by upcoming prices if at arrives at £250 and is accurate it could be a bargain. I would like one for the 'time shift' mode on my layout where it would replace a Large Prairie or Hall with four Collett/Hawksworth coaches. To replicate that now would cost close to £350 at manufacturer website prices. Even shopping around for discounted new or good second hand would probably cost £200+.

My last order for the year was paid for on 10th December, then I abandoned unless one of my "Holy Grail" items appears for a reasonable price. That order arrived by RM this morning. A bonus as Ebay had forecast 28 Dec, which given strikes and Bank Holidays is the next day we expect a delivery.

I wish you success in getting it back on track. Since I discovered the Wigan Show it has been one of the first dates to go in my diary at the start of the year. I was intending to visit on Satuday this year but train strikes and other transport disruption / lack of reliable services meant that by public transport I would arrive about two hours before closing on Sunday.

Sadly the man in question is no longer with us but his engine lives on.

That reminds me of a colleague of mine. He worked alternate weekends on BR and a preserved line. He was engaged to be married but her ladyship put her foot down and told him "it's the trains or me". Faced with that ultimatum he had the ring back, sold the house and bought his own engine.

The Monster is listed on the GWR page in the 4mm section.

They also seem hell-bent on replacing established permanent staff with agency people. That makes it more difficult to track hours worked and rest periods. I caught people coming off one job, sleeping in the van for a couple of hours then working for someone else. They were on the books of more than one agency with no communication between them in those days. I don't know if the current systems are foolproof, but in the early days of privatisation we demonstrated that the Railtrack ones were not good. In my BR days the only agency staff in my depot were an HGV driver who was purely for delivering material / collecting scrap and a clerk/typist who covered for leave and sickness in the office. Later as a Project Engineer although I my on-site qualifications I only used the staff safety ones enough to keep my ticket valid. I gave up that part in my last role but still took the test to keep my knowledge up for managment purposes as there were times I needed to review associated documents and write technical material for tender submissions. If I had to go on-track it was usually in a group with an agency PICOW or the like. I was appalled at the lack of knowledge, both in Rules and railway geography, show by some of the staff who turned up and blackballed two firms who failed audits by our Safety Engineer following my reports.

I have no detailed knowledge and won't speculate, but I have feared for some time that the industry is teetering on the edge of another Clapham. That weekend I had been in charge of a section of a major commissioning. I spent Friday night supervising a changeover interfacing new wiring to existing equipment. It didn't go well so after breakfast and a shower I returned to site for a conference with the design team to explain what was going wrong and agree the modifications necessary. I rearranged the Saturday night work programme diverting some experienced staff to a scratch team to do the modifications. Back to the hotel for a meal, I changed into my outdoor gear and returned to site to lead the modification team myself. Fortunately all went well and we completed the outstanding work by breakfast on Sunday so a few hours sleep was in order. Returning in the evening I took up my booked Sunday night work checking sighting and operation of equipment from the test train before signing in my part of the job at the start of Monday's rush hour. At breakfast I got a message to say that there had been a serious incident at Clapham. When I got back to the site office there were details coming through and I had a tip as to what the cause had been so rounded up some volunteers to go through the locations we had been in to check we hadn't done the same thing. I finally arrived home at Monday teatime, lay down and promptly fell asleep where I remained for 17 hours. Such working was common then. I had been away from home for 82 hours and had about 10 hours sleep. My fear is that everything goes round in circles and managers without personal experience of attending a crash scene are too quick to destroy the things that were put in place by those who had to pick up the pieces in the past.