Pictorial Survey of Railway Signalling by D Allen & CJ Woolstenholmes w/DustJack
A Pictorial Survey of Railway Signalling by D Allen & CJ Woolstenholmes
Hard Cover w/Dust jacket
144 pages
Copyright 1991
CONTENTS
1Nostalgia7
2Principles of Semaphore Signalling15
3Pre-Grouping (LMS and GWR) Signal Boxes35
4Single Line Working49
5Signalling Materials56
6Pre-Grouping (LNER and SR) Signal Boxes59
7Level Crossing Protection73
8Survivors81
9Grouping Signal Boxes (1923-1948)86
10Principles of Colour Light Signalling91
11Ground Frames103
12A Power Scheme - Doncaster in Transition104
13British Railways Signal Boxes112
14Aberdeen Before Resignalling120
15Gantries125
16Shrewsbury - A Case Study in Semaphores129
17A Decade of Change134
INTRODUCTION
British railway traction, rolling stock and signalling have evolved beyond recognition since those early days of the 1840s, a century and a half ago, when primitive steam locomotives, stage-coach style carriages and railway traffic policemen were the state of the art. In the intervening years, significant advances were achieved, but it is perhaps only during the last decade that technical developments in mechanical and signal engineering have rivalled the progress of the 1930s and have been so rapid, innovative and far-reaching. For example, the five PSB schemes at Colchester, Doncaster, Leicester, Victoria/Three Bridges and Exeter/Westbury have seen the elimination of over 210 mechanical cabins, while Inverness RETB Signalling Centre is responsible for the control of 250 route miles of railway - the largest geographical area in Great Britain.
With the arrival of the concept of the Integrated Electronic Control Centre - a new breed of superpowerful computer-controlled signal box, combining the latest hi-tech developments of Solid State Interlocking and Automatic Route Setting, with high-resolution colour VDUs, (installations already commissioned at Liverpool Street, Marylebone, Yoker and York) - virtually anything is now possible in the realm of signal engineering and control. It seems almost certain that, by the millennium, British Rail will have achieved its objective of controlling the majority of InterCity, Regional Railways, Network SouthEast and Railfreight routes from the 75 or so signalling centres envisaged in the National Signalling Plan.
However, in compiling this overview of British Rail operating and signalling practice in the 1980s, it has been our aim to combine these elements within an attractive and varied context, in terms of traction, train services and the rural and industrial environment adjacent to the railway, and to explain them concisely and simply, for both the lay observer and the interested amateur. This has proved to be a challenging task. Compromises, therefore, have had to be made in the selection of photographs presented and some aspects, for instance the less photogenic and the more technical, which are outside the scope of this general volume, have deliberately been omitted. A departure from previous pictorial albums has been the subdivision of the majority of the captions into a general and signalling section. The signalling captions form a continuous narrative. When identified in the text, signals and points are given their correct BR nomenclature and number in the lever frame. The architectural classification of signal box types and the abbreviations are based on those found in The Signal Box (OPC). A new section dealing principally with the most used signalling and other general terms has been added. Although a number of standard texts on signalling have been consulted in the preparation of this survey, for a concise detailed treatise about BR signalling methods and systems/practices, the reader is referred to British Railway Signalling, (4th edition), Kichenside and Williams, Ian Allan, 1978, now unfortunately out of print.
Inevitably, by the time this book is published, certain changes in the BR infrastructure, of which the authors are aware, will have been implemented.
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