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Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:05 am
by Guy Rixon
Going back to the track layout as modelled, and assuming that the loop is used as a running loop or refuge, what is more likely for trains passing from the loop to the next section: a dummy at the loop exit and an advanced starter; or a running signal, level with signal 8, to enter the section and shunt-ahead signals for local moves?

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 3:09 pm
by Noel
Guy Rixon wrote:Going back to the track layout as modelled, and assuming that the loop is used as a running loop or refuge, what is more likely for trains passing from the loop to the next section: a dummy at the loop exit and an advanced starter; or a running signal, level with signal 8, to enter the section and shunt-ahead signals for local moves?


The type of exit signal used would depend on time and place, as different companies had different approaches. A ringed or reduced arm on a post would also have been common. However, an advanced starter [assuming the existence of signal 8] would be virtually inevitable, since all trains using the loop would have to reverse in. Use of a 'Shunt ahead' signal permitting access to the forward section to enable the train to reverse back would be very unusual, if not entirely unknown, in this context, on a double track line at a country station, I believe. In signalling terms, though, there is no requirement for signal 8; a single starter over a train length beyond the entry to the loop would be all that was required, in the same way as for travel in the opposite direction.

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 5:17 pm
by grovenor-2685
In the layout as modelled there is facing entry to the loop so no need for trains to reverse in, I would still have the section signal (starter) beyond the exit points but less than a train length, just some shunting space. Then a disc exit is fine, loop entry could be an offset bracket with small arm or a co-located disc with the home.
Rgds

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2019 7:53 pm
by Noel
I admit I was looking at Alan Turner's diagram when writing my last post. Ooops!

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 12:18 pm
by Bellerophon
Right way round now and surprisingly they work. That's a small step for a finescale modeller but it's a ruddy great leap for me! I've tried in vain to add coloured lenses to the spectacles. Any suggestions?
IMG_0858a.jpg


Somehow the picture goes upside down when I post on the forum.
(hopefully corrected for you, did you take the pic on an iphone or ipad? Keith)

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 1:54 pm
by Will L
PVA and coloured inks?

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 5:13 pm
by Noel
Humbrol Clearfix plus translucent paint [try your preferred search engine - Vallejo is one that does these, there are probably others].

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 5:52 pm
by John Palmer
Model Signal Engineering supply packs containing four sheets of spectacle glazing material, one each in red, amber, blue and green. Each sheet measures about 2" X 2", so ample material for lots of signals. MSE components are available from Wizard Models and a pack of the material will currently set you back £2.50. Fiddly to cut to correct shape for the spectacles, but warranted by the excellent work already done on these signals. I assume that blue will be the correct colour for the 'clear' aspect spectacles.

Edited to add that the latest photograph and your post sugges that you may have already tried this material without much success. Would it help to file up two bits of brass so that they are a close fit within the etched spectacles, then use these as patterns for cutting the material (one pattern for upper spectacle, the other for the lower)?

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:47 pm
by Bellerophon
Thanks everyone. I'll try the following and some Vallejo and see how that goes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHQYXAPIxl0

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:18 am
by dal-t
Personally, I much prefer the original Microscale Kystal Klear to Humbrol's somewhat shoddy ripoff, but each to their own. What you will find is that all such window glues, to a greater or lesser extent, produce a dished 'lens' rather than a flat pane. Sometimes this can be used to advantage, sometimes not. I have a Sentinel Steam Lorry that has been in the repair shop for much longer than I care to reveal, because I took the shortcut of Klear for the top half of the windscreen (it has very shallow upper 'windows' above the main screens, each split by a central divider). It seemed to work at the time, but the more I looked at it the more dissatisfied I became with the contrast between flat larger panes and dished smaller ones. Sometimes there is no alternative to a fresh scalpel blade, a well-held piece of clear plasticard, and a pint or two of concentration to produce satisfactory glazing.

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 12:58 pm
by Mark Tatlow
Bellerophon wrote:I've tried in vain to add coloured lenses to the spectacles. Any suggestions?


I use the coloured cellophane sold by MSE for this. I secure it with varnish. A lot easier than the other suggestions in my view.

And remember that the green lens is in fact a blue colour (because the white light of an oil lamp is in fact yellow).

An example can be found here: https://highlandmiscellany.com/2014/04/ ... d-etching/

Love the somersault signals by the way - well done!

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 3:24 pm
by Noel
Mark Tatlow wrote:And remember that the green lens is in fact a blue colour (because the white light of an oil lamp is in fact yellow).


Not always true. Having been brought up on the WR, which used blue, I was struck by the very different colour I saw when I travelled Birmingham - Derby - Trent Junction - Nottingham in the mid-1960s. I assume the Midland used green glass; the result was a very pretty apple green colour.

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 3:30 pm
by Mark Tatlow
Noel wrote:
Mark Tatlow wrote:And remember that the green lens is in fact a blue colour (because the white light of an oil lamp is in fact yellow).


Not always true. Having been brought up on the WR, which used blue, I was struck by the very different colour I saw when I travelled Birmingham - Derby - Trent Junction - Nottingham in the mid-1960s. I assume the Midland used green glass; the result was a very pretty apple green colour.


Electric lamps?

I don't have knowledge of what might actually have been on the signals but basic physics suggests that gas is going to burn the same colour!

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:03 pm
by Noel
There were some electrically lit semaphores, but most used oil lamps; gas, so far as I know, was never used. Lamp oil was usually kerosene, but was sometimes Colza in earlier days. I assume that both LMR and WR used the same oil, hence my thinking that the difference in the colour was down to a difference in the glass.

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 6:41 pm
by John Palmer
"...from the operational point of view one of the most salient characteristics of Scottish signalling, as practised on the Caledonian, North British and Glasgow and South Western Railways, was the use of a truly green glass in the spectacles. There is, of course, a good deal of yellow in the light from an ordinary oil-burning signal lamp, and many railways sought to counteract this by using a strong blue-green glass in order to display an orthodox bright-green light. On the Scottish lines the light displayed at night was often quite a pale yellow-green.

I made a note of this from the pen of O.S. Nock, whilst unfortunately failing to make a note of the publication in which it appeared. Green spectacles are apparent in BR-era pictures of several of the North British signals at Scotsgap, but by the same token you might also find NB signals fitted with blue glazed spectacles in later years; e.g. this was the case with Reedsmouth's Up Starting signal. Perhaps substitution of blue glass for green was an LNER or BR thing. And from Mark's post it seems that the Highland may have bucked the Scottish convention.

Re: Signalling for Tingley Common

Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 6:13 pm
by Bellerophon
They look a little better on the layout. Not perfect but it keeps me busy.