Telephone cabinet signage

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Noel
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby Noel » Wed Jun 07, 2017 6:52 pm

John Palmer wrote:Although the scepticism about whether the Burnham ground frame was telephone-equipped has taken this thread down some entertaining diversionary routes, I'm sad to say it hasn't left me much the wiser as to whether or when the black saltire symbol came into use on the S&D.


Sorry about taking up so much of your time, John. Apart from interest in the conversation itself, I was hoping that it might lead to a conclusion as to whether there was a phone there at all, which Tim now seems to have answered in the negative, at least for the date of the photograph...
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Noel

John Palmer
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby John Palmer » Fri Jun 09, 2017 3:46 pm

Actually, this thread's diversions have proved to be thoroughly worthwhile in prompting me to re-evaluate my understanding of the way in which Burnham was signalled and worked. Re-examination of available photographs have also brought to my attention changes to the station over the years of which I had not previously been conscious.

On taking a further look at my BR(S) diagram I note that it includes the endorsement: 'Track circuit indicated in box and ground frame:- A'. This is probably where Judge and Potts got the information reproduced on their version of the diagram, so I assume there must have been two such indicators – a good job I included a representation of such an indicator in my model of the block shelf in the box! I still can't see much value in repeating the track circuit's condition in the box because neither the loop points nor their associated locks could be worked there; that could only be done at the ground frame.

I agree with Tim that the wires to the enclosures next to the ground frame must, it seems, have carried the track circuit repeater indication to the signal box. However, I'm not yet convinced that this precludes the presence of a telephone at the frame because I gather that a buzzer telephone circuit could be and frequently was superimposed on that for a signal repeater. Is there anything about the track circuit wiring arrangement at Burnham that would have precluded piggybacking a telephone circuit upon it?

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Tim V
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby Tim V » Fri Jun 09, 2017 7:43 pm

I'm still thinking no phone at the ground frame - looking at the information has made me re-evaluate the working of Burnham. I think the person who worked the box and the person who worked the frame were the same person - therefore no need for phone communication. The bells were in the box?

Staff & Ticket working - train arrives either platform and gives up the ticket/staff to the signalman who retains it. Train to depart excursion platform, signaller asks for line clear, then releases ground frame, fireman walks down to engine with the staff or ticket (having seen the staff). Signaller walks to ground frame, pulls road, resets frame after train has passed over track circuit, walks back to box to send train entering section.

All this takes a lot longer than we represent it when operating....
Tim V
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stevecarr

Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby stevecarr » Fri Jun 09, 2017 8:08 pm

Tim,

Surely you mean "SIGNALMAN"

Signaller is this awful modern parlance.

Just thought I'd point it out.

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Tim V
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby Tim V » Fri Jun 09, 2017 8:34 pm

Out of the way place like Burnham may well have had a signalwoman, Pensford had one till 11/48.
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John Palmer
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby John Palmer » Sat Jun 10, 2017 12:26 am

My thinking is that the signalman asks the road whilst the excursion's locomotive is at the top end of the engine release, then, when it reaches the signal box, he hops aboard (with train staff, which he gives to the driver) (a) for a lift down to the ground frame (b) to authorise passing the starting signal at danger. The ground frame remains released throughout the run round. As soon as the engine sets back into the loop to couple onto its train the signalman clears Start from Loop with 4 Push and walks back to the box. If he stays at the ground frame to normalise it after the train has cleared the track circuit and only then walks back to the box, the train will have almost reached Highbridge East 'A' by the time the 'entering section' bell is given. Some support for this method of working can be found in a photo we have of an Armstrong standing ready to depart from the loop with its train. The ground frame can be seen in the background with the starting signal lever cleared but no signalman in sight - he's not waiting at the frame for the train to depart.

Yes, I could stand like a lemon behind the station console mentally counting the minutes it takes for the invisible 4mm signalman to conduct his notional perambulation from the signal box to the ground frame. I bet that by the time that interval had elapsed at least half the viewing punters would have lost interest and moved away. A point comes when operational authenticity needs to yield to entertainment value.

During the War, Miss Pursey was a porter at Burnham and probably also performed train signalling duties. I think she'd look a bit bemused if you told her she was a signaller.

If there wasn't a phone in the cabinet adjacent to the ground frame then what was it there for?

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Noel
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby Noel » Sat Jun 10, 2017 8:03 am

John Palmer wrote:If there wasn't a phone in the cabinet adjacent to the ground frame then what was it there for?


If you are right about the signalman leaving the box to operate the ground frame, then the box at the g/f contains at least a block bell and a block instrument repeater, or else the signalman won't know that Highbridge has just sent 6 bells...

John Palmer wrote: Some support for this method of working can be found in a photo we have of an Armstrong standing ready to depart from the loop with its train. The ground frame can be seen in the background with the starting signal lever cleared but no signalman in sight - he's not waiting at the frame for the train to depart.


Or is he out of sight behind the loco talking to the crew?
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Noel

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Tim V
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby Tim V » Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:09 am

If there was a bell, one wire could have run the bell, and a block bell phone can also run on the same wire. Whether this was the case at Burnham? What we don't know with certainty is how many wires are needed for a track circuit running two indicators, which is the only thing we know was in the ground frame.

As an example, the wooden box phones here run on the bell wire, the white phone is the normally used phone. I've never seen the wooden phones used.

Pendre block post. The block bells are behind me.
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essdee
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby essdee » Sat Jun 10, 2017 10:55 am

Steve, Tim,

As an aside, the S&D's less-out-of-the-way Radstock East box was worked in late 40's/early 50's by two ladies; Kath Parker(later Berryman) and Doris Dorley (by implication at the same time); Joyce Tamblin (Jones) worked it, later.

I have been fascinated by this thread, and not just for its S&D content; the deductions from photo evidence, allied to relevant WTT(STT) strictures reveal a whole aspect of operation that I had given little thought to.

Perhaps a wee article, as to the use of telegraph/telephone lines to signalling structures, for the new Editor's in-tray would be welcomed by the wider readership.....?!

(Sprints for cover.....)

Seriously, welcome to the Hot Seat, Tim, and looking forward very much to your first issue!

Regards,

Steve

John Palmer
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby John Palmer » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:27 am

John Palmer wrote:My thinking is that the signalman asks the road whilst the excursion's locomotive is at the top end of the engine release, then, when it reaches the signal box, he hops aboard (with train staff, which he gives to the driver) (a) for a lift down to the ground frame (b) to authorise passing the starting signal at danger. The ground frame remains released throughout the run round. As soon as the engine sets back into the loop to couple onto its train the signalman clears Start from Loop with 4 Push and walks back to the box. If he stays at the ground frame to normalise it after the train has cleared the track circuit and only then walks back to the box, the train will have almost reached Highbridge East 'A' by the time the 'entering section' bell is given. Some support for this method of working can be found in a photo we have of an Armstrong standing ready to depart from the loop with its train. The ground frame can be seen in the background with the starting signal lever cleared but no signalman in sight - he's not waiting at the frame for the train to depart.


By way of a supplement to this topic, last Saturday night I was taking a look at some videos of the S&D which included footage of of an excursion using the loop in the early '60s. Motive power in question was Collet 0-6-0 3210, entrusted with a train comprising at least 8 coaches. The locomotive was seen at the east end of the loop, and of particular interest was the fact that the loop starting signal had already been cleared as the engine set back past it onto its train for the return ECS working to Highbridge. The significance of this lies in the fact that, since the loop starter controls admission to the Burnham-Highbridge section, it is virtually inconceivable that this signal will have been cleared unless the train had already been offered to Highbridge East 'C' and accepted. In turn that means that, unless the ground frame controlling the loop starter was equipped with the block controls required to obtain that aceptance (which I think unlikely), it must have been obtained by a bell exchange between the signal boxes prior to the signalman operating the ground frame levers required to get the engine back into the loop. I think that lends some further support to my speculation above as to how despatch of trains from the loop was dealt with.

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Noel
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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby Noel » Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:47 pm

So the implication is that, the loco having run round, the signalman walks to the box to give 'entering section' when the train leaves and then immediately has to go back to the ground frame to return it to normal? If so, to send one train the signalman has to walk the distance between the box and the frame a total of 5 times, which seems rather inefficient.
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Noel

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Re: Telephone cabinet signage

Postby John Palmer » Tue Nov 21, 2017 4:33 pm

In this instance, economy trumps efficiency. The number of occasions on which the loop was used for excursion traffic is unlikely to have exceeded forty per annum (say twice a day on Saturdays from May to first fortnight in September, plus Easter, Whit Monday and August Bank holidays). Undoubtedly more efficient working of the layout at Burnham could have been achieved by bringing all points and signals under the control of a single box. For whatever reason, the opportunity to do that was not taken when the loop was installed, and by 1930, when the Joint Committee began seeking economies in earnest, there was no likelihood of it approving a scheme for such work. So Burnham was left with bizarre signalling arrangements akin to having a single box physically split in two and having one part interlocked with the other by means of rod runs. If that meant that the signalman's job entailed some extra walking then so be it, for there was going to be no saving of his wages as the result of some expensive capital scheme to improve the layout.

Unfortunately no further information has come to light as to the nature of the block signalling facilities provided at the station, so we are no closer to establishing whether the signalman had to return to the box in order to send the 'entering section' signal to Highbridge East 'C'. I think it unlikely that the block bell was duplicated at the ground frame, but if it was then clearly the signalman could have sent 'entering section' from there without needing to return to the box and saved himself that trip.

I can't see any need for five walks just to despatch a train back to Highbridge, but I concede that five are needed to cover both receiving the train into the loop and returning it to Highbridge – is that what you meant?


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