Who wants to play on my trainset

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Who wants to play on my trainset 27/09/2021 at 18:28 #141701
simple68
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TLcaJdsRr0

If only it was mine, amazing tho

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Who wants to play on my trainset 27/09/2021 at 21:00 #141702
belly buster
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Tom Scott is worth a sub - he does his homework as you can from this vid and covers lots of interesting stuff.
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Who wants to play on my trainset 27/09/2021 at 21:24 #141703
Dick
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https://youtu.be/1MTaPwuDAqg
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Who wants to play on my trainset 27/09/2021 at 21:42 #141704
Ron_J
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belly buster in post 141702 said:
Tom Scott is worth a sub
On the contrary, he’s absolutely insufferable.

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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 09:45 #141707
jc92
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I can think of two model railways which are more useful:

1) Wallace and grommits layout. Always worth waiting for the 9.05 parcels.

2) the layout in a German pub that delivers beer to guests.

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 14:12 #141709
GeoffM
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jc92 in post 141707 said:
I can think of two model railways which are more useful:

1) Wallace and grommits layout. Always worth waiting for the 9.05 parcels.

2) the layout in a German pub that delivers beer to guests.
Don't forget Sushi Train!

SimSig Boss
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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 14:56 #141710
Peter Bennet
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GeoffM in post 141709 said:
jc92 in post 141707 said:
I can think of two model railways which are more useful:

1) Wallace and grommits layout. Always worth waiting for the 9.05 parcels.

2) the layout in a German pub that delivers beer to guests.
Don't forget Sushi Train!
Reminds me, a number of years ago when we and my brother's family were at my mum's house. My brother and I dug out the old lego train and track and put it round the dining table so people could pass things around. Not sure it worked terribly well but the kids were amused and my mum bemused.

Peter

I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs!
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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 18:12 #141713
pedroathome
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Ron_J in post 141704 said:
belly buster in post 141702 said:
Tom Scott is worth a sub
On the contrary, he’s absolutely insufferable.
You mean you don't like his 2 your 39 minute garlic bread footage?

Last edited: 28/09/2021 at 18:13 by pedroathome
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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 18:39 #141714
Steamer
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It's strange seeing systems that are simultaneously familiar but also completely different- the method of setting a route on the lever frame for instance, and the differences on German NX installations compared to the UK. I'd be interested to know what that lever frame feels like with the weight of a signal or a point on the end of it- it looks far harder than UK frames.

Count me among Tom's fans- the amount of research, care and basic honesty he puts into his videos puts some TV productions to shame.

"Don't stress/ relax/ let life roll off your backs./ Except for death and paying taxes/ everything in life.../ is only for now." (Avenue Q)
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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 22:01 #141719
pedroathome
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Steamer in post 141714 said:
It's strange seeing systems that are simultaneously familiar but also completely different- the method of setting a route on the lever frame for instance, and the differences on German NX installations compared to the UK. I'd be interested to know what that lever frame feels like with the weight of a signal or a point on the end of it- it looks far harder than UK frames.

Count me among Tom's fans- the amount of research, care and basic honesty he puts into his videos puts some TV productions to shame.
To me, the mechanical side just seemed bizarre, with our system looking to be so much simpler, with everything in one frame rather than multiple.

Maybe someone could confirm what I'm thinking, the second system shown, I assume is closer to our IFS control systems rather than the latter NX style we use

James

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Who wants to play on my trainset 28/09/2021 at 22:44 #141720
jc92
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Steamer in post 141714 said:
I'd be interested to know what that lever frame feels like with the weight of a signal or a point on the end of it- it looks far harder than UK frames.
The LMS experimented with two wire Turnover frames in the UK to reduce shunter injuries. They were installed at Barrow Hill Up and Down Sdgs Boxes, and also in at least two of the yard boxes at Rowsley too.

Rowsley South Shunt frame at Peak Rail is made up of surviving parts of one of the Barrow hill frames so at some point you'll be able to find out what they're like to operate. there are also supposedly some spare parts at the NRM in a pile in a dark room somewhere, but I've never seen them.

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Who wants to play on my trainset 29/09/2021 at 13:38 #141723
Jan
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There are a few of those signalling-school-style model railways dotted around the country – there used to be one (albeit a small one compared to the one in the video) at my university, too, although unfortunately it was closed down to make way for an expansion of the road construction laboratory a few years before I started my courses (I guess that's supposed to tell us something?).

pedroathome in post 141719 said:
To me, the mechanical side just seemed bizarre, with our system looking to be so much simpler, with everything in one frame rather than multiple.

In that context it's interesting to note that if I'm not mistaken, German-style signalling of a station operates on a much more hierarchical basis. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression of UK signalling is that overall control of the station as a whole is much less formalised – if a station is large enough that it cannot be handled by a single signal box, each signal box has its own individual station limits area that it controls and needs to individually coordinate train movements with its neighbours. Plus control of train movements between the signal boxes is still based on some sort of Absolute Block-like system.

In German-style signalling on the other hand the station area as a whole is clearly distinguished from the adjacent plain line, and each station has a so-called Fahrdienstleiter (chief signaller, literally "head of train running operations"), who is responsible for coordinating train movements around the whole station. If the station is big enough to require multiple signal boxes, those other signal boxes are manned by a Weichenwärter (literally "points attendant" ) each. Depending on the particular arrangements of the station and operating traditions of the former regional railway company, the Fahrdienstleiter either simultaneously acted as a Weichenwärter in his own signal box, or it might be a completely separate position which didn't directly operate any signals, points etc. at all.

Each Weichenwärter was/is allowed to more or less freely conduct shunting movements within his area of control, whereas operating main signals for proper train movements always requires the permission of the Fahrdienstleiter, which is also enforced via the interlocking. Having the route locking as a separate step might possibly also help in that regard.

Curiously enough this whole principle even survived into the beginning of the relay interlockings era – a few relatively early relay interlockings for some larger stations (e.g. Hagen, Hanover or Cologne) had separate operating positions for the Fahrdienstleiter and the Weichenwärter – the former only had a minature NX panel for authorising any routes to be set, but couldn't set any routes directly himself (the miniature panel basically only contained the tracks leading to/from the station and the platform lines, but omitted all the points in-between in the station throat), and the latter had the full panel for actually setting the routes, but couldn't set any main class routes without having permission to do so.

Relatively soon afterwards they realised that letting the Fahrdienstleiter directly set the routes himself was more practical, though and abandoned that kind of hard split for future NX installations (though large stations with lots of shunting movements might still have additional Weichenwärter operating positions for setting shunting routes only – facilitated by the fact that large NX-signal boxes in Germany are commonly being operated via a small telephone-style numeric keyboard, so it's easy to provide additional operating positions where the Weichenwärter's control panel simply lacks the buttons for setting main class routes. Operating the full panel directly only happens as a fallback if the numeric input control fails, or to authorise potentially dangerous operations – German NX-signalling traditionally gives the signalman relatively far-ranging override controls).

pedroathome in post 141719 said:
Maybe someone could confirm what I'm thinking, the second system shown, I assume is closer to our IFS control systems rather than the latter NX style we use.

Interestingly, there's actually a slight cutting error in the narration at the start of the sequence – the narration first mentions electro-mechanical interlockings as an intermediate step between mechanical signalling and the purely electrical relay interlockings, but the video jumps straight from mechanical to relay.

The type of interlocking shown in the video is presumably modelling a Dr S2, which is a type of interlocking commonly used for small stations – in order to economise on costs and simplify the design, that particular type of interlocking doesn't automatically move the points to the correct position for the route being requested. Route setting itself still happens NX-style, though. Other types of relay interlockings used for larger/more important stations are more fully-featured and do automatically move the points in the correct position for the route that has been requested.

Two million people attempt to use Birmingham's magnificent rail network every year, with just over a million of them managing to get further than Smethwick.
Last edited: 29/09/2021 at 13:51 by Jan
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Who wants to play on my trainset 29/09/2021 at 22:36 #141732
headshot119
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Jan in post 141723 said:


*Snip*

The type of interlocking shown in the video is presumably modelling a Dr S2, which is a type of interlocking commonly used for small stations – in order to economise on costs and simplify the design, that particular type of interlocking doesn't automatically move the points to the correct position for the route being requested. Route setting itself still happens NX-style, though. Other types of relay interlockings used for larger/more important stations are more fully-featured and do automatically move the points in the correct position for the route that has been requested.
What happens in that case if you call a route say from signal 1 to signal 2, but points 3 which are in the route aren't in the correct position for the route you've just called? Does the route set and the aspect only clears when you move the points, or does the route call fail?

"Passengers for New Lane, should be seated in the rear coach of the train " - Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
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Who wants to play on my trainset 30/09/2021 at 07:54 #141733
kbarber
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headshot119 in post 141732 said:
Jan in post 141723 said:


*Snip*

The type of interlocking shown in the video is presumably modelling a Dr S2, which is a type of interlocking commonly used for small stations – in order to economise on costs and simplify the design, that particular type of interlocking doesn't automatically move the points to the correct position for the route being requested. Route setting itself still happens NX-style, though. Other types of relay interlockings used for larger/more important stations are more fully-featured and do automatically move the points in the correct position for the route that has been requested.
What happens in that case if you call a route say from signal 1 to signal 2, but points 3 which are in the route aren't in the correct position for the route you've just called? Does the route set and the aspect only clears when you move the points, or does the route call fail?
Tangent alert!...
Upminster was a 'hybrid' (panel for signals but frame retained for working points) that worked on that principle.

Most hybrids worked on IFS principles (apart from Upminster the ones I'm aware of were all supplied by Westinghouse), so you set the route then operated the switch on the panel to clear the signal.

Upminster, however, was supplied by GRS. As I recall, the procedure was to set the points then clear the signal using an entry switch and an exit button. (The switches and buttons were identical to those used on the panel at Barking, and previously at Mile End, Bow Junction and Stratford in the 1949 resignalling of the GE.) What I don't recall is whether the points indications at Upminster used the solenoid-driven electro-mechanical contraption installed at Barking and on the GE.

I would speculate that the answer - or at least part of it - lies in the characteristic GRS wiring. Peter Woodbridge, in his Chronology of UK Railway Signalling, says the circuitry of the GRS panels was very similar to what later became the WR E10k standard. If that is so, and in contrast to the Westinghouse approach, NX operation of some sort would have been pretty much enforced by that circuitry.

So far as I am aware, Upminster was unique.

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Who wants to play on my trainset 30/09/2021 at 09:08 #141734
Jan
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Good question. I can't answer it with absolute certainty, but I'm relatively certain that the route call fails completely in that case (which would also match the what happens in the video).

With the slightly more modern Sp Dr S60 interlocking (which for anything other than smaller stations, which continued using the more simple Dr S 2-type interlockings, became the classic relay interlocking in West Germany, although there was also an alternative line of geographical interlockings available which was produced by SEL) on the other hand, if you turn off automatic point setting (which is required as a precaution during certain degraded mode operations), you can still set the route, and it simply won't lock (and the aspect not clear) until you've manually moved all the points into the correct position.

In those interlockings, the route call only fails if a set of points is actually locked (be that because of another route, train detection or manual locking by the signaller) in the wrong position. Points required merely for flank locking (to note that in Germany crossovers are always signalled as two independent, single-ended points) however don't block the route call, either, though they will of course prevent full route-locking and the aspect clearing until they, too, are in the correct position.

This difference might also make sense insofar as the Dr S2 (and a few other early types of relay interlockings) is a route-based (?) interlocking (what's the correct term here?) with a fixed number of hardwired routes and basically mimicking the control table of a classic (electro-)mechanical interlocking, so it makes sense that if any of the conditions required for the route isn't met, route setting just outright fails.
The slightly more modern Sp Dr S60 and its cousins on the other hand are based on geographic principles and hence will behave differently there and feature this intermediate state of route setting, where the route has been set, but not yet fully locked.

Two million people attempt to use Birmingham's magnificent rail network every year, with just over a million of them managing to get further than Smethwick.
Last edited: 30/09/2021 at 09:10 by Jan
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Who wants to play on my trainset 01/10/2021 at 10:38 #141741
sunocske
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Here in Hungary lever frames are still in use widely, mainly for moving points and point locks, the signals have been replaced to colour lights at most places.

The effort used to set a route depends on a lot of things (how well the equipment and points elements are maintained, the distance between the points and the levers and so on), but I've learned that the main thing is how fast you can start to move the lever and how far you can maintain the movement. The more the impulse the easier to set the points. Especially double slips (we call them "English points"can be tricky: if you can't pull the lever with enough effort (imagine you are angry about that lever, it helps a lot) until at least 2/3 of it's angle in one grab, the four slipping tongues will stick somewhere halfway between the normal and reverse positions and you will have a wet shirt setting the points in either direction! On the other hand, a well maintained, single points in front of your box can be set even with one hand. I've some experience with semaphore signals, too, the main signals closer to the box are usually easy to move, but distants are a bit harder because of the distance, and you can even feel the springback of the long steel wires you actually move the signals with.

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Who wants to play on my trainset 03/11/2021 at 10:50 #142167
Woodhead Signalman
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At Ashton Moss North Junction signal-box east of Manchester I recall that for the distant signal applying from the Manchester direction there was a triangular piece of metal bolted to the frame in order to facilitate the pulling of the distant lever. The distant signal was so far away that you needed to plant your right foot on the metal triangle in order to get the purchase you needed to heft the lever over and get the position indicator for the signal to read 'correct' in the small glass roundel in the block shelf Not an easy task.
Last edited: 03/11/2021 at 10:51 by Woodhead Signalman
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