Traditional signal levers

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Traditional signal levers 21/12/2015 at 22:36 #79071
Steamer
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3925 posts
Thanks. Was there any particular preference between companies/regions?
"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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Traditional signal levers 22/12/2015 at 09:35 #79082
Danny252
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1461 posts
GWR/WR preferred points unlocked for trailing moves, and earlier interlockings sometimes enforced this. Later practise was that the FPL position didn't matter, but it seems that signalmen still regarded it as a bad habit to lock points for trailing moves.

There's arguments both for and against - the FPL lever can provide more security against the signalman moving points under a train (especially in the absence of track circuits), but a lot more damage is done if a locked set of points is run through compared to unlocked points.

Last edited: 22/12/2015 at 09:40 by Danny252
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Traditional signal levers 22/12/2015 at 10:56 #79088
KymriskaDraken
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963 posts
" said:
Thanks. Was there any particular preference between companies/regions?
We used to have several sets of points on Bristol Panel that were only fitted with FPLs at the facing end. There was a list of these in the box footnotes and the Rule was that they had to be clipped and scotched if a passenger train needed to use those points in the trailing direction.


At Little Mill Jn the crossovers outside the box had FPLs at both ends, if I remember correctly.


Kev

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Traditional signal levers 22/12/2015 at 13:32 #79092
kbarber
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1712 posts
" said:
It depends on how the interlocking was set up.

I've seen it three ways:

FPL has to be locked
FPL can be either way
FPL has to be unlocked.

Of course requiring FPL unlocked for trailing moves can save a bit of locking - the FPL effectively becomes a direction lever through those points (and thus, presumably, for the entire route); by locking the trailing move signal to the FPL you have your opposing locking.

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