Stevenage reversers

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Stevenage reversers 09/04/2019 at 18:36 #117411
RainbowNines
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I've been on business in Leeds today but have to be in Gordon Hill before 8pm. I've thus taken the opportunity to leap at Stevenage for the loop. We're just off the mainline into what feels like open country...!

Aside from being quite discombobulating travelling on the right-most line as one is looking at a four track railway, I was intrigued to see the DS signal (K665?) was left at Green despite the train reversing.

I had convinced myself this was not to be done so I always return the signal to red on KX - am I being over cautious? Clearly compared to how it is on the ground I am (and far be it from me to quibble with the signaller), but is that normal practice across the country?

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Stevenage reversers 09/04/2019 at 18:47 #117412
ajax103
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RainbowNines in post 117411 said:
I've been on business in Leeds today but have to be in Gordon Hill before 8pm. I've thus taken the opportunity to leap at Stevenage for the loop. We're just off the mainline into what feels like open country...!

Aside from being quite discombobulating travelling on the right-most line as one is looking at a four track railway, I was intrigued to see the DS signal (K665?) was left at Green despite the train reversing.

I had convinced myself this was not to be done so I always return the signal to red on KX - am I being over cautious? Clearly compared to how it is on the ground I am (and far be it from me to quibble with the signaller), but is that normal practice across the country?
Not sure about elsewhere but at Stevenage that is normal practice.

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Stevenage reversers 09/04/2019 at 22:34 #117428
TUT
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There are places.

On London Underground, in several (perhaps all) interlocking areas, there is mechanical locking between the platform starting signals in different directions, preventing signals being off for a train to depart in both directions. The starting signal for the right direction has to be at danger for the train to reverse.

Don't think there's anything unusual or wrong about what you saw at Stevenage though, not on NR.

Last edited: 09/04/2019 at 22:35 by TUT
Reason: None given

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Stevenage reversers 09/04/2019 at 23:31 #117431
RainbowNines
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Thanks folks!
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Stevenage reversers 10/04/2019 at 09:00 #117436
kbarber
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ajax103 in post 117412 said:
RainbowNines in post 117411 said:
I've been on business in Leeds today but have to be in Gordon Hill before 8pm. I've thus taken the opportunity to leap at Stevenage for the loop. We're just off the mainline into what feels like open country...!

Aside from being quite discombobulating travelling on the right-most line as one is looking at a four track railway, I was intrigued to see the DS signal (K665?) was left at Green despite the train reversing.

I had convinced myself this was not to be done so I always return the signal to red on KX - am I being over cautious? Clearly compared to how it is on the ground I am (and far be it from me to quibble with the signaller), but is that normal practice across the country?
Not sure about elsewhere but at Stevenage that is normal practice.
I've a feeling that is a change from original practice, most likely between 1967 and 1976 (commissioning dates, so it would be several years earlier for design dates/signalling principles). I'm sure I recall my father commenting on an issue at Eastleigh (where the signalling remained, so far as I am aware, the 1967 installation although recontrolled to the new box sometime on the '80s). There was a timetabling issue with the need to depart trains from the down platform, almost simultaneously, to the Fareham Branch and the Up line, and the locking wouldn't allow both platform end signals to be off simultaneously.

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