Hi. Bit of a noob question, but on routes like Weardale and Teasdale, I often see a cluster of signals in front of me and I can't immediately see which one I should be looking at, for example 2:18 into this video from Matt: Are there any rules of thumb for this kind of thing? Okay, so in this example its possibly the middle one but it can be hard to know, and its a shame to SPAD Thanks
At 2:18, there are 2 signals- so I don’t know what you mean by centre one? Generally speaking, your signal will be on the left hand side and I wouldn’t say this example is too difficult. I’m not sure if you’re getting confused by the fact that there are 5 semaphores and there are a mixture of stacking/stepped/distant/home?
Thanks for the reply. It looked to me like there's 4 home signals. Presumably in this case its the one above my track (so its not the best example) but then its not on the left hand side, so maybe its not. And what's stepped and stacked? Thanks
So there’s only 2 signals. I’ll go through each one. The first signal, which is on the left, applies to your train. On this signal, there are 2 semaphore heads because there are 2 different routes you can go: 1. The far left semaphore head: if this is in the clear position (which it is in this example), you will be going across the junction to the left. 2. The semaphore head next to it: if this was in the clear position (in this example, it is showing Stop indication), you would be taking the ‘straight’ route so you would not be going across the junction. You obviously can’t have both of them showing clear because that would be like a colour light signal with 2 route indicators (“feather”) lit. The second signal, which is on the right hand side, applies to the track on the right hand side. There are 3 semaphore heads and this includes the one that is “above your head.” So, let’s go through the scenarios: 1. The left semaphore (with respect to the signal but as you described it, it is “above your head”): if this was in the clear position, you would be going across the junction to the left. I’m not familiar with the route but I would guess that means it would be coming onto your track rather than to the one left of your track. 2. The right semaphore (with the distant directly underneath it): if this was in the clear position, you would be taking the ‘straight’ route so you would not be going across the junction. The arrangement on these signals are of the stepping type. So the one at the ‘top’ is for the main route. The semaphore that is one step lower to the left means that it is not the main route and you will be taking the route to the left. If there was another semaphore head that was one step even lower to the left (there isn’t in this example), you would be taking the second route to the left. Have a look at the attached diagram. Stacking type is where semaphore heads are stacked directly on top of one another. Like the distant and home signal are on the extreme right but if they were all home signals. In this case, the top one would be for the main route. The one below would be for the first route to the left. The one below that would be the second route to the left, etc...Have a look at the attached diagram.
Even more fun when they diverge left and right and you have up & down fast and up & down slow with crossovers.
Thanks for the replies again. That's loads more information than I was hoping for Olaf. I just noticed that Matt mentioned as he was passing the signals that the 2 heads on the left seemed to be the wrong way around (his train moved over onto the middle of the 3 tracks). I think I'd been thinking of it too much as a car driver, and also got lazy because TSW tells you the answer
Certainly looks like that: you’d expect the taller signal to refer to the straight route, and the lower one to be the route through reversed points.
Most route manuals have a synopsis of trackside signals and signs, eg this: https://www.armstrongpowerhouse.com/free_download/manuals/APWL_Manual.pdf
Try your hand with the famous gantry at Rugby Is Rugby and this gantry included in a DLC, btw? Inverness had a nice gantry: ...now replaced by a few soulless colour lights!
This is quite a good book, aimed at modellers, but referencing the real thing, of course. Here’s an interesting one, so you can practice your skills in seeing which signal pertains to which route:
Thanks for that. But a lot of the manuals (including the Wherry Lines one I think) only touch briefly on multiple heads for home signals. So the bottom of page 14 has an example with a right hand route and a diverging left hand route. But as with the examples above, it can be difficult to know which is mine I was watching some of PTG's UK Signalling Guide earlier and that has some interesting stuff in it as well.
That is so simple The signal that is Higher on a Post applies to the Main Route and the lower bracketed signals apply to Diverging Routes. New Mills South Jn. Changed a bit since then
