A Tale of Two British Railway Signaling Public Information Films

 The UK is well known for a certain style of public information film that were professionally produced up through the 1980's. A couple go into great detail into the ins and outs of Railway Signaling and served as both a way to increase the public standing of the nationalized railways network in a time of both austerity and modernization and as a recruiting tool to bring new workers with new skills into said modernizing rail industry. 

The first film, entitled Electrical Engineering on the Railway and produced in 1962, falls more on the recruiting side of things as relay based "electric" signaling replaced largely mechanical manual block signaling on the busiest unresignaled main lines of British Rail. While this may been a bit odd as North American signaling has largely discarded purely mechanical signaling by the 1920's, Britain might get a bit of a pass given the toll a pair of World Wars took on its railways and economy.  Point of note include:

• A general lack of safety practices including, but not limited to protective clothing and burn pits for demolished signalboxes.
• The appearance of pneumatic point machines and North American supplied GRA Model 5A electric point machines.
• Rather flimsily looking track circuit bonding wires.
• The continued construction of brand new mechanical lever type interlocking frames.
• Some components of interlocking hardware being hand forged in house.
• A general use of North American pattern glass case plug-in and shelf type relays.
  

The second film, entitled Points and Aspects, was made in 1974 and shows the leap in British signaling from what one might call an updated basic CTC plan to something that was making far more use of computer and telecom technology to enable the so called wire area "Power Box" era of British signaling with as much automation as 1970's technology could muster..  This film is definitely trying to sell the public on British Rail not being a basket case and is worthy of their continued support and patience.  As a result an emphasis is given to the higher tech elements.

What is especially fascinating is that these two videos appear to span the moment when  the UK went from a very North American leaning approach to signaling technology, to a more European approach. Despite very different operating practices, North America and the UK had very closely aligned signaling supply companies with both GRS and US&S licensing UK technology and then supplying their own products back through local subsidiaries like Westinghouse. In the 1970's we are seeing the end of the glass case relays and Model 5 and M3 point machine that stared in the 1962 film.

British Power Signaling Channel Heads Down Under

About seven years ago I discovered the Youtube channel of one Ian Ives, who had posted a variety of VHS era videos from inside British power signalboxes (PSB's) in the early 1990's, such as this one of Glasgow Central.  Well as the way things tend to go I lost track of the channel until a recent keyword search brought it back on my radar.  It turns out that Mr. Ives has had quite the exciting career as over the intervening years he posted a number of videos from Australian signalboxes.  These are especially interesting due to the mix of British and American influences. 

For example he has some video of the operation of a local Australian copy of the GRS pistol grip style interlocking machine, only in Australia it is paired with pneumatic point machines!

A British style lever frame at Hurstville.

A British style panel controlling a US style CTC layout at Salisbury.

A British style miniature level power frame at Sydenham.

An interlocked and manually controlled grade crossing with a modern panel interface at Parramatta Road.

And finally a modern signaling center at Wollongong.

Just like in the US, Australia has been seeing its own drive towards the elimination of manned signalboxes and non-video interfaces so most if not all of the videos capture railway infrastructure that has been now lost to time. 

In addition to the tower content, Mr Ives has also posted a number of industry training materials including instructions on manual operation of every model of power point machine in service with the railway including pneumatics. 

Please check out the channel as many of the above example videos came in multiple parts. New videos continue to be posted so it might be worth subscribing to.

NASSAU Tower - Gone But Not Forgotten

You may recall that some years ago I was sounding the alarm about the pending demolition of NASSAU tower in Mineola, Long Island. Well, New York being completely dysfunctional, the demolition to make way for the LIRR Main Line Third Track project took far longer than anticipated, eventually taking place sometime between August 2021. The demolition was just in time for the complete collapse of peak-period commuter travel in the NYC area rendering the third track capacity expansion completely unnecessary (😢). 

NASSAU interlocking, sans Tower, February 2022.

Anyway as the third track megaproject continues to creep forward, someone spotted NASSAU's late model interlocking panel dumped out back near some storage containers. It was unclear that the fate of this artifact was to be, as in museum preservation, scrapping, theft or vanishing into a railroader's basement, however it is worth checking out for any signal fans who happen to live in the area (and who might own a truck and some high visibility vests, wink wink).

Apparently this panel type interface was replaced by a VDU late in the tower's existence as plans were carried out for the transfer of operations to the Jamaica dispatching center as was done with QUEENS tower a few years ago. Thanks to multiple visits to the tower while it was in service along with some contributed interior photos I plan to post a more complete retrospecting on NASSAU tower in the near future, so stay tuned for that. 

In other news the pneumatic movable point diamond at the NASSAU flat junction has been removed. A major maintenance headache, the diamond has been replaced by a second Oyster Bay switch onto main track one, creating a bottleneck by forcing all Oyster Bay trains to platform on the westbound local platform. 

You can see the new configuration in the LIRR Main Line 3rd Track plan.

This type of 2-tracks into 1-track configuration is extremely rare as it doubles the chance of a switch failure impacting main line traffic compared with merging both branch tracks before a single main track switch. This will also end of ritual of inbound and outbound Oyster Bay train passing eachother at NASSAU to minimize impacts to Main Line service. The ideal solution would have been a two track flat junction using full turnouts and a mid-platform signal on the new eastbound track 3. That would have allow for the option to use both platforms if extended wrong running on track #1 was not available.

NYCTA CBTC Plan to Prioritize Closing Main Line IND Towers

 I just wanted to share a little info graphic put out by the NYC Transit Authority about its upcoming re-signaling plans.  In summary, due to ridership decreases due to COVID, the TA is no longer going to focus on CBTC as a capacity expansion tool, but as a cost reduction tool and will therefore be targeting its remaining un-resignaled lines on the IND, specifically the 8th Ave (A)(C)(E), 6th Ave (F), Fulton and Crosstown (G). These segments have pretty much all of the remaining single interlocking towers with either GRS Model 5 or US&S Model 14 interlocking machines.

Now, my tower list is from 2019 and I haven't been closely tracking NYCTA tower closures, but at risk interlocking machines include Model 5's at 30TH ST, 42ND ST NORTH and 42ND ST SOUTH on the 8th Ave Line, UTICA AVE, BROADWAY JCT, LAFAYETTE AVE and HOYT on the Fulton Line, YORK ST on the Houston Essex Line and NASSAU AVE on the Crosstown Line, as well as Model 14 machines at JAY ST on the Prospect Park Line and BEDFORD-NOSTRAND on the Crosstown line. Likely also affected would be the NYCTA's first GRS NX machine at EUCLID ave, but likely not affected are yard towers or the COURT ST transit museum tower. The Model 14 at PARSONS on the (F) is of currently unknown status as that section is currently undergoing re-signaling right now.

If you are looking to get a glimpse of some living NYCTA interlocking machines, the Model 5's on he Fulton Line are visible from the ends of the platform with UTICA AVE and LAFAYETTE AVE on the outbound platform and BROADWAY JCT on the inbound platform. 

I am currently planning an NYC trip for Mid-October and will attempt to check in on these locations.