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I have a couple of questions about the signalling at Loughborough Central on the Great Central Railway. Firstly, the signal box is located at the locomotive shed end of the station and therefore the signalman can't see the rear of trains entering the platforms or the down loop. Therefore, he...

In areas that are signalled using Absolute Block, part of the duty of the signaller is to look for the tail lamp at the rear of the train. The presence of the tail lamp indicates that the train is complete and therefore the 'Train Out Of Section' bell code can be sent to the adjacent signal box...

I have recently started a thread about MCB-CCTV level crossings and have been discussing the level crossings and gate boxes near me on the ECML. As I have explored this further, it appears that there’s numerous gate boxes and former gate boxes that now exist only for emergency purposes along the...

My Dad is considering moving from BT to Sky for our broadband and TV. We have been with our current provider for many years and we have set up a couple of 'sub-account' email addresses for myself and my Mum. My email account was set up in 2011 and linked I this to a YouTube/Google account in...

Does anyone know anything about the history of Torworth Level Crossing? Ranskill controls level crossings at Grove Road, Botany Bay, Sutton, Torworth and Ranskill. The signal boxes at Grove Road, Sutton and Ranskill still exist (and Ranskill is still used of course), and signalboxes.com has...

After watching Paddington Station 24/7: Back on the Tracks over the last couple of weeks, I have got interested in signalling again. While looking through the brilliant signalboxes.com website which features pages on many now closed and, in most cases demolished, signal boxes, a photo of...

I was out for a walk with my family this afternoon and we walked over Thrumpton level crossing which is next to Thrumpton Signal Box. It looked as though the lights were off and the signal box wasn't being used which surprised me as I thought it was still in use. I know the NX (entraNce eXit)...

How many train engines require some sort of pre-heating consideration before starting? I have seen videos of old locos cold starting and taking a while to get going, throwing out loads of clag in the process! I've also seen videos of Sprinters, Turbostars etc. being left in a platform shutdown...

Having had my first ride on a Class 195 yesterday, I have a couple of technical questions that I am hoping someone can provide the answer to. Firstly, they have a 6 Speed ZF EcoLife transmission. What speed do they typical change up to each gear at? I am aware it varies depending upon the...

I've got a couple of questions regarding the use of the North of London Class 373's by GNER. They were introduced in 2000 and originally ran to York. What was the reason that they were introduced? Was it to cover for the Class 91's being overhauled- this was the major rebuild which I believe...

I have seen that from their introduction until the mid 2000's, HST's on the East Coast Main Line were formed of 8 coaches and were lettered as follows: TGS - A TS - B TS - C TS - D TS - E TRFB - F TF - G TF - H In the mid 2000's GNER obtained spare HST coaches (former Midland Mainline Virgin...

With the new PRM regulations coming in on the first of this month, I was surprised to see this video a few days ago: Here the passenger has booked a wheelchair space in coach M from Horsforth to Harrogate including assistance at both stations. When the train arrives, a nine car Azuma, the...

Having read about the recent issues at Transpennine Express and a lack of train crew being trained on the new Nova trains resulting in cancellations, I wondered how long it takes to train drivers and guards on new trains, or trains they haven’t driven before. I gather that, for drivers...

Am I right in saying that the 10 coach Azuma formations don't show on the departure boards in the same way that the HST, 225 and 9 coach Azuma formations do? I was looking on Tiger departure boards earlier on and noticed that all 10 coach trains don't show a formation. For example, if you look...

My sister commutes from Retford to Sheffield for uni and at one point earlier this year, before the May timetable change, the 07:36 was often formed of a five coach Pacer (a three car and a two car coupled). This is too long for some of the intermediate stations on the route (I believe the...

As you may have seen from another recent post of mine, I have been looking into restaurant services on trains by using the Wayback Machine recently. One thing I wanted to ask about was the capacity of the restaurant cars on GNER. On their 225’s, they used a whole first class carriage which has...

Does Retford station still have a platform bell? I can remember standing on platform 1 as a child hearing (what I can only assume was) the platform bell alerting staff to a train calling at the platform imminently. I haven’t heard it in a long time, although it has been a few years now since I...

I travelled to Edinburgh last week on an Azuma in first class and noticed that every time we went through a neutral section, both my laptop, which was plugged in to the 230V socket, and my phone, which was plugged into the USB port, stopped charging until overhead power was restored. This was a...

I have been looking on the Wayback Machine at the catering provision on trains in the past. I know that East Coast withdrew the restaurant car and replaced it with complementary first class catering in May 2011, and First Great Western got rid of Travelling Chefs in 2014 (retaining a few Pullman...

I caught the 10:49 from Retford to York this morning. Having accelerated out of Retford, we soon started to slow down again. I then noticed that we were on the down loop at Ranskill. I thought we were allowing a late running express to overtake, but then saw an Azuma (9 car I think) with a Class...