Clacton area resignalling

[Islineclear3_1]

I understand resignalling works were planned for Clacton station this year and the new signals to be commissioned any time now

Can anyone who lives in the area/or is involved in the project clarify what the current situation is please. Are the searchlights still extant at the ends of P1/2 and the semaphore in the sidings?

I need to visit an elderly vulnerable relative to take food/supplies and would like to take some last pictures

Thanks in advance

 

[Bald Rick]

Commissioning starts 20 Feb.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Commissioning starts 20 Feb.

Uh oh, thanks, better get me skates on....

 

[Bald Rick]

Uh oh, thanks, better get me skates on....

It’s closed the weekend beforehand too.

 

[greaterangrier]

I understand resignalling works were planned for Clacton station this year and the new signals to be commissioned any time now

Can anyone who lives in the area/or is involved in the project clarify what the current situation is please. Are the searchlights still extant at the ends of P1/2 and the semaphore in the sidings?

I need to visit an elderly vulnerable relative to take food/supplies and would like to take some last pictures

Thanks in advance

Yes + yes. I thought it was platforms 3/4 but I can't remember quite clearly.

Correction: They were platforms 1, 2 and 3 and I can confirm all of them are still there

 

[Islineclear3_1]

It’s closed the weekend beforehand too.

Yes + yes. I thought it was platforms 3/4 but I can't remember quite clearly.

Correction: They were platforms 1, 2 and 3 and I can confirm all of them are still there

Thanks guys, very helpful. At least I can do it "within the rules"

Looks like Clacton retains the last of the Westinghouse "searchlights" on NR, dating from the 1959 electrification, although I believe the design dates back to the 1930s?

Also, the last to retain a semaphore signal in an overhead electrification area?

I used to travel up and down the Clacton line a lot in the early 1990s and wished I'd taken more photographs

 

[Islineclear3_1]

I know semaphore arms/wires/pulleys get replaced as needed but are the Clacton searchlight signals still the originals (to anyone's knowledge?

I am really interested to know how old they actually are. Were they installed before electrification or were they there in steam days?

Any help really appreciated

 

[Bald Rick]

I know semaphore arms/wires/pulleys get replaced as needed but are the Clacton searchlight signals still the originals (to anyone's knowledge?

Well it’s a bit like Trigger’s broom.

I suspect that some of the internal wiring and posts may be original, but the bulbs, external cabling, relays, transformers etc are all likely to have been replaced over the past 60 odd years.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Well it’s a bit like Trigger’s broom.

I suspect that some of the internal wiring and posts may be original, but the bulbs, external cabling, relays, transformers etc are all likely to have been replaced over the past 60 odd years.

Ha ha, yes I get that.

Okay, when were the original searchlights put in at Clacton?

 

[Bald Rick]

Ha ha, yes I get that.

Okay, when were the original searchlights put in at Clacton?

1958 according to this...

BLS - Fixture Reports

The 1891 Great Eastern Railway box has had UPVC windows and total cladding in recent years. The box, which is at the station throat also controls the Carriage Servicing Depot (CSD) access, a short distance along the main line. The Depot closed in the 1990s and reopened after upgrading in September 2010. Units are added to trains in the morning and dropped off at night. Clacton has the last remaining BR (ER) 'searchlight 'colour-light signals on NR (installed in 1958 for the 1959 electrification at 25KV) and the last working full size semaphore on an overhead electrified line. P1, 2 & 3 starting signals are all searchlights (P4 has a very elderly three-aspect colour light) along with the Up main starting signal. The first Down main home (lever 26) is also a searchlight, but the box diagram does not differentiate between searchlight and other colour light signals. All are in regular use. The full size semaphore allows direct access from the carriage sidings to the Up main, used for two (SSuX) early morning ECS services, the 05.05 to Waltonon- the-Naze and 05.47 to Thorpe-le-Soken. Its lack of regular use apparently means that it gives intermittent problems. Most subsidiary signals are mechanical discs and (unusually at a terminus) there is a yellow distant lever for the first Down main home, part of the final Colchester PSB signal.

I can confirm that one of the sets of points at Clacton (47?) is an absolute b***** to get over.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Thank you.

If that's the facing crossover out of P2 then I'm not surprised. When I used to travel regularly on the line, I didn't see these points used often. Maybe I was just there at the wrong times. I've certainly seen No. 37 crossover used more regularly.

 

[apinnard]

1958 according to this...

BLS - Fixture Reports

I can confirm that one of the sets of points at Clacton (47?) is an absolute b***** to get over.

Is that the one that fails semi regularly, blocking access to the station for a couple of hours until somebody gets out there with a large hammer? Happened at least a couple of times last year.

I understand resignalling works were planned for Clacton station this year and the new signals to be commissioned any time now

Can anyone who lives in the area/or is involved in the project clarify what the current situation is please. Are the searchlights still extant at the ends of P1/2 and the semaphore in the sidings?

I need to visit an elderly vulnerable relative to take food/supplies and would like to take some last pictures

Thanks in advance

Should have been done when the rest of the branch was done, but the money “ran out.”

 

[Bald Rick]

If that's the facing crossover out of P2 then I'm not surprised.

I can’t remember, I’ll have to check the diagrams.

Should have been done when the rest of the branch was done, but the money “ran out.”

Indeed so. Wrong decision at the time IMHO. But I don’t think anyone believed it would be another 11 years before it got done.

EDIT

Mea Culpa. It’s 17 points, not 47. Exit from the sidings heading to Colchester.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Is that why No. 18 semaphore is a b*gg*r to pull too or is it that it just fails...?

 

[GB]

This was sent to me for anyone interested (Video of proposed works)

Clacton Overview V1.0

neocad.wistia.com

 

[DaveHarries]

I need to visit an elderly vulnerable relative to take food/supplies and would like to take some last pictures

At least you are in a position to do so. I am on the wrong side of the country and had been making plans to do likewise before this damn pandemic so the works are an annoyance to me. Unfortunately the vehicle hire depot I work from does not cover Clacton-on-Sea.

Dave

 

[Islineclear3_1]

This was sent to me for anyone interested (Video of proposed works)

Clacton Overview V1.0

neocad.wistia.com

Very interesting thanks for posting

So Week 47 starts with the weekend of 20/21st February presumably as this marks the start of the 10-day blockade

 

[Gloster]

This was sent to me for anyone interested (Video of proposed works)

Clacton Overview V1.0

neocad.wistia.com

Why do they have to have an Americanised voice? I presume that it is automatic, but it seems not to have been properly programmed for the place names and even one or two technical terms. We really are becoming the 51st state.

 

[moggie]

By chance the last remaining examples of mainline 'Searchlight' (moving aperture style) signals remaining on the network? I can't think of any others.

 

[MarkyT]

By chance the last remaining examples of mainline 'Searchlight' (moving aperture style) signals remaining on the network? I can't think of any others.

I think very likely, and no doubt only remaining because resignalling has been imminent for the last decade or more! Otherwise, the heads would probably have been swapped out for new LED ones.

 

[Watershed]

I think very likely, and no doubt only remaining because resignalling has been imminent for the last decade or more! Otherwise, the heads would probably have been swapped out for new LED ones.

Ansaldo's Manchester South signalling uses dichroic mirrors, which have a similar visual effect to searchlights (different colours coming out of the same lens). But yes, searchlights are no more...

 

[GB]

4 aspect searchlights used to have a peculiar flaw...to get to a certain aspect (I cant remember which but think it was when stepping up from double yellow to green) the bottom lens had to briefly rotate passed the red lens and if a train was in exactly the right place at the right time it could trigger the TPWS train stop.

 

[MarkyT]

4 aspect searchlights used to have a peculiar flaw...to get to a certain aspect (I cant remember which but think it was when stepping up from double yellow to green) the bottom lens had to briefly rotate passed the red lens and if a train was in exactly the right place at the right time it could trigger the TPWS train stop.

All searchlights, whether in a 3 or 4 aspect configuration. have this undesirable 'feature'. The 4 aspect signals just have a non-changeable additional yellow above the searchlight. The mechanism is failsafe with the filter carrier hanging normally in the middle to red with no power applied to the control coil. It rotates one way to the yellow filter with one polarity applied to the coil, and the other way to green with the opposite polarity. Stepping up or down between Y & G always has to pass through red. Here's a video from a US railfan about the internals. The UK ones are exactly the same.