Old Style Level Crossing Questions

[Andy873]

I was browsing through one of my books and came across a photo from the 1950's of Huncoat station near Accrington.

At the end of the platforms in the direction of Accrington there was a level crossing, beyond it was Huncoat station signal box. This reminded me of something Chris Littleworth mentioned about my branch line of interest, there was supposed to have been a public road level crossing at the Western end of the station, but due to an access dispute the crossing was never built...

However, in anticipation of the level crossing the station's West signal box was built with 23 levers and was to have controlled it. Because the level crossing wasn't built, this West box was never opened, instead it was demolished and a simple four level ground frame replaced it.

Am I right in thinking some signal boxes had a wheel mechanism which when turned would either open or close the gates?

If some boxes did use such a "wheel", then why were most? gates manually opened and closed? by that I mean leaving the box, going down the stairs and doing it yourself.

Would there be levers in the box to lock / unlock the gates? all the old crossings I've seen it was done manually with the gates being bolted shut.

What number of tracks generally would be the maximum crossed by level crossings. two perhaps?

Thanks,
Andy.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Am I right in thinking some signal boxes had a wheel mechanism which when turned would either open or close the gates?

If some boxes did use such a "wheel", then why were most? gates manually opened and closed? by that I mean leaving the box, going down the stairs and doing it yourself.

Would there be levers in the box to lock / unlock the gates? all the old crossings I've seen it was done manually with the gates being bolted shut

Several designs of wheel were used by different companies. Where they were fitted often depended on traffic levels,both road and rail. In a busy box it would be an inconvenience going up and down the stairs to open and close the gates for every movement hence the gatewheel. Once wound shut the gates would be locked by various means by a lever in the box which also releases the signals controlling rail movements over the crossing.

 

[Gloster]

A wheel was the normal way of opening and shutting gates, but in quieter boxes it might be that the signalman opened and closed them by hand. The definition of ‘quieter’ seems to have more restricted, or the number of quiet boxes fell as traffic increased, so increasingly wheels in the box became the standard; the preferences of the Inspecting Officers may have played a part. There are still a few boxes where the signalman goes out to open and close the gates..

Once the gates have been closed to road traffic, a lever is reversed or returned to normal and this allows the signals leading across the crossing to be cleared. Until the signals are back at danger, the lever can’t be returned to its previous position and the crossing opened to road traffic. This is still the situation with barriers worked from manual boxes: it is all done through the normal locking.

Even in boxes where the signalman goes out to open and close the gates, there will be some form of interlocking. It may involve working a lever in the same way as with a wheel, but an alternative was that closing the gates allowed a large key to be removed, either from the gate or from a linked apparatus in the box, which is then placed in another instrument that frees the relevant signal lever, or just an interlocking lever.

Crossings over four tracks were common and there were some over five or more. Red Cow at Exeter crosses seven, but it was once eleven (depending on your definition). Crossings over more than four tracks tended to be at stations or around yards or goods lines, but Werrington crosses five on the East Coast Main Line to the north of Peterborough.

Do remember that there were a large number of railway companies up to 1923 and plenty of signalling contractors all carrying out the wishes of the Railway Inspectorate in their own way; there were also a fair number of individuals who produced odd bits of equipment. Railway equipment lasts a long time and there wasn’t the Railtrack/Network Rail attitude of just splashing cash.

 

[Rescars]

From casual observation, it seems that a two storey (at least) box was needed to accomodate a gate wheel and its gearing mechanism. Betchworth (between Redhill and Guildford) had a single storey box built into the station building, equipped with a Stevens(?) knee-frame - with the interlocking built into the cabinet from which the levers protruded. Without apparent space for a wheel mechanism, the gates here were open and closed manually, despite both the line and road being relatively busy (though not half as busy as there are these days!).

 

[Belperpete]

With hand operated gates, there was usually a drop bolt or similar, that could be dropped into a hole in the road to secure the gate in the open and closed position.

With wheel worked gates, stops had to be provided to hold the gates in the closed position. These would rise up out of the road to stop the gate from swinging too far (and perhaps hitting road traffic) and include a latch to prevent the gate from bouncing back off the stop. Being in the middle of the road, they would be lowered below road level to avoid damaging the tyres of road vehicles when the gates were wound open again. They were usually operated automatically by linkages off the wheel mechanism. There is quite a distinctive bang and clunk sound as the gates hit the stop/latch and the bottom of the gate abruptly stops moving.

I think it was also usual to have a lever to lock the gates in the open position, to avoid them being blown across the road. At the box that I recall, you pulled one lever to release the gates, then wound the wheel, then pulled a second lever to lock the gates, before you could clear the signals. The second lever could only be pulled provided that the wheel had been turned sufficiently to have closed all the gates. I don't think the individual gates were separately detected.

 

[edwin_m]

From casual observation, it seems that a two storey (at least) box was needed to accomodate a gate wheel and its gearing mechanism. Betchworth (between Redhill and Guildford) had a single storey box built into the station building, equipped with a Stevens(?) knee-frame - with the interlocking built into the cabinet from which the levers protruded. Without apparent space for a wheel mechanism, the gates here were open and closed manually, despite both the line and road being relatively busy (though not half as busy as there are these days!).

Is this cause or effect? Meaning, would a box with no wheel more likely have the operating floor at ground level so the signalman could get out and back in more quickly to open the gates by hand?

 

[Bevan Price]

Not necessarily. Astley Level Crossing gates (Liverpool / Manchester line) are hand operated, with the operating floor above ground level.
Users open both gates before crossing, and are supposed to then close both gates. Unfortunately some lazy s*ds don't bother to close either one or both gates, and the signalman has to descend to ground level to close them. So if you ever get a longish signal check near Astley, you now know why.

Each gate has a sliding "bolt" (for want of a more accurate description) to indicate that the gates are properly closed, linked to the signal box which then locks both gates (plus the separate footpath gates which are also locked from the signal box)

 

[John Webb]

I think, first and foremost, a box will be of two-storey construction predominately for the signaller to have a good view of the trains, and when by a level crossing, the roads approaching the crossing as well. (Boxes by crossings often have an additional window in the rear wall.) But diagrams I've seen of the works of level crossings do suggest that it's probably easier to have a wheel upstairs in a two-storey box to accommodate the rodding from the wheel.

 

[Andy873]

Thanks everyone, that's very informative and helpful.

gate wheel

That's it, couldn't think of the phrase!

Crossings over four tracks were common and there were some over five or more. Red Cow at Exeter crosses seven, but it was once eleven (depending on your definition). Crossings over more than four tracks tended to be at stations or around yards or goods lines, but Werrington crosses five on the East Coast Main Line to the north of Peterborough.

What I was concerned about with this proposed / never built level crossing was that it would have had to cross three lines, the Up and Down lines plus the Up siding loop. I've only seen a crossing going over two lines.

Would a gap of around 30 feet from the Up main line and the Up siding loop cause a problem? There's only two logical places it (the crossing) could have gone, firstly a place where there was such a gap, or a little further West where the three are close together just before entering a deep cutting. Which one do you think was planned?

Going back to level crossings in general, I didn't realise it was more involved than simply opening and closing the gates. From what you're all telling me then, it explains to some degree why this station's original West box had a fair few levers.

I also didn't realise that these gates would have some sort of lock via the box next to it, and that only when the gates are in the correct position, locked, could you then set the signal to clear.

 

[Gloster]

Would a gap of around 30 feet from the Up main line and the Up siding loop cause a problem?

Not really, although on a situation like this the loop might have a separate set of gates with a fence running between the two sets of gates to fence off the roadway from the railway between the Loop and the Main Lines. The set up could be that either set of gates (Main Lines or Loop) could be closed while the other remained open to road traffic, although it couldn’t get far because the other gate is closed. It would all depend on a number of factors which would influence whether road traffic would back-up over the other line: distance, frequency of use of the lines, frequency of road traffic, etc. However, there is nothing technically to prevent just having one pair of gates for all three tracks. No hard rule can be set.

 

[Snow1964]

Here is a photo of Lymington Town signal Box, (closed 1979).
If you look closely through window nearest the corner can see the wheel at the back. You can also see the bottom of gate (at hinge end) extends down to the turning mechanism.

Lymington Town signal box

Lymington Town signal box, which operated between 1928 and 1979, photographed in September 1973. It was superseded by Brockenhurst box when the gates were replaced by barriers. This is another Ferraniacolor slide, which I processed myself. Again, the colours have survived quite well, but a lot...

www.flickr.com

 

[edwin_m]

The crossing at Spondon used to have a siding (the access to the Celanese/Courtaulds factory) crossing the road just outside the barriers.

 

[LickeyIncliner]

... Crossings over four tracks were common and there were some over five or more. Red Cow at Exeter crosses seven, but it was once eleven (depending on your definition). Crossings over more than four tracks tended to be at stations or around yards or goods lines, but Werrington crosses five on the East Coast Main Line to the north of Peterborough.

The Red Cow crossing at Exeter seems now to cross only six tracks. The two at Helpston (just north of Werrington) also cross six, on a very fast section of the ECML. The one in Glinton Road, Helpston must be a candidate for the level crossing with the longest distance between the barriers (over 71m along the centre line, measuring on Google Earth - but it feels further when you're driving across in a small car). The distance is increased because there's a significant gap between the two tracks of the Peterborough-Stamford line and the four of the ECML.

 

[Lucy1501]

Would there be levers in the box to lock / unlock the gates? all the old crossings I've seen it was done manually with the gates being bolted shut.

Manual gates are interlocked with the lever frame by the use of a gate lock lever. The lever is normal when they are against the road, and reversed when they are against the rails. This is a legacy from when most crossings used to be closed to road most of the time.

For hand worked gates, currently there are three ways that the gates can be detected in the locked position:

• An electrical lock circuit, which proves that the gates are bolted shut by the completion of a circuit.
• Key locks inserted into the bottom of the lever. These are only released from the gates when they are locked shut.
• A mechanical bar that is released by the gates being bolted shut.

For wheel worked gates, there are stops and lock levers which raise stops out of the ground to secure them in position.

Seperate levers are used to lock pedestrian wicket gates. These force the gates into the closed position.

 

[Rescars]

Adrian Vaughan's Pictorial Record of Great Western Signalling contains a number of relevant illustrations, including one of the complex rodding and lever arrangements at Ffairfach needed to deal with a single-line crossing not at right angles to the road. One wheel worked four gates of two different lengths, moving at different speeds over different lengths, so they all arrived at the stops simultaneously. Some clever mathematicians in the GWR's signalling department!

 

[Taunton]

The crossing I knew best was Silk Mill, a mile west of Taunton station, out in the country then (not now, and anyway replaced by a bridge), a pleasant summer afternoon walk over the fields from the town, one announced to the rest of the family hopefully. We also sometimes knew the signalman. Across four running tracks, in the late 1960s still four lines, but the Up Relief had been converted to the single line Minehead branch now starting here, so in addition to all train and road crossing duties the signalman now had to handle the single line tokens, up and down the steps for each branch service.

The wheel was known there as The Capstan (the GWR/WR had more than the average share of those who had done their time in the Navy). It felt heavy to a child (see "knew the signalman", above), but was plied by regulars with ease. It was connected to the gates by a multiple-cable mechanism, which was more ingenious than it looked. I suspect the main GWR/WR Reading Signal Works designed it, while Exeter S&T maintained it. There were locking levers for both across tracks and across road, which operated locks rising up into the gate bottom. Once withdrawn road traffic was checked, when clear the capstan was plied and the road approach side gates started to quiver as the cable slack was taken up, then these gates swung across the road. When across, continuing to turn the capstan then swung the two departure side gates across as well, and the final step was raising the gate bolts in the middle of the road. Once done that was one of the steps in unlocking the home signals. The gates had the big red half-discs, and red oil lamps for night.

New gates were installed in the 1970s of a novel type, low level barriers, electrically operated, which ran on a rubber wheel at the outer end as they moved to and fro.

The various signal manufacturers had different approaches, and patented them, so other manufacturers had to find ways around these patents, which accounted for some oddball arrangements. All these WR signalboxes between Cogload and Norton Fitzwarren were built as part of the GWR widening in 1930.

The golden moment of course was the day a lorry had crashed through one of the gates. We didn't see it happen, but went the next day. The new gate, from the Exeter S&T stock, was already in place, but its delivery wagon (it was sent by rail of course) did not take the shattered wreck away, which was left laying lineside for some time.

 

[Irascible]

Red Cow was effectively two crossings before resignalling, wasn't it? I really can't remember it well ( especially given I was sure the first time I ever went there, age 2-3, I remember a keeper walking the gate closed & I'm pretty sure it had lifting barriers by the early 70s ) but I think there was a barrier in the gap where the box used to be? anything west of that is now severed anyway.

 

[Gloster]

Red Cow was effectively two crossings before resignalling, wasn't it? I really can't remember it well ( especially given I was sure the first time I ever went there, age 2-3, I remember a keeper walking the gate closed & I'm pretty sure it had lifting barriers by the early 70s ) but I think there was a barrier in the gap where the box used to be? anything west of that is now severed anyway.

Red Cow was only one crossing: the one that is there now (with roughly the same limits), which was controlled from Exeter Middle Box, with an attendant keeping the pedestrians in check. A short way beyond it, just by the bridge over the Exe, was Exeter Goods Yard box, which controlled a separate crossing of the same road across seven (or eight, depending on your definition) lines. However, only two of these were running lines and the rest were sidings and, I believe, the gates were manually operated.

 

[Andy873]

With regards to the level crossing that was never built...

Not really, although on a situation like this the loop might have a separate set of gates with a fence running between the two sets of gates to fence off the roadway from the railway between the Loop and the Main Lines. The set up could be that either set of gates (Main Lines or Loop) could be closed while the other remained open to road traffic, although it couldn’t get far because the other gate is closed.

I agree with @Gloster, it would be simpler and more practical to place the level crossing where the three lines are closer to each other. It would have required cutting into the banking of the railway cutting, but that would be small fry compared to digging the cuttings themselves.

Question please - when does a signaller actually close the crossing gates to road users?

I had a look at my 1962 working time table, a regular passenger train takes only 3 minutes from the previous station (Hapton) before it arrives at Huncoat. The signallers either side of Huncoat box would be well aware that the signaller there has a crossing to work. Would the Huncoat signaller accept the train into their section before closing them?

How would it work with only three minutes to spare?
What would the sequence of events be?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Question please - when does a signaller actually close the crossing gates to road users?

Marchwood, on the old Fawley refinery branch, is when the "one train in section" service is ready to proceed.

 

[zwk500]

Question please - when does a signaller actually close the crossing gates to road users?

I had a look at my 1962 working time table, a regular passenger train takes only 3 minutes from the previous station (Hapton) before it arrives at Huncoat. The signallers either side of Huncoat box would be well aware that the signaller there has a crossing to work. Would the Huncoat signaller accept the train into their section before closing them?

How would it work with only three minutes to spare?
What would the sequence of events be?

The exact sequence probably varies from place to place depending on the distances between boxes and speeds of trains, but from what I've seen on Youtube videos the train is offered and accepted with the crossing open, then the signaller uses their judgement after receiving 'train entering section' to close the road for the least amount of time without delaying trains. Generally the stop signals will be interlocked with the gates in some way so it can't be cleared until the crossing is closed.

At Huncoat they'd probably accept the train and then immediately close the gates before clearing the signals.

Marchwood, on the old Fawley refinery branch.

Marchwood is a lightly used freight branch and a busy road so waiting to close the road until the latest possible moment is more valuable than keeping trains moving. If the branch was reopened to passenger trains the crossing would be upgraded.

 

[The exile]

Would it have been the case in much less heavily (road) trafficked times that some level crossings would have been left closed to road traffic and opened “on demand” (when safe to do, of course) - or would that have fallen foul of various regulations by blocking the highway? Referring to public crossings rather than occupation ones.

 

[High Dyke]

Would it have been the case in much less heavily (road) trafficked times that some level crossings would have been left closed to road traffic and opened “on demand” (when safe to do, of course) - or would that have fallen foul of various regulations by blocking the highway? Referring to public crossings rather than occupation ones.

I can't say for definite, but some form of legislative order would be in place for a crossing like that. Grassthorpe crossing, north of Newark, is closed overnight (22:00 - 06:00) with the gates closed to road traffic. When the location is open, it's a lightly used lane, the normal position of the gates is across the highway, not the railway. Again that would be part of the level crossing order.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Marchwood is a lightly used freight branch and a busy road so waiting to close the road until the latest possible moment is more valuable than keeping trains moving.

True. Going OT for a mo early 1990 I photographed 37213 working the even lighter-used Deepdale branch (Preston).
There was a gated crossing over Mill Road - and, as the loco eased up to it, the hi-viz overall clad shunter hopped out the cab, intending to vault over the gate and then close it to road traffic. Except his hi-viz overall caught on a piece of the gate wood - leading to a move more associated with wrestling...

 

[The exile]

I can't say for definite, but some form of legislative order would be in place for a crossing like that. Grassthorpe crossing, north of Newark, is closed overnight (22:00 - 06:00) with the gates closed to road traffic. When the location is open, it's a lightly used lane, the normal position of the gates is across the highway, not the railway. Again that would be part of the level crossing order.

Slightly different situation - I was envisaging a staffed & open box where there were perhaps five road movements a day and as many trains an hour and the signalman basically “knew” that once Farmer Giles had gone to market there’d be nothing along the road till he came back. Might as well keep the gates open for trains unless someone came along…

 

[Ashley Hill]

Would it have been the case in much less heavily (road) trafficked times that some level crossings would have been left closed to road traffic and opened “on demand” (when safe to do, of course) - or would that have fallen foul of various regulations by blocking the highway? Referring to public crossings rather than occupation ones.

Many country “gate boxes” were like this with the gates normally closed against the road. A gate box had no responsibility for block working and only worked signals to protect the crossing. I’d imagine the gate keeper would be summoned by a shout or a toot on the car horn etc.

 

[edwin_m]

Would it have been the case in much less heavily (road) trafficked times that some level crossings would have been left closed to road traffic and opened “on demand” (when safe to do, of course) - or would that have fallen foul of various regulations by blocking the highway? Referring to public crossings rather than occupation ones.

This one still is, or at least was when Google last passed by: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.7...umbfov=90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu

 

[Rescars]

IIRC, there used to be a gated level crossing at Warnham which was only opened for road traffic when the box was staffed. At weekends (as well as at other times) when the box was switched out the crossing didn't open either. I think the crossing is now permanently closed.

 

[Gloster]

A level-crossing was not an obstruction as far as the Signalling Regulations were concerned so it was permitted to accept trains right up to it, even if the only protecting signal was only a few yards from the crossing and the Clearing Point was well beyond it. Deciding when to close the gates was based on the judgement of the signalman based on how long the approaching train would take take to reach it from the time the signalman received entering section or saw it on a particular track circuit, how long it took to close the gates and pull the signals, how difficult it was to get road traffic to stop to let the gates close, what other duties the signalman had to do, etc. It wasn’t as hard as it sounds to juggle all these factors once you were familiar with the box, as long as you didn’t lose track of the time. The aim was, although you never learnt how close you came to it unless you Distant-checked a train, was to have the Distant go to green just as the driver was reaching for the brake handle. We tended to play safe and closed the gates/lowered the barriers at the earliest moment that the train might be at the appropriate point: we were paid by the railway to run trains, not by the road people or the car drivers (***** ‘em, they can wait).

 

[Belperpete]

Some minor level crossings didn't have protecting stop signals, only distant signals. The gates themselves, with the red target on them, were the stop signal. I seem to recall that Talycafn on the Blaenau Ffestiniog branch was like that.