Such a system (automated) is intended to be used for trains whose destination takes them through the Thameslink Core. That's to make sure they don't arrive out-of-sequence into tight 24tph headways.
You can't possibly account for any that have blown away, unless you have meticulously counted them both on and off the tree. Looking at the pile underneath and declaring it "a lot" is plausible — 95% is not.
To be fair you're now describing automatic train operation essentially. If you're taking away the legal responsibility of the driver to stop the train in time your signalling system is driving the train. That's fine, but it's also obviously not really compatible with current professional driving standards to let your drivers still drive manually on a degraded premise. It's fine if you're advocating ATO network-wide, providing you accept the costs of that, but it's also not really something that is a sensible response to low rail adhesion is it?
Earlier on, I was clearing up after the recent storms. I found a piece of broken brown gutter. I have no idea where it came from. My house and the nearby buildings all have white coloured gutters…
As others have said, it probably would've made things worse for the SWR train. The proper way to solve this would be to have a rolling plan of lineside vegetation management, ensuring RHTTs run during periods of low adhesion, improving sanding equipment and the fitting of some sort of blowers to trains to assist in removing rail debris. Of course, all of this will come at a large cost, especially the latter option.
Your garden is quite likely to have fences or hedgerows, which will break some of the wind, lots of the railway is far less sheltered and so wind will blow leaves further afield. Look at how buddleia travels on the railway, and yet some people reasonably easily keep it contained to one part of the garden.
It could also be a driver advisory system, which as the name suggests advises the driver to do things like coasting when the train is running ahead of time rather than using energy to run at speed then have to brake. Connected versions of the system can take account of the positions of other trains and perhaps even of the strategy the signallers or automatic route setting systems will be using in the coming minutes. These systems should never advise the driver to do anything less restrictive than what the signals are instructing, so it wouldn't for example tell the driver that a signal they are braking for has now cleared so they can accelerate again. ATO or indeed ERTMS is a safety-vital system so could provide that sort of information.
From my understanding SY29R does not have a Red aspect as there as the previous signal is some distance away and you would not want a train under caution for that length of time, therefore this is in effect a delayed caution of the previous signal. That previous signal would only have a Red and Green aspect. The signal needs to be located at a distance to allow all trains that use the route to be able to stop from line speed before the next signal, therefore a driver would react differently to a double yellow than a single yellow and possibly differently with different types of rolling stock. As mentioned previously a class 159 DMU would have better breaking that some other rolling stock that could be used and the signal spacing needs to allow for the worse performing braking system. SY29 and SY31 are both positioned to protect different junctions, so it would largly be the points of these junctions that would dictate the spacing
Salisbury was resignalled in 1981, and the Laverstock loop reinstated then too, IIRC to enable diversions during a period of considerable work in Southampton Tunnel (which I presume would have included container traffic for the Western Docks?).
Of course, this is something air traffic control cracked in its earliest times, telling aircraft pilots by radio "aircraft xxx, minimum approach speed, one to depart ahead", and such like. It doesn't replace fixed instructions, but just adds to them.
That "something" is conditioning brake blocks well known within the industy. A single brake block per wheel is applied at reduced pressure when the brakes are applied. Sufficient pressure is used to clean the wheel without wearing the block. This block also maintains track circuit continuity.
Class 158s have scrubber blocks. I think some fleets might have had them removed in the past but I think they've been reinstated some time ago?
Drivers are required to advise the Signaller, and the Signaller will caution the next train who will report the findings
As built, I believe 158s did not have conditioning blocks. Retro fitting may have corrected that mistake. I have not looked in detail at more modern builds to see which have, or have not, repeated that mistake.
But drivers do second guess the signals. That is exactly what happened at Colwich, where the driver assumed the signal was at red for approach control purposes (i.e to limit the speed over the junction) rather than because a conflicting move had been set up. In that case, had the driver known the latter was the case, he would been expecting to stop rather than just reduce speed, and would not have been caught by surprise when the signal did not clear.
Indeed, was that not the reason that they ran around as hyrbids bolted to half of a 156 for a while when first delivered? Failure to reliably operate track circuits due to wheel contamination rings a bell?
Which should be strongly discouraged, and is why any system that encourages this behaviour is a bad idea (in my opinion).
Presumably the trains themselves contribute to moving the leaves around as they go, there certainly seems to be considerable amounts of leaves near the tracks in the tunnel stations on the lines near me during the autumn
Sorry, I wasn't suggesting otherwise (as I know from experience) - just saying that anything that encourages that behaviour is unhelpful.
It wasn't quite like that. The driver has misunderstood the meaning of the flashing yellow sequence approaching the junction, believing that the flashing yellows indicated that the route was set right through the Colwich Junction area as a whole rather than just the fast/slow crossover - he was surprised to find CH23 signal at danger but understood that it was part of the design and that it would certainly clear as he approached.
To add to the other answers...
