Old Fashioned Headcodes

[TheEdge]

Before the days of PSBs and displays showing a four character headcode were trains timetabled with a headcode we would recognise today? e.g 1P63.

I understand that classes were displayed to signalmen via headlamp codes but what about destinations. I notice in an old 1949 Western Region working timetable, Exeter Division, there are no headcodes. All trains are referred to by time, origin and occasionally destination (seemingly if not in the division to which the WTT refers or not a major regional station), e.g 8.15pm Cardiff Parcels, shown as final destination Plymouth.

Were signallers supposed to know from the WTT exactly which train to expect next based on the class they were rung from the previous box? What if two trains of the same class followed each other, how would they know they were in the right order?

 

[Diplodicus]

Southern Railway used white discs. You will find then in the Ian Allan ABC combined volume Locoshed Book.

 

[Taunton]

Southern did indeed use a comprehensive series of large disc headcodes on steam locomotives, indicating route, which came forward from their pre-grouping predecessors. This continued on their electric services with various letter/number codes.

Western actually was the one that did have headcodes, or "train reporting numbers", for express passenger services, they were 3 digits and mounted in a large frame attached as required across the smokebox. This was a reasonable position when locos had their front number painted on the bufferbeam in GWR style, but when the ex-LMS style of it being on a plate on the smokebox door became standard, it was a nuisance to locospotters because the frame obscured the loco identity (and real novice spotters wrote it down as the loco number!). There were generally a couple of empty such frames to be found laying against a wall at major WR steam loco depots. The digits were on big metal plates each about 2 feet high and visible from about half a mile away, even further than the later 4-character codes on diesels. The first digit represented the regional starting area of the train, and the approach was later combined with a preceding digit for the lamp headcode classification to start the later well-known 4-character code nationally. The first diesels for the Western were built with frames on the nose for these 3-digit codes. They were shown in a separate publication, as you observe, in 1949 (which was published in Ian Allan ABCs of the Western Region in the 1950s), but some years later were been incorporated into the WTT columns.

Other regions did not have this. The LMR had always relied more on Control to telephone around signalboxes in their division to update them with changes of sequence.

Bearing in mind that signalboxes generally need to clear signals and route trains before they come into sight, and that a train passing on a far track may well be obscured by one on an intervening track, you do need an alternative way of knowing the identity of approaching trains. The disaster at Lewisham in 1957 started with misunderstandings by the signalmen about which train was which at a junction, using some rather simplistic and old-fashioned train describers between adjacent signalboxes, leading to them being stopped while this was sorted out by lineside telephone, and the resulting heavy collision from behind when a further train ran through red signals.

 

[Diplodicus]

I don't know why it does, but this thread reminded me that GW signalmen used to call the 22:30 fitted freight from Bristol including the Fry's factory, the "Up Cocoa".

 

[TheEdge]

Thanks for the answers so far. The thing I still don't get is how trains were differentiated by signalmen in boxes as they passed, especially as headcodes, and even classes don't appear in the WTT.

If our signalman at say Teignmouth has two class 2 stopping services due quickly one after another how would he have known they were in the correct order? Was it as simple as a yell to the loco crew?

 

[edwin_m]

Thanks for the answers so far. The thing I still don't get is how trains were differentiated by signalmen in boxes as they passed, especially as headcodes, and even classes don't appear in the WTT.

If our signalman at say Teignmouth has two class 2 stopping services due quickly one after another how would he have known they were in the correct order? Was it as simple as a yell to the loco crew?

Part of the answer was route-specific bell codes between one box and the next, and drivers expecting to sound particular whistle codes according to the route they needed. Neither was used everywhere but they were required by local instructions where they were considered to be needed.

 

[CatfordCat]

I can't speak from personal experience on this, but from one or two accounts I have read (including Adrian Vaughan's 'Signalmans Morning / Twilight') on routes without train describers, it depended firstly on signalmen knowing the working timetable and getting a supplementary timetable with any special / extra trains (or any special workings, e.g. a scheduled train being run in two portions)

And in the course of a shift, on signalmen passing information down the line about any trains running out of sequence.

 

[30907]

Train describers were as good as it got until the era of power boxes.

This site is a wealth of info generally, and has a list of the variant routing codes.http://www.signalbox.org/block/bells.shtml

In general, though, most boxes wouldn't have needed any but the basic codes, and "shunt for following train to pass" would have been sufficient instruction at an intermediate station like Teignmouth. On the other hand, somewhere like Dawlish Warren might have had local codes from either side to distinguish between a Class 2 not stopping and a class 1 stopping (both being possible there) - someone on here probably knows!

 

[Bevan Price]

I think that most signalmen assumed that trains were following the working timetable (including weekly notices), but there could be box to box telephone calls if something unusual was happening.

Incidentally, London Midland Region did have a type of reporting number, but these were often displayed only on special / excursion trains - as (paper) printed numbers pasted onto a flat plate - or sometimes chalked on the smokebox door.