Railway General Knowledge.

[xotGD]

42

 

[Tester]

42

Very good

 

[Kentish RYS]

42

But the question isn't 'What do you get when you multiply six by nine?'

And not quite big enough for the 'unconventional' answer to the ETCS question still and obviously (from my previous hint) a factor too large for the 'convectional' one

 

[xotGD]

49

 

[Kentish RYS]

49

Getting closer to the 'unconventional' answer (and have a digital of the 'conventional' correct one as well )

 

[xotGD]

My final guess is 55.

 

[DerekC]

I haven't a clue about the unconventional answer. On reflection I think the conventional one is four. Three as set out in my previous post and the fourth ETCS overlaid with ATO. I know they have been working on the spec for that for a long time and probably they have made it a separate Level.

 

[Kentish RYS]

Right as I have apparently gone a bit too deep in the minutia I'll declare it closed, with @DerekC does have the right answer of four, though the wrong reason, for the 'conventional' answer. @xotGD, I was about to declare you as winner if no one else wanted to guess as you are actually very close to the 'unconventional' answer. I had thought it was 55 on first reading, then realised something I was adding, the listed started at 0 for not relevant to here technical stuff so it is 56.

So the Conventional answer I was looking for is 3 or four (and you can argue with things live level 0 but there it is in the spec how to transition to it, and it has to be specified as to be barred as it will be in the UK);

Level 0 - Driver Drives, no Train Protection,
Level NTC - Uses National Train Control Systems of whichever flavour
Level 1 - Uses Eurobalises or Euroloops for non continuous update of movement authority
Level 2 - Uses continual communication between track and train by radio (with provision in the system for radio gaps) for non continuous update of movement authority

What I was asking is that the latest specs - 4.0.0 - got rid of level 3 and combined it into level 2. Basically ERTMS isn't concerned about train detection so level 2 and 3 may have operated differently but as far as the Specs are concerned it doesn't matter if you are giving movement authorities based on track circuits or the train integrity & position of the train in front. ATO isn't this bit of the Specs, the reason I though it was interesting is a newer standard reducing things which l'd wager is unexpected in a new system if you weren't aware of it.

So that is the 'conventional' answer, now to the 'unconventional' one.

Level NTC I will describe as like 'several levels hiding in a trench coat' as a simple simile. So the train knows what National* system to look out for and to ensure it has it fitted Level NTC has, as part of the information sent during transitions, which system it is exactly. This is not use UK system or French but more detailed, some countries having several, including the UK having more than just AWS/TPWS but having things like CBTC as the Elizabeth line trains need both. So if you remove one as we are splitting out NTC to have Levels 0, 1 & 2, then add the 0 to 52 list of the 'National' systems gets 56, or 55 if you don't want to count Level 0.

Apologies if I have confusled everyone (or made any errors), this is a late night top of my head post. Long day with work in a heatwave then family round and I just wanted to close the question which obviously wasn't that engaging

 

[-Colly405-]

As a lurker on this quiz, but contributor elsewhere, it was very engaging

 

[Kentish RYS]

As a lurker on this quiz, but contributor elsewhere, it was very engaging

Thank you for the kind words, anyway the Floor is now @DerekC 's for setting a question, unless he wants to hand over to @xotGD

 

[xotGD]

I'm certainly not worthy - I was just throwing out random numbers based on zero knowledge!

 

[DerekC]

Not sure worthiness comes into it! Anyway I will have a go. Sticking with the signalling theme, but with technology a little more basic:

On which railway was the very first proper interlocking put into service? (And by a proper interlocking I mean one where the signals were fully interlocked with the points).

 

[D6130]

Great Northern?

 

[DerekC]

Great Northern?

No, although the railway in question did have a junction with the GNR.

 

[Kentish RYS]

Was it one of the South of London Railways. That is from memory the GBR could be a cross London connection, I will guess South Eastern Railway

 

[D6130]

Midland Railway?

 

[DerekC]

Was it one of the South of London Railways. That is from memory the GBR could be a cross London connection, I will guess South Eastern Railway

Not the South Eastern but there's a clue in your wording

Midland Railway?

Close - the Midland and Great Northern Railways were both connected to the owning railway near the interlocking location. (Nothing to do with the M&GN)

 

[Whistler40145]

South Eastern Railway at Bricklayers Arms at the junction with the London and Croydon Railway?

 

[DerekC]

South Eastern Railway at Bricklayers Arms at the junction with the London and Croydon Railway?

That was certainly a key step on the way, made by John Saxby in 1856. Initially the signals just acted as point indicators but the linkages were soon modified to allow a signal to be on (at danger) irrespective of the status of the points. The limitation was that it only linked each signal to one set of points. Four years later the final step to full interlocking was made - but on which railway?

Lots of clues in the posts above.

 

[Gloster]

Metropolitan Railway?

 

[DerekC]

Metropolitan Railway?

Good guess and in the right area but not the Metropolitan. As well as the MR and the GNR this line had a link to the LNWR in the area of interest.

 

[Kentish RYS]

A 50/50 of two I want to guess, I'll say London, Chatham and Dover Railway

 

[Peterthegreat]

London Brighton and South Coast Railway.

 

[D6130]

North London Railway?

 

[DerekC]

A 50/50 of two I want to guess, I'll say London, Chatham and Dover Railway

Not the LC&DR

London Brighton and South Coast Railway.

Or the LB&SCR. This wasn't a major railway on the scale of the SER, LB&SCR, GNR or MR, but it was (and still is) an important link in the area.

 

[D6130]

What about my response in post #17,364?

 

[DerekC]

What about my response in post #17,364?

Sorry - for some reason it didn't appear on my screen before I pressed the "post" button on #17365. Then it was bedtime!

North London Railway?

YES - that turned out to be more difficult than I thought!

In 1860 the NLR installed a Stevens "stirrup frame" at the newly created Camden Road Junction, where the NLR's new bypass line to Willesden Junction via Gospel Oak joined the original NLR route. Colonel Yolland the Board of Trade inspector refused to sign it off because the signals weren't properly interlocked with the points. The NLR called in one Austin Chambers, a mechanical engineer from their locomotive works. He carried out extensive modifications and created what Peter Woodbridge in his Chronology of UK Signalling calls the first recognisable true signalbox, with signals and points operated by levers with recognisable interlocking between them.

That created a bit of a hornets' nest, it seems. Stevens immediately copied the design for his next installation at Yeovil Junction for the LSWR. Saxby (see the Bricklayers Arms installation) then sued Stevens for breach of patent, which collapsed in court because the Yeovil Junction installation had been signed off four months before Saxby's patent was granted - and anyway Saxby and Stevens had both pinched the idea from Chambers. The latter was sensible enough to have taken out his own patent, which he subsequently sold to McKenzie & Holland.

The route is set and locked for you.

 

[D6130]

Sorry - for some reason it didn't appear on my screen before I pressed the "post" button on #17365. Then it was bedtime!

YES - that turned out to be more difficult than I thought!

In 1860 the NLR installed a Stevens "stirrup frame" at the newly created Camden Road Junction, where the NLR's new bypass line to Willesden Junction via Gospel Oak joined the original NLR route. Colonel Yolland the Board of Trade inspector refused to sign it off because the signals weren't properly interlocked with the points. The NLR called in one Austin Chambers, a mechanical engineer from their locomotive works. He carried out extensive modifications and created what Peter Woodbridge in his Chronology of UK Signalling calls the first recognisable true signalbox, with signals and points operated by levers with recognisable interlocking between them.

That created a bit of a hornets' nest, it seems. Stevens immediately copied the design for his next installation at Yeovil Junction for the LSWR. Saxby (see the Bricklayers Arms installation) then sued Stevens for breach of patent, which collapsed in court because the Yeovil Junction installation had been signed off four months before Saxby's patent was granted - and anyway Saxby and Stevens had both pinched the idea from Chambers. The latter was sensible enough to have taken out his own patent, which he subsequently sold to McKenzie & Holland.

The route is set and locked for you.

Thanks! Continuing on the signalling theme:

Which major resignalling scheme undertaken by the LMS railway in the late 1920s including the use of four aspect colour light 'cluster' signals, in which the four lamps were arranged in 'North-East-South-West' positions on a circular back board?

 

[RDP]

Heaton Lodge Junction-Thornhill Junction?

 

[D6130]

Heaton Lodge Junction-Thornhill Junction?

Afraid not....that was the same railway's experimental 'speed signalling' scheme installed about five years later.