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This page is devoted to the signal box which started life as a small shed painted in GWR style. I wanted to add a few signals to the BLR, to add to the interest, and this led me to consider how to operate the railway. Now the BLR is far too small for signals and is mostly worked "one engine in steam" anyway but I got carried away with the whole thing and this page shows the results.
The railway is divided into three sections by three, two aspect, signals showing danger or line clear. Two of the signals have bell pushes attached so that drivers can communicate with the signal box e.g."call attention" (one bell) if the signal is at danger or "train entering section" (two bells) if the line is clear. The signals are attached to two bells in the signal box which ring simulating other signal boxes on the line. The remaining signal is outside the signal box and therfore needs no bell push. Due to the position of one of the signals (behind a tree) its aspect is repeated by another signal showing amber or green about 5 metres in advance on the clockwise circuit. In addition there is another signal controlling the shed road on the anti-clockwise circuit. When the goods road is built another signal will control this. All in all that is a lot of wiring.
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Under construction
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This is a schematic of the line which I used to make the display panel. It was produced in WORD, printed and laminated. I then stuck it to a varnished piece of wood, drilled holes through in the appropriate places for the grain of wheat bulbs, painted the bulbs and wired up the panel. This repeats the aspects of the main signals. It is wired into the switches controlling the signals. The signal box is situated just above the label for Section 2. In addition to this the signal box needed two block bells and a block instrument to finish it off.
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The "Block Instrument" is a poor mock up of the real thing. I got a couple of old amp meters from e-Bay and made the box from some old scrap wood. The meters actually show the total current drawn by the whole system (bottom meter) and the current drawn by the signals and display board (top meter). The switch on the bottom "switches in" the box when the signalman is rostered. The "Block Bells" are also the result of some time spent on e-Bay which also netted me the rather peculiar box on which they are mounted. The switches mounted on the aluminium box on the far right control the signals.
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This picture shows the "Block Bells" and the telephone. The phone communicates with another in the loco shed. The bell push operates a buzzer on the loco shed phone which, unlike the phone in the picture, came from an internal phone system. There is a second bell push in the loco shed which operates a buzzer in the signalbox so that the phone is easily distinguished from the "Block Bells".
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