Permanent Speed Restrictions

[demobbed]

I'm after a bit of advice from those in the know please?

I'm attempting to model a prototypical route in a particular time period and the issue of signage has me stumpped.

There is a very long stretch of four track mainline consisting of up and down slow and up and down fast with a branch merging onto the up fast followed by a series of crossovers to the down slow. I have a copy of the sectional appendix for the time period I'm modelling so know where the speed restrictions are but in all the reference photos I've been using I can't see a single speed sign!

I'm assuming that the changes in speed are something that drivers would memorise as part of the route learning process, would this be correct?

If that is the case then invisible speed signs would be the way to go.

Thanks.

[slenderman7676]

If you can find one from the time period try and find a cab ride video/film of the route in question. Then place signs depending on what you see in them. I guess sometimes though guesswork is your only option sadly.

[demobbed]

If you can find one from the time period try and find a cab ride video/film of the route in question.

A very good suggestion and it's one of the first things that I looked at. YouTube is full of cab ride videos along the route but of all the one's I've found so far they are of more recent times.

[cyberdonblue]

Not sure what era you're modelling but during my time on the railways it was always a given that if a crossover was unmarked then it was 15mph max. The old white speed cutouts in the steam days were pretty hard to spot but, thankfully, they were long gone (replaced by the yellow cut outs) by the time I started in the 1970s. In my time, all speed changes were clearly marked by yellow cut out boards and any warning boards for permanent speed restrictions, where the line speed reduced by 50% or more, were black circular boards with a yellow edging (and were illuminated.) However they then brought in those big red modern abortions that they've now got everywhere. They were always known to us older folk as 'idiot boards' for the boil in the bag standard of staff that were coming through on the footplate in the early 1990s.

Cheers


Dave

[demobbed]

Not sure what era you're modelling but during my time on the railways it was always a given that if a crossover was unmarked then it was 15mph max.

Thanks for replying. I'm attempting to model the late BR Blue/early sectorisation era. I thought that might be the case for crossovers. The vast majority in the SA are shown to be 15mph.

One thing that puzzled me though is there is a branch that diverges from the slow lines with a 30 mph limit. In photos from the 70's there is very clearly shown a 30 mph yellow cast speed board but in photos from the mid 80' to the early 2000's it is completely absent only to be replaced in the mid 2000's by a modern "idiot board".

[Nexusdj]

From time to time boards or cut-outs where removed for engineering work or damaged by a passing train/derailment or by the local's with a pellet gun/bricks etc.
Certainly remember the references to "idiot boards" from the old hand drivers when I started in the late 80s , We were "boil in the bag drivers" back then referring to the quick time that it took for us to be trained and passed out "done in 2 minutes" was another reference , "Microwave drivers" seems to be the modern day equivalent

Certainly remember the old style of speed change board that where illuminated , There was one on the approach to Wolverhampton station on the Stour .

Late BR blue / early sectorisation then it will be mostly cast cut-out boards . The western region where an early adopter of the more modern "road" type speed restriction signs but they used a different type of font :
West end of Reading station 1988 : https://www.flickr.com/photos/grays-rai ... 0/sizes/l/

[cyberdonblue]

I think the "boil in the bag" title was mostly aimed at many of the 'useless' or lazy guards that were the first to be streamed into the driving grade when the D/A grade was abolished. Certain managers used the opportunity to offload many of their not so useful assets. Some failed the driving course completely, some got through by the skin of their teeth on second or third attempts. One young lady in particular had a string of mishaps in her first 12 months out on the road (including the complete destruction of the stop block and the wall at Stourbridge Town crowning the occasion by parking the 153 in the Bus station (or it may have been the bubble car. Memory defeats me there.) It was all hush hushed though because the 'new' methods had to be seen to be successful (and it was rumoured that certain favours were involved at one stage too, nudge nudge .)There were, as you rightly say Dave, many more titles bandied about at the time. "Chickensh*t" being one of the crueller ones.

I think the title "idiot boards" came about though because the old hand drivers resented these massive road safety style horrors suddenly appearing all over the place because we prided ourselves on our personal road knowledge. I loved nothing more than speeding along in thick fog concentrating on every bridge that you went over or under, because each one told you something about where you were - a skill that took years to perfect - whilst some of these 'boil in the bags' couldn't drive a nail into wood and had to be led by the nose consistently. Fog challenged your knowledge to its limits.

I certainly wouldn't include someone like you, Dave, in that category of idiot that we had to cope with. Things had changed considerably by the time you started. They couldn't keep covering up the number of mishaps so they changed the recruiting structure. Anyway, anyone who can handle a freight train is a proper driver in my book; fully fitted or not. As you well know, it's an art bringing a heavy freight train to a halt where YOU want it to stop not where IT wants to stop (which is usually miles further on ) I believe, even though they've got the finest equipment on the railways that we have ever had in Britain, modern day drivers are now told to reduce speed in fog and/or falling snow and in high winds. That's not progress. That going back 150 years.

Oops! I think I've been sitting in a dark corner for too long I didn't mean to write that much (I might have said that before, somewhere, too.) Anyway demobbed, good luck with your venture. I hope it comes out well for you - and Dave, no offence meant in anything I wrote

Cheers

Dave

[Nexusdj]

It's fine Dave no offence taken , I've got high admiration for you Pass drivers galivanting about at high speed in all sorts of weather but still stopping where you want . I thought about pass work but 11 months on the railway YTS working on various stations when I left school put me off working with passengers for life , They think buying a ticket entitles them to hurl abuse , spit at you , threaten you etc. just because the trains late or cancelled !! I never had any moans or abuse from the goods I moved about even if it was running a few hours/days late