[Greyvoices]

I had this little idea that scanning in some slides and negative film of my railway photography would while away a few hours of lockdown so I invested the money I was saving (by not going into pubs) into upgraded scanning kit. It was only when i started sorting through the slides and films I had stored in the garage that I realised the scale of the undertaking. I still have no idea just how many images I have as I stopped cataloguing them as my work intensified after I was 45 and I had no time. I still kept snapping away but until I went digital in the early 2000's I was just amassing a load of slide boxes that have not been looked at for years.

I also have the complication that my photography spans many countries so I have to impart some sort of order or else it will be a mess. I initially started to scan my German Railway slides, this in itself quite an undertaking. In the same time frame I was recording my journeys throughout the UK and here there seems to be some sort of order as I note that between July 1985 and July 1989 I took 2,600 British Railway slides. They are stored in 200 capacity slide magazines and are distinct from the similar numbers of slides I have of German Railways. Prior to 1985 I used negative film and that is a whole extra load of work that I will have to tackle (if I live that long).

The upshot of all this is that I have started two separate topics: Scans of my Railway life which so far is about German Railways and now this topic.

Now you know what I'm doing let's see an image:

Manchester Victoria 02/04/1986 - 19:21 in the evening and 56108 descends down the bank into the station with a westbound coal train. BR Slide number 208.

Not the best of lighting conditions but forget the quality and concentrate on the atmosphere. I picked this one to be the first image purely at random as I can vividly remember that evening. I was working in Preston and thought I would have a break from the WCML and sample the delights of Manchester.

Best regards ............... Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[Bear 1923]

BRILLIANT!

 

[Greyvoices]

I am glad that you are pleased Bear. I have a long way to go with this. I have been trying to locate some of my early photography from earlier years and I did find a couple of 120 format negatives:

Haughley Junction in 1962. Stratford had started to paint half yellow warning panels on the cab fronts. All the buildings and platforms are now but a memory but I can still remember cycling 12 miles from my home in Bury St. Edmunds for an hour of spotting on the GER mainline.

Bury St. Edmunds - Beeton's Way Crossing. D6715 is just a year old and my mates sitting on the crossing gates are delighted to see it. The crossing too is no more as an underpass was built in the seventies.

I have had to adopt a sepia tone to bring out the detail in these images. I remember the film being Ilford and putting it through my Coronet camera did not make for a very accurate photographic experience. Hopefully I can find some more negatives. It still amazes me that I still have any, 59 years since I took the photograph. Poor film and camera and this 11 year old was trying to pan to freeze the action. I think it worked though I wish now that I had captured the signal detail and of course been able to identify which blob was which young friend. I have not seen these lads since I left school and left my home town.

Best regards ............. Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[SRman]

Some nice historic shots there, John.

 

[Greyvoices]

Thanks SRman.

With this post we go forward again to 1986 and a visit to Ipswich during electrification. The wires have been erected and energised north of Colchester as far as Ipswich by this date 02/09/1986 and there were some interesting movements to record.Container traffic from Felixstowe to the Midlands via the North London Line through to Willesden and the WCML has been a feature of interest at Ipswich and continues still even though the new Bacon Factory Curve allows for container trains to proceed directly towards Ely without any reversal in Ipswich Top Yard. Back in 1986 the Bacon Factory Curve was over three decades in the future so the norm was a pair of class 37's hauling via the London route.

Map courtesy of: Felixstowe branchline article

Ipswich 02/09/1986 at 15:10 - 37118 + 37168 haul a down container train destined for Felixstowe through platform 2.

Electrification added some complications for staff working in the signalling control centre (which I think had been opened at Colchester by this date) as the Liverpool Street <> Norwich services were changing traction at Ipswich. Class 86 Liverpool Street <> Ipswich and then Class 47 Ipswich <> Norwich. Add onto this Semi-fast electric services with newly transferred Class 312's from the WCML terminating at Ipswich and the station area was becoming somewhat of a bottleneck. Bi-directional through Platform 2 was an enormous help in regulating traffic. The class 86 in the photo above has worked a Norwich express as far as Ipswich and now waits in the through road between platforms 2 & 3 to take over from a class 47 working the express north of Ipswich.

Ipswich 02/09/1986 at 15:05 - 47135 + 37076 proceeding to Top Yard through platform 2.

I have no idea what the origin and ultimate destination of this train might be but I can hazard a guess that this unusual pairing was just a convenient way of moving one of the locos without adversely affecting route occupation with a light loco movement and was sparing of traincrew.

Ipswich remains as a very interesting location to observe train movements but I have not visited it for some years. Once this virus problem is defeated (oh yes it will be) I think a visit is in order and perhaps I might have lunch in the Station Hotel.

Best regards .................. Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[Greyvoices]

Evenings at Reading in 1985

I started using slide film in 1985 and my notes show that these images were from the first roll I employed for railway photography. It was Agfa 100 passed through a Minolta SLR. Not exactly the best setup and within a year I upgraded to something better. As was often the case I was working away from home and spending the evening at the nearest railway location. That's why a lot of my photography was made with less than optimal light but that's what I had to put up with. So this was Reading in the middle of the last full decade before privatisation.

Reading - Platform 4 - 43035 leading a Paddington > Plymouth service. 23/07/1985 at 19:26

Notice how the re-branding of British Rail InterCity had not been applied to all the HST stock at this date, the locomotive being in the original livery. HST's were introduced on the Western Region in 1986.

Reading - 50004 awaits to depart from platform 4 with a Paddington > Oxford evening service whilst 56034 approaches with an up stone train on the through road between platforms 4/5. 24/07/1985 at 19:40.

Reading - 56033 + 56030 head a down stone empties train westwards through platform 4 and being snapped by a young enthusiast. 24/07/1985 at 19:47. It's salutary to think that this girl must now be in her mid to late 50's.


This was the last year before the Class 56 dominance on Mendip stone trains was challenged by the arrival of the Class 59's, the first of which arrived in Southampton docks in January 1986.

Best regards ................. Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[Greyvoices]

Scotland in 1985

Let's go north.

Glasgow Central 17/08/1985 at 10:25. A Sealink service headed by 47532 stands at platform 9.

Glasgow Queen Street, 17/08/1985 at 17:00 and 47714 depats for Aberdeen with another train waiting to depart for Edinburgh.

Perth 16/08/1985 at 20:00. A parcels train headed by 26037 sits in platform 6. Adjoining in platform 5 is an inspection saloon number ADM 45028.

Perth 15/08/1985. An Aberdeen > Glasgow service pushed by 47710 powers out of platform 1 at 12:47.

Happy memories of time spent working in Scotland in 1985. This was when railways were railways and not glorified tramways. We are at a point now where drivers are becoming surplus to requirements. Modern digital signalling such as ETCS is gradually being installed on all routes across Europe and, when it elevates up to level 1 will see all trains controlled by a single computer linked via satellite to locomotives, signals (which will no longer be needed), station announcements, ................ well if it is a system that can be digitised then that single computer can run everything. I remember about this time the head of ASLEF, Sid Weighel, appearing on television and he made this same prediction. Of course he subsequently lost his job but his prediction was correct just a few years ahead of its time. Somewhere in my book collection I have Sid's memoirs but looking across at my bookshelves I cannot readily see it. Must dig it out.

Best regards .................... Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[Bear 1923]

One computer?
Perhaps signals have been on the way out since the GW's effective introduction of ATC... Although they retained the "obsolete" Distant signal for the sake of public confidence - or so it is said.
The thing with a computer in Stuttgart, Basle, Milan or wherever... Could it detect the condition of an embankment in Scotland after a night of heavy rain? Replace signals maybe - but mark 1 human eyeballs of the front of a train?
(No, I don't want to go into a discussion on what exactly happened this last week. That must be left to a proper inquiry).

 

[Graham Plowman]

Just a correction on the image of an HST at Reading.

The caption says "HST's were introduced on the Western Region in 1986".

I think you mean 1976 because I travelled on one from Paddington to Cardiff in 1976 shortly after they had been introduced. They were well and truly part of regular passenger services on the WR by then.

 

[Greyvoices]

Thank's for the correction Graham. Sloppy work from me as the photo was taken in 1985 and I first traveled out of Paddington on an HST in 1977.

Bear, I will return to the one computer comment in another post but the British Railways TOPS IBM mainframe computer effectively was the single point of control for all BR remote signalling centres. Approved for adoption in 1971 it was gradually introduced from 1973 and was enhanced and augmented in the following decades. There was of course a backup computer that could be switched in should the need arise. I am no expert on mainframe systems or if there were satellite locations which dealt with other functions but the range of realtime and archived data that could be accessed via an Apollo terminal was awesome.

Back to Scotland

Glasgow Central 17/08/1985. Another look at 47532 at head of the Sealink train for Stranraer > Larne > Belfast. I believe the EMU to be a Class 311 though I could be wrong.

Glasgow Central 17/08/1985. 81017 eases out of the station with an ECS working.

Back to Glasgow Queen Street 17/08/1985 at 16:20. 47709 in platform 7 with a train for Aberdeen. Beside it 37402 has backed onto a rake of Mk 1 carriages which form a West Highland service for Oban. The chaps on the platform are watching the coupling up procedure.

Best regards ................ Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[Graham Plowman]

Interestingly, there was an article in the British Computer Society Journal late last year which told the story of TOPS.

Summarising the article, it said that TOPS was used essentially as a fleet asset management and movement system.
It was used in signalling centres as a 'single source of truth' but it wasn't part of the actual signalling system.

 

[Greyvoices]

It was around the year 2000 when the TOPSCICS upgrade came on stream that the potential of TOPS was more fully realised. I was managing a control centre in Birmingham by this date and the ability to make decisions based upon a visualisation of all train movements based upon the integration of TOPS with the signalling system was a huge bonus. It is undeniable that fleet management was an initial primary function but as soon as a train formation was input into the system (code TK) the integration with movement controls became apparent. TOPS would:

• Approve a train formation by fitnes of wagons/coaches for movement
• Aprrove route availability of both locomotive and consist
• Generate a headcode
• Indicate the origin and destination of a train plus current location based upon last passed signal
• Provide full maintenance history of both T&RS to provide fleet management
• Integrated all speed restrictions (TSR & PSR) into route scheduling
• Eventually providing visualisation of track diagrams with indication of realtime train movements on computer screens
• ....................... and so much more.

By the year 2000, when I was "on call", I was able to access all this on my laptop whilst sitting at home in my living room. Railway Signalling.org link I remember in 2001 being alerted to the fact that a High Output Ballast Cleaner train (HOBC which was part of my movement remit) had left Taunton en route to Shrewsbury with a consist that rendered the last vehicle of the train into a potential unsafe state, i.e. unbraked or, in colloquial terms, a "swinger". For complete safety, even though this vehicle, with a combined weight of 180 tonnes was fully brake fitted, there were 59 separate checks that had to be carried out before it could be relied upon so for safety we always treated it as a "piped" vehicle relying on adjacent wagons to provide braking if the running checklist was not to hand. My controller in Birmingham noticed this and alerted me and I checked it's progress, by this time approaching Worle Junction. My controller made everyone on the system aware of the potential whilst I contacted my opposite in Swindon Control Centre and between us we agreed that the train would be recessed at Temple Mills and reformed with the potential swinger in the middle of the consist. The aftermath of this was that I was summonsed to an inquiry by the Western division Zone manager at Cardiff but my decision was deemed to be sound. This was, after-all, just a fail-safe decision but that's how rigorous we were with movement safety.

The offending vehicle - Exeter Riverside Yard 21/02/2001 - a couple of days before the movement described above.
To be honest, Exeter was a location where I was always confused as to which was north or south so confirmation that this was Riverside Yard would be welcome.

As Graham has said, TOPS was an invaluable tool for fleet management and maintenance scheduling but it was so much more. Somewhere forgotten in my garage I have a box containing a set of early seventies TOPS instruction manuals; umpteen A4 files that detail every subtle nuance of the then new system. Eventually this was boiled down to a far less complicated publication plus odd booklets and I have some of these on my bookshelves though I cannot just at this minute put my hand on the movement code booklet. If I wrote about my life with TOPS it would be a nerd's dream so I will resist temptation. I don't think that I even scratched the surface of what this system could do.

Best regards .................... Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[Bear 1923]

Thanks for the interesting/enlightening information.

I mean this - I'm not taking the Mickey.

Thing is, if you haven't noticed, I'm a dinosaur of the "claws on" variety. Most of my signalling experience was in the 70s and 80s in real (mechanical) signalboxes. Occasional work visits to "panels" were neither interesting nor encouraging. They seemed completely soulless. The air conditioning didn't make up for the lack of windows. This was just one perspective of course.
As for TOPS back then... The main benefit we gained from it "out in the real world" was the laughs we would get when various desk people phoned us up asking what wagons we had - not unusually in sidings that hadn't existed for years. This might have been taken as a wind-up by them during a slack period - except that they were always deadly serious and would get most upset if we laughed at them. On one occasion one of them even complained about my mate to our Inspector - whose response was predictably "concise". When asked to confirm that a single wagon was in a siding - that did exist - the desk jockey refused to accept the list of wagons that were actually there. Predictably this caused some panicked searching for the same wagons when they weren't where they were believed to be at a later stage.
I guess that our experiences could be called "teething problems". Looking back the bulk of the problems came from nobody ever bothering to tell the people on the track what it was all really about - only that it was all marvellous new technology. That and the attitude of the people behind desks. They never listened and never apologised when they got it wrong. I don't know if they were all shiny new recruits from colleges but they just didn't fit into the (Southern) railway tradition of practical and taking the Mickey. Back then, often working with very clapped out equipment, we got on with the job in very practical ways. We talked to each other box to box and to significant platforms. It was by no means perfect but, as far as practical, we sorted the job out. Then we started to get managers coming down from LMR trying to tell us how to do it "by the book" - and bringing the job to a grinding halt. The difference being it they wanted their interpretation of the book while we worked (checked by our Southern Inspectors) to the rules as printed. We kept the job moving and got commuters to and from their work.
I guess that I'm still proud of the way we got on and did the job - safely.
One funny - one evening when the Main got blocked, Control gave out a set of instructions to divert all the traffic to Brighton via Oxted... Not only lack of juice rail - a slight lack of railway line... The response from our Inspector was "unprintable" even then. Today it would cause heart attack.

In recent years, on the few occasions I have been in boxes, I have found the on-screen information amazing - and been pleased when the signalmen (they happened to all be men) still talked to each other along the line. I have (previously) known panel operators not even talk to the guy sitting next to them.

I'm sure that I could even find Real Time Trains and Tracksy useful - if I could only work out how to use them... Like a lot of digital stuff it is probably obvious if one has grown up with computers but it plain isn't clear to a dinosaur.

Thanks for putting up with the reminiscences and moans.

PS I love the HOBC pic!

 

[Greyvoices]

Thanks Bear. It's always good to read about your experiences.

I know that I am straying from the "over thirty years ago" loose theme that I had adopted but staying with the HOBC for just one more post does seem appropriate.

Stewartby Forder's Sidings - 2002 - Kershaw HOBC, top & tailed by Freightliner Heavy Haul Class 66/5's arrives from Crewe having been given special dispensation to reverse on the mainline south of Bletchley to enable access to the Bedford branch. Photo taken from the signalbox.

In 2002 (I think) I had the job of withdrawing the Kershaw HOBC from service. Network Rail had upgraded by spending umpteen millions on an improved Plasseur machine and wagons so a suitable stabling point for the original machine had to be found. The Stewartby site on the Bletchley <> Bedford route seemed ideal for this purpose as it was there that Railtrack had advisedly spent millions on refurbishing the Forder's siding complex with the intention that it would be an originating point for ballast workings on the southern section of the West Coast Route Modernisation (WCRM). When I joined the WCRM in 2000 as Operations Performance Manager it was my task to lead a team making sure that ballast trains ran smoothly to and from depots to worksites causing no delay to timetabled passenger and freight movements. I immediately advised that the newly opened Forder's Sidings depot was in the wrong place ........ which caused great consternation. I had to sit in a succession of meetings and explain why siting a depot on a 20mph route that was manually signalled between the hours of 06:00 and 22:00 but at night was closed down so that the multiple public and private level crossings were left open for road traffic for 8 hours a day ............. why this could never supply the planned 10 trains per night to worksites on the WC main line. The task was further complicated by the Bletchley junction being south facing so all movements from/to Forder's for the north of Bletchley had to go over the top of the flyover ............. reverse ........... then back over the other section of the flyover that accessed the junction on the WC route adjacent to Bletchley TMD.

Bletchley Flyover map in 1962 (courtesy of Wikimedia commons). The red section is the flyover but in 2002 minus the dotted route and connection from Oxford into Bletchley station.

I walked this complete section to plan the movement of ballast workings from the Bedford branch to go north which involved the use of relieving locomotives; taking into account the fact that only one train was allowed to occupy the flyover crossing the WC route ............. weight restriction on the bridge section. The signal at the top of the gradient up from the Bedford branch was a problem as a single class 66 with 1,800 tonnes would struggle to restart if held at a red. Rules of the route had to take account of so many factors.

What with all these problems, the closed level crossings, the 20mph permanent speed restriction, the flyover restrictions plus the final element of lacing in new signally at Bletchley North junction to allow movement from the flyover to the down lines meant that I judged that we would never get more than two ballast trains from Forder's for weekday WCRM occupations. It just didn't work. I therefore put together a presentation to explain to those who had agreed to the investment in relaying the flyovers and rebuilding Forders why it had been a bad decision. I leavened the blow by setting out alternatives that would incur no further investment.

The second photo from the box looking towards Bedford. The train is passing over the road crossing before it reverses back into the sidings. Oh had I forgotten to mention that every entry/exit movement by trains to/from the WC would have to reverse over that crossing.

I am running out of time as I have a Zoom meeting to attend in 15 minutes so I will resume this tale later.

Best regards ................ Greyvoices (alias John))

 

[Bear 1923]

Brilliant pics!

I worked at a far more lowly level with HOBC operations on the east coast side.
Your experience sound normal... Someone in an office stuck a pin in a map and lots of money was spent with no reference to conditions on the ground and practical operation.
Did the sidings ever get used for anything practical after that?
And, where did you relocate the HOBC to?
Sorry if I'm jumping ahead too much.
Has anyone else noticed the missing length of rail?

 

[Greyvoices]

Well spotted Bear .............. that loop is obviously out of use.

Interior of Forders Sidings signalbox. Courtesy of Railway Photographic Gallery. Copyright: Martin Bisby

Now back to my tale.

No further work was planned for the Kershaw HOBC so it needed to be stabled somewhere and because Forder's Sidings was basically useless for it's intended purpose it was deemed ideal. The problem was the complexity of entering the complex with such a long train and initially there was some resistance to the idea. It was my task to advise so, on a visit to the location I decided to ask the bobby in the signalbox what was his opinion of the intended move. He was not dismissive and we discussed possible windows of operating opportunity on the branch that would not cause delays to the passenger service nor the EWS refuse trains that entered the Stewartby facility, mostly from the Bedford direction. I went away and developed two plans, one entailing a diversion over the Midland Mainline ............ coming off the West Coast Trent Valley route at Nuneaton and thence via Wigston South Junction to Bedford so that the HOBC train could be driven directly into the sidings with no reversal. The other plan, accessing the branch from the West Coast route was far more complex and required a reversal at Bletchley and again a reversal into Forders. To my surprise the WC Bletchley route was chosen though in hindsight I can imagine the reaction of East Midlands operators to a beast of a train being foisted onto their patch and driver route knowledge may also have been a factor.

The actual stowage of the train in Forders was the same for either plan. I paced out the sidings (never trust a track diagram) and somewhere I have my report (goodness knows where) but I seem to remember that the longest siding was equal to 39 SLU's. Now an SLU is a Standard Length Unit; adopted by British Railways as representative of the overall length of a wagon with a 10' wheelbase, therefore 21 feet. ( Note: If you wanted an odd length over 21' then you could add increments of 2' which were refered to as being an excess .......... so 25' would be 1 SLU plus 2). The HOBC, including the two rakes of MFS wagons was 113 Slu's and I think that the top&tail pair of Class 66's was added on top of that (I really need to find my notes to verify that). The HOBC train was 791 yards long whilst the longest siding measured 273 yards. The plan was to detach the trailing 66 and park it in a spare siding. The train would then be propelled into the sidings by what had been the lead locomotive and the rear set of MFS wagons would be detached in an appropriate siding. I then paced out the distance from the next chosen siding entry points to the points controlling access to the branch or the headshunt and the headshunt stop blocks which enable the rest of the train to be shunted without recourse to further use of the branchline. The photos hopefully tell the story.

The two MFS rakes safely stowed.

The HOBC safely stowed on the shortest siding which was built with a concrete pad to assist with servicing and environmental safeguards against spilled fluids.

The superb Freightliner Heavy Haul team who completed this complex movement ............ plus me. Their movement manager is wearing the green bump cap.

Just how the FL movement manager managed to gain approval for a reversal manoeuvre on the WC mainline at Bletchley I will never know but gain it he did.

Happy memories. Real railway work where a complex plan was formulated with input from the signalbox bobby, NR planners and control and FL movements team ........ oh plus the EWS groundstaff who only had the plan explained to them on the day by me.

Best regards ............... Greyvoices (alias John)

PS. Can we now get back to the dim and distant past as my scanner needs the work.

 

[Bear 1923]

Shunting!

YAY!

Those were the days!
You consulted the Signalman

WOW! I'm impressed.

Must be a gentleman and a real railwayman.

I hope someone told Control that the loop was out of use.

I suppose that I should behave...

Maybe a 3rd thread - on how to do the job sensibly?

Great pictures

 

[Greyvoices]

Bear .......... Thanks once again for your comments.

Now let's get back to 1986.

March Station level crossing. 13/07/1986. A Cambridge > Birmingham New Street service comprising 5 MK1 coaches hauled by 31466 arrives in the station.

This was the regular hourly service that was such a joy to travel on. I think that this was the last year of classic diesel haulage for this service as the introduction of 156 DMU's in 1987 swept all before them.

March was always a fascinating location and this scene from the footbridge has been a favourite view for many photographers. The loss of the direct route through Spalding to Lincoln and Doncaster was a real blow. That, coupled with the demise of passenger services to Wisbech and the earlier closure of the route to St.Ives took away the junction status that made March so interesting. The depot survived and, the former steam shed area, Whitemoor, was populated with all manner of withdrawn locomotives and stock. The last vestige of what had once been was the "new" diesel servicing shed and then, some years later the emergence of Whitemoor Yard as an infrastructure concentration depot for the civil engineers.

Sadly I only have my memories of March in the early sixties and now I am regretting not having a camera with me. The sighting of an ex NER B16 in the north facing bay platforms in 1962 would have been so much better remembered if I had taken a photo. Luckily I still have my notebooks and that will have to suffice. For the moment I am posting just this one image but March is a location that I may want to revisit on this thread. Before I sign off there is one other photo that is relevant here:

Bachmann's wonderful model of March West Junction signal box.


I just had to purchase this and a comparison with the level crossing box shows how well it represents that GER style. This box survived for many years and I have no idea if it is still extant. It's original purpose was to control the junction with the direct line to St.Ives with formed part of the joint GN/GE route linking London with Doncaster.

Best regards .................. Greyvoices (alias John)

 

[John Webb]

QUOTE (Greyvoices @ 24 Aug 2020, 11:41) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bachmann's wonderful model of March West Junction signal box.


I just had to purchase this and a comparison with the level crossing box shows how well it represents that GER style. This box survived for many years and I have no idea if it is still extant. It's original purpose was to control the junction with the direct line to St.Ives with formed part of the joint GN/GE route linking London with Doncaster.

Best regards .................. Greyvoices (alias John)
It seems that the March West box disappeared some time ago. This photo is from a footbridge over the junction:
Peterborough this way!

© Copyright Keith Edkins and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
It isn't listed in the recently published "Encyclopedia of 21st Century Signal Boxes", which implies it closed before 2000.

John W

 

[Greyvoices]

Thank you John for this update.

It saddens me to see so much "rationalisation" of our railways and in many instances it goes too far and we realise that we have to reverse the whole process and "reinstate". The spirit of Beeching never went away. I do though admit that modern signalling is of immense help in ensuring the competitiveness of rail and does help to ease more varied traffic along routes that were designed for slower less frequent services. We are moving into the era of ETCS (European Train Control System) and this brings with it an increase in line capacity and speed. I have worked with this system as it was being introduced in Germany and Switzerland and I know just how effective it can be. The sad part is that it sweeps away the old so signalboxes and even signals are consigned to history. The basic flaw in ETCS is that it transferred what had previously been an infrastructure cost (say, a Network Rail investment) to the fleet cost as signalling information was relocated from the lineside to the locomotive cab desk. That cost was therefore added to the purchase price of a locomotive or inflated leasing costs. On a multi-system electric locomotive this added 10% to procurement costs and for a retrofit it could approach €500k. It is no wonder that there has been some resistance to the wholesale adoption of this system.

March Whitemoor groundframe still extant in 1986. Hopefully such humble infrastructure will always be needed.

Best regards ............... Greyvoices (alias John)