[Bear 1923]

Further to "tablet exchangers"...
I have just stumbled on an item in Railway Magazine September 1963 (P639) which shows the gear on a diesel type 2 loco at Inverness and also, interestingly, on a DMMU od Scottish Region. The latter has pretty good views of the gear in both the closed and working positions. The former is interesting because it also shows gangway bellows between two class 2 diesel cabs - the other loco is D5124 .

 

[Bear 1923]

I was under the impression that John had raised the subject of detonator placers rather than token exchangers... Perhaps that was longer ago than I realised?

However... In this old film Vintage railway film - Day to day track maintenance, part 2 - Switches and crossings - 1952 - YouTube there are an example of a good fog hut at 09.07 to 09.20 and of the lever for a fog signal placer at 11.30 and 13.00. These are in the background to men working on the pointwork.

These old films are interesting in their own right but also have so much going on in the background.

One thing that I notice is the age of most of the men in nearly everything pre 1960. I imagine that this is a consequence of the 2nd war and post war conscription. Something that, from a modern perspective, makes me shudder is the way that they stroll about the track and stand casually in what would now be considered dangerous positions. I imagine that this relates to three things - 1. the relative noisiness of steam trains (although they can coast near silently) 2. possibly that jointed track would provide a bit more audible warning than CWR does. 3. the possibility that, for filming at least, the men would have had some benefit of signal protection.