COLOUR LIGHT SIGNAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 76, 10 January 1928, Page 7

COLOUR LIGHT SIGNAL.

LATEST RAILWAY METHOD. According to “The Times,” the Southern Railway announces that it is about to embark on an expenditure of £150,000 on the installation of cqlonr light signals in substitution for existing semaphore signals. Colour light signals consist of powerful electric beams concentrated on the driver’s eye which are of great assistance in foggy weather as they can he seen much farther away than can semaphore signals. The new system has been installed during the last year or two at a cost of £IBO,OOO on tlie Holborn Viaduct to Elephant and Castle and Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Borough Market junction sections of the line. It has proved so successful that it is held, by the railway officials that it is the most efficient method known of dealing with the intensive services which have to be handled in the inner London area, especially in foggy weather. When the work is completed the Southern Railway will have the most extensive installation of multiple aspect colour light signalling in Europe, if not in the world.

Two lines are now to be equipped with colour, light signalling. The first portion is the natural extension of the Charing Cross-Cannon Street Borough Mgrket Junction scheme completed last year, and in addition the various connections between the Eastern ana Central Sections lines between London Bridge and these points will be included. This work is estimated to .cost about £60,000. The second portion of the scheme takes in the Central Section Station at London Bridge, and includes all lines from that terminus down as far as Bricklayers Arms Junction and Old Kent Road. The estimated cost of this scheme is £90,000, and it is hoped' to have both sections completed and ready for use by June, 1928. The first section will be equipped with the four-aspect signals in the same way as the previous sections, but on the "second portion—that is, on the Central Section at London Bridge—a modified system will be introduced, and will consist of three-aspect equipment, the signals and their meanings being:— Green, “All right, proceed”j yellow, “Be prepared to find next signal at danger’'’; red, “Stop.” With regard to the decision to install tins “three-aspect” apparatus on " the Central Section lines instead of four as on the other sections, a Southern Railway official explained that the number of aspects introduced was governed by the spacing of the signals in relation to wnat- is known as the "braking” distance. By this is meant the distance within which the driver can bring his train to a stop. On the Central Section from London Bridge terminus station the lines are not used for goods trains, which as a rule require greater distance in which to come to a stop than passenger trains, and the. connection and signalling sections are so situated that it will be possible to work the new signalling apparatus for passenger trains with only the one yellow or warning signal. The whole of the work of fitting this new apparatus will be performed by the Southern Railway’s own staff.