Electric Signalling For South Island Railways

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27583, 14 February 1955, Page 14

Electric Signalling For South Island Railways

The tablet system on railways in the South Island is being replaced by electric signalling apparatus. The first unit is in use on a section of two miles at Linwood. The controlling apparatus at the Christchurch railway station is a trial set to be used as an illustration of the system when the Superintending Engineer, Signals (Mr I. D. Stevenson, of Wellington) reads a paper on railway signalling in New Zealand to the conference of the New Zealand Institution of Engineers in Christchurch on February 24. The position of traffic going through the Linwood railway yards is plotted on a panel in the office of the district engineer of signals (Mr L. ‘A. Swift) at Christchurch railway station. The panel is part of a centralised traffic control installation, the purpose of which is to speed the crossing of trains and to save staff and duplication of time. Electric control of points and signals at crossing stations in a C.T.C. area is handled by one operator. The tablet system requires operators at each crossing station. The C.T.C. equipment was made in England, but Christchurch technicians

have done the wiring and set up the panel for the demonstration. As it is operating at present, the apparatus in Mr Swift’s office is only half a C.T.C. installation. The receiving portion is working but the apparatus that controls the points and signals out on the tracks is not. The panel gives a picture of what is happening over a section of two miles at Linwood. Trains passing to and from Lyttelton to the locomotive sheds, and through the car yard move through the section, and their movements are recorded on the panel. The picture is a series of lights, worked by the trains themselves. The panel will later become part of the C.T.C. installation between Greymouth and Stillwater. C.T.C. works by a set of electrical impulses coming over one pair of wires. It has been used in the North Island, on the Wellington-Paekakariki run, for some years. In the last few months members of the staff of the signals branch' of the Railways Department have been working on the installation of a similar system on the Dunedin-Oamaru section. The first section of this will be brought into use between Oamaru and Maheno in about two months’ time.