TRAIN CONTROL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18760, 17 July 1935, Page 14

TRAIN CONTROL

NEW RAILWAY YARD PROGRESS OF ELECTRIFICATION

WONDER SIGNAL BOX The electrification .of the Tawu Flat lino is now beginning to take shape and to look like a job, remarks the Post. Hitherto most of . the work done, .and that has been a very great deal, has been spade work, both literally and figuratively. But during the last few weeks apparatus of various description has begun to show itself, thereby giving indication that before very, long the big job of electrification will be nearing completion. Much, of course, as yet still remains to ibe done, ■but the work is now taking oh its final and mast.interesting phase.

One line of the double track has heen completed sufficiently to allow tho running of a steam train over it. The date of the running of the first electric train is still well in the future; much that will meet the eye, as well ,as much that will not, must be done before the red-letter day.

Much cable work has been completed. ELECTIUC SIGNALLING The neat, and unpretentious, and seemingly small, concrete signal box which has grown up during the lass few months in the yards about 700 01 800yds. from the new station is really the wonder-piece of the whole electrification scheme. In it is housed the electrical brain which controls tin; whole of the signalling and points system connected with the layout of the station yards and the approaches to thenew station. Its works'are as yet incomplete, for several months of wiring await doing, but sufficient is already installed on its upper floor to indicate that for sheer ingenuity and complexity the automatic telephone exchange is to have a rival. To describe the apparatus without going into lengthy technical details is Impossible, but the photographs published in to-day's issue will convey to the layman in such matters the general appearance of the apparatus. Arranged us approximately a semicircle, so that one m.an can take in the whole at a glance, are three desklike metal and glassed-in boxes. On tho top of each in a row fire miniature signal-levers, exactly like those in tho ordinary signal box to look at, but very much smaller in size—only a few inches in length in fact. Some arc red, some black, and some white. There are 127 in all, and each has in front of it a neat little label indicating which signals or which points it controls. Behind ea-eh lever is a little colored light which alter* its hue according to the position of the lever. The red levers control the sig nals, the black the points, and the white are spares to allow for expansion.

ALMOST AUTOMATIC • The signalman in charge will work his little levers in r.tueh tne saras wa\ that signalmen at present work tin •big levers in their boxes. But al "operations in the new box arc carrie. out through electrical contacts, an< so complicated and ingenious are thest that the human clement is as nearly eliminated as possible. Without goinj :n:o elaborate detail, one can say tha the* system of interlocking is so per., feet that it becomes practically in; possible for an accident to happen through faulty signalling or points setting. The trains themselves wil do all the work in setting signals be -wind them as they pass. On the wall, opposite where tin signalman stands, will be a large char of the whole xay-out of the main Erie: and yards in the region over Wuici Ho has control. Electrical indicator; will show on this the exact positior of every train at any given moment The whole thing is almost uncanny ii its completeness and exactitude and i. l the latest "n the electrical inter locking system. It has been modelled upon one of a similar sort, hut some what larger, er.etej last year at Brigh ton, on the English Southern Raihvay ' It will be some time yet, of course, be fore it is in actual working orderhot a single wire of the hundred.-; o thousands which have to be connecter has as yet been fixed—but in the mean time a -body of men is -being trained ii; the intricacies of the electrical opera tion of railways, and from these will ultimately be selected as many as art necessary for the work.