Single line working on the Cumbrian Coast

[kevsmiththai]

This is a bit of a spin off of Saturdays chase of the third running of the 'Lakelander' steam excursion. Whilst much of the main areas of Britain have gone to centralised signalling (Power boxes)n the more rural areas are still the domain of mechanical signalling. On the former Furness Railway 'Cumbrian Coast Line' many of the original signalboxes have survived.

 

As the line heads north past Sellafield the line hugs the cliffs and shoreline of the Irish sea and there is a single line section from Sellafield to Whitehaven with a passing loop at St. Bees. This section is still controlled by tokens exchanged between the train driver and signallers, an ancient technique but still not supplanted on this line

 

 

I thought I'd record this practice as I waited for the 8F 48151 to arrive at Sellafield and recorded both passenger trains and a Sellafield to Seaton Nuclear flask train heading north. At the end of the video is some footage I shot at St Bees whre the signalman has to cross over the bridge to swap tokens with the driver of the southbound train

 

The terrain is pretty wild north of Sellafield and when I took these pictures a few years ago the weather was O.K but I have also been here when it has been cold, raw and wet

 

 

 

The two stations pictured here are Braystones and Netherton

 

 

A signalling map gives an idea of the track plan

 

[kevsmiththai]

Video of the token working is here at

 

 

cheers

KEV

[The_Ghan]

Kev,

 

I hired a car the last time I was in the UK.  Having just looked at the scenery here I'm going to do the whole country by train next time.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[westfalen]

An ancient method of safeworking but at the same time pretty foolproof. We used miniature electric staff  on Queenland Railways rather than the tokens more common in the UK and Japan but sadly it was all phased out in the 1990's. Before I transferred over to train crew I was in the station master's grade and spent many a night handing staff up to trains on the main line between Ipswich and Toowoomba, the speed when picking up a staff was supposed to be no faster than 32 kmh (25mph) but when making a run for the Little Liverpool Range through Grandchester station it was more like double that. I managed to eventually get a staff from Murphy's Creek, the last station I worked before CTC relegated the system to the history books.

[Mudkip Orange]

Nuclear flask train, eh?

[kevsmiththai]

Yes.

The rail company I work for, Direct Rail Services, is a specialist freight company and our principal traffic is Nuclear material of all kinds. The maintenance shed and yard you can see in the background is the Sellafield depot where we maintain over 100 wagons, both internal and mainline, 6 diesel shunting locos and we usually have between 4 and 10 mainline locos in the yard at any one time.

 

We are highly popular with rail fans in the U.K because we have a lot of heritage traction in our fleet. Class 20's, 37s, 47s in addition to more modern power like class 57s and 66s and we seem to feature a lot in the U.K magazines as a result.

 

We have a lot of wierd and wonderful equipment inside Sellafield itself and also have a fleet of modern 160 tonne 4 bogie wagons for carrying very heavy loads from Sellafield to the docks at Barrow and Workington.

 

I am currently Traction and Rolling Stock supervisor at Sellafield but sadly can't show you any inside shots because security is really tight and we can't take cameras on site!

 

cheers

KEV