I was reading through an academic volume, and found a paper reviewing the ergonomics and injury propensity of mechanical interlocking signal boxes on Network Rail, England. The introduction of the paper states that over 500 mechanical signal boxes were still in service in 2003 and that 2538 working days had been lost due to injuries.

In the seven years that have passed, have these mechanical interlockings been replaced, or are many still in service?

Steven:
They are still in service, but British RR's are in the process of being updated. I was there in 1997 and it was a fantastic course in RR signal history ! I saw working towers (Signal boxes) that looked better than any museum towers in the USA. The levers were all painted and polished and the tower operators thru the levers with a cloth so as to not tarnish the levers !
I even got to see semaphore signals that were connected to those Signal box levers and some of them still burned oil ! The dwarf semaphore or Disc signals were cable operated from the Signal box.
I had never seen a square versis rounded pipe line before, but they have them there. The museum in York, England has great displays of lever frames and Signal box setups.
Search the Home Signal on the net for great information, they even have foreign photos of USA of towers that I have never seen photos of !
Leave it to the Brits !

Kevin

This extends to their preservation lines as well.

Imagine if, just to make up an example, the Strasburg Railroad couldn't start up operations until the tower operators at East Strasburg, Groff's Grove, and Leaman Place had all reported for duty, checked in by old two-wire telephone, and activated their respective block machines? Imagine that the tower operators are all volunteers, sitting idle forty to fifty minutes an hour reading the Sunday paper or book in between trains. Oh, and they're ressed in vintage-style attire as well, playing the part to the hilt.

That's the norm at railways like the Severn Valley, Keighley & Worth Valley, North Yorkshire Moors Railway, East Lancashire, Bluebell, and other major excursion lines. And they usually have an operator for each of 3-4 stations along the line as well. AND a station agent.

Sandy,

Those SRR tower operators more likley would be reading the Budget or Lancaster Farming....then ride their bikes home at the end of the day.....chust in time for a slice of Shoe Fly Pie.

Randy

Hello,

If you all want to look at an excellant source of mechanical interlocking equipment, check out Google Books and key word search " mechanical interlocking plants" or a related topic. There is a wealth of early 1900's books scanned electronically for easy viewing.

Regards,

Randy

I've been having a natter with Steve, an old friend of mine about this thread. He is a senior signalling installation engineer with Network Rail at York. There are very few pure mechanical signal boxes left now; the last big pocket around Lincoln was taken out a few years ago. Until recently first Railtrack and then its successor Network Rail was running a programme called EROS - economies through removal of signalboxes. There are still a few pure mechanical boxes left in out of the way places.

Some of the boxes remain as centres for replacement systems, such as the Radio Electric Tokenless Block now installed on the Cambrian Coast line. There is also a tendency to fit electric drives to existing manual signals as this saves a huge amount of paperwork. Sometimes the existing mechanical frame is fitted with electric interlocking, in which case the lever is cut down to remind the bobby not to use his full strength.

"Bobbies" on the heritage railways do not always get an easy time in their boxes. Steve and I met up on the Great Central Railway at Loughborough for their winter gala. There were 18 departures during the day with 8 locomotives in steam being swapped among three passenger and two freight sets. I think the bobbies earned their beer tonight.

Tim

Tim