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Post by fivethirtytwo on Jun 19, 2017 14:29:11 GMT
I thought you were talking about all the points on the main at Golders Green. If you're referring to the points in Golders Green depot (the ones labelled D11, D12, D13 etc), they might be electric, but they're not surelock points. Here's a photo of surelocks. The points in the depot look like the ones on the other side of the walkboard in this photo (not sure if this is Golders or Morden), big box with a yellow lid. The photo of the Surelock points looks like a set in the Tube Lines Skils Centre in the training complex at Stratford Market Depot. Correct, they're the set of 4ft type surelocks in the training centre at Stratford.
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Post by fivethirtytwo on Jun 19, 2017 15:22:25 GMT
I thought you were talking about all the points on the main at Golders Green. If you're referring to the points in Golders Green depot (the ones labelled D11, D12, D13 etc), they might be electric, but they're not surelock points. Here's a photo of surelocks. The points in the depot look like the ones on the other side of the walkboard in this photo (not sure if this is Golders or Morden), big box with a yellow lid. I did mean the main, are all LU depot points now electric? All points on the main at Golders Green use compressed air motors to throw. The motors are supplied from an air main via valves. No, not all depot points are electric, it varies from depot to depot.
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Post by fivethirtytwo on Jun 19, 2017 15:45:13 GMT
Here's a photo of a DEV 3 position WKR. I see what you mean about the weight at the front (on the vane). From photos I have seen there are lots of this type of relay or similar style. Three position WKRs are one of the main electrical components in many point detection circuits.
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Post by railtechnician on Jun 20, 2017 13:09:55 GMT
All hand-worked points in Morden Depot were changed to electric powered many years ago so that the shunter could operate them from a PC in the shunters cabin rather than having a shunter run around the depot pulling points to set up a road. Rodding operated points 2 - 5 operated from the ground frame in the cabin were changed to power operated and so I think that they also went electric at the same time. I assume that Golders Green Depot was converted in the same way. Prior to the points being powered, with the exception of one set of points, all points going into Morden Depot after the shunters cabin were facing points. A ground shunter would operate each individual point lever locally to set up the road for the stabling train. Depending where a train had to be stabled (they weren't all stabled on the next available road, especially if a train was particularly wanted on a certain road for exam etc.), this could involve a lot of running around and hopping over live rails to get to the next point lever that was to be operated. This was especially so when trains were booked to stable every three minutes. A train suddenly appearing out of turn could mean more work as a road just set for it may have to be reset for somewhere else in the depot. It was simpler for trains leaving the depot entering service. The points were now trailing points. The train would be called up on the Tannoy (later, the train radio) and the driver would move the train forward to the shunters cabin. If any of the points weren't set, the first pair of wheels would just throw the points over with a clunk. Officially, the points had to always be set (manually by the shunter) for the route of the train, but this was never done. When the points became powered and controlled from the cabin, the shunter was supposed to set the route for the train before calling the train up, but this sometimes wasn’t done and there were cases where the train went through points that weren’t set, damaging them. The ‘check the correct route is set if not contact the shunter’ rule was then enforced, with the driver getting the blame if points were run through. This thread has drifted far far away from LOBs, however, the mention of depot points reminds me that on the Picc the depot entry/exit points at Northfields (Boston Manor) and Cockfosters (Oakwood) were switchlocks, manually operated by the shunter but monitored and locked from the IMR frames. Northfields (Boston Manor) switchlocks were notorious for being 'run through' and our point fitters were kept busy putting them right, sometimes having to take a trip to the blacksmith 'shop' to straighten things out before putting them back into service. I was called to such 'failures' several times but I would describe them rather as 'incompetences'. I would be surprised to learn that Northern line depots had a 'Tannoy' system, in almost three decades on the railway I never came across one. I suspect that you are referring to the Depot Loudspeaker System, not a proprietary system at all but one designed in the good old days of LT by the design office using WD surplus valve amplifiers, such were mothballed but still powered up in the Picc line depots shunters cabins as late as 2004 when I last was in them although they had been out of use and superceded more than a decade before that. 'Tannoy', like 'Hoover' for vacuum cleaner, has become the popular descriptive name for a number of manufacturer's PA system offerings. The original Picc Depot Loudspeaker Systems were born again in the late 1990s when new shunters cabins were built, however, those cabins were still unoccupied in 2004 and at the west end were planned to be demolished under a proposed extension of the train sheds so that system was never in service as the shunters remained in the original cabins. Depot radio is what replaced Depot Loudspeaker Systems but it was a totally different radio system from that used on the running lines albeit using train radio frequencies to communicate with trains in the depot. As trains entered and exited the depots they passed over a pair of channel change beacons causing the onboard train radio junction unit to switch from train radio to depot radio or vice versa. I presume that 'Connect' radio made depot radio and depot loudspeaker systems obsolete and would expect that Thales or other contractors have recovered and disposed of such after all these years but one never knows. No doubt at some future time someone will open a cupboard or room long since disused and possibly still come across long defunct equipment still extant and powered up but forgotten decades earlier when all who once knew about it have long since been pushing up daisies!
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Post by Nortube on Jun 20, 2017 22:25:51 GMT
At least part of the Morden Depot speaker system was Tannoy (I assume that it was genuine "Tannoy" as it had the Tannoy name on it. It may just have been the outside speakers that were Tannoy equipment, it was so long ago that I can't remember much about it now. Like you say with Hoover etc. often tannoy was used in general reference to a P.A. system (it may even have been mentioned as such in local instructions) so I was rather surprised to find a real live Tannoy!
The main equipment was installed in large wooden cabinet just inside the shunter's cabin. The cabinet was fairly tall with a sloping top (like the large shunter's desk). A fixed metal microphone was secured to the top of the desk and there was a flat panel on the desk with a few spring switches for the various depot areas. The required switch was held down when using the microphone.
Although facing a wall when speaking, the shunter could look out of the large window near the door and observe the depot. The cabin was built in 1925/6, so I don't know if the cabinet (and at least some of the original equipment) was fitted then.
When the flats were built on the disused depot land opposite the shunters cabin, the residents regularly complained about the noise from the tannoy, especially the early morning use and during the night (trains were sometimes shunted around the depot at night and sometimes instructions such as "put it on 5 road" and so on were called over the speakers. Didn't make any difference and the complaints were ignored. Even when the rain radio took over from the speakers, every train blew the whistle as it started to move away after being called up.
as a slight divergence .... Until at least when Alstom took over the depot, a crew never knew where their train was until they arrived at the shunters cabin. The train number and road were written on green (later yellow magnetic when ticket barriers were installed) ticket stock torn from the roll in about 2½ inch strips. These were displayed on a flat board, each tucked under a thin strip of leather. The board was on the inside window sill of the cabin and the member of the crew could just reach through a small flap below the main window to remove the ticket. This was from at least 1973 and I suspect that the same system had been in use for many years before that. If the crew walked up to the depot together, then one of them would take the ticket (and keep it as proof in case the shunter had made a mistake and was calling them up on the wrong road). If the Guard or Driver were on their own, the ticket was usually looked at but left in place for the other crew member.
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Post by railtechnician on Jun 21, 2017 3:01:42 GMT
At least part of the Morden Depot speaker system was Tannoy (I assume that it was genuine "Tannoy" as it had the Tannoy name on it. It may just have been the outside speakers that were Tannoy equipment, it was so long ago that I can't remember much about it now. Like you say with Hoover etc. often tannoy was used in general reference to a P.A. system (it may even have been mentioned as such in local instructions) so I was rather surprised to find a real live Tannoy! The main equipment was installed in large wooden cabinet just inside the shunter's cabin. The cabinet was fairly tall with a sloping top (like the large shunter's desk). A fixed metal microphone was secured to the top of the desk and there was a flat panel on the desk with a few spring switches for the various depot areas. The required switch was held down when using the microphone. Although facing a wall when speaking, the shunter could look out of the large window near the door and observe the depot. The cabin was built in 1925/6, so I don't know if the cabinet (and at least some of the original equipment) was fitted then. When the flats were built on the disused depot land opposite the shunters cabin, the residents regularly complained about the noise from the tannoy, especially the early morning use and during the night (trains were sometimes shunted around the depot at night and sometimes instructions such as "put it on 5 road" and so on were called over the speakers. Didn't make any difference and the complaints were ignored. Even when the rain radio took over from the speakers, every train blew the whistle as it started to move away after being called up. as a slight divergence .... Until at least when Alstom took over the depot, a crew never knew where their train was until they arrived at the shunters cabin. The train number and road were written on green (later yellow magnetic when ticket barriers were installed) ticket stock torn from the roll in about 2½ inch strips. These were displayed on a flat board, each tucked under a thin strip of leather. The board was on the inside window sill of the cabin and the member of the crew could just reach through a small flap below the main window to remove the ticket. This was from at least 1973 and I suspect that the same system had been in use for many years before that. If the crew walked up to the depot together, then one of them would take the ticket (and keep it as proof in case the shunter had made a mistake and was calling them up on the wrong road). If the Guard or Driver were on their own, the ticket was usually looked at but left in place for the other crew member. As I said, I would be surprised if an actual Tannoy system had been installed in the depot but I can't argue the point as my only visits to Morden depot were to board passenger stock used as engineer's trains in an Engineer's Current Area when I was setting up the amplifiers for the trial Victoria line train radio system which I installed both roads between Colliers Wood and Tooting Bec at the end of the 1980s. Of course LT/LUL bought comms equipment from many suppliers but did its own installations until the 'make' or 'buy' review of the late 1980s and the Kings Cross fire allowed external contractors to move in and take over almost all comms installation work. Before the late 1970s long line controllers PA systems were designed by the comms design office, much of the PA kit had been sourced from Millbank (mostly 100W line amplifiers) for a number of different types of standalone station and other PA systems. Long line PA systems were built initially around Neumann PA kit and later the cheaper Telefunken PA kit, following the Kings Cross fire section 12 station PA systems were built using Millbank passive routing mainframes and then the so called section 9 stations (e.g. Farringdon, Barbican etc) received Millbank single routing mainframe PA systems. These new Millbank systems were installed by external contractors as were the never used new depot PA systems at Northfields. The last PA system that I installed was at White City in the 1990s for the 'running' SM, used mainly to call the crews to duty from the canteen!
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