Recent content by John Webb

Because it's cheaper to start with galvanised metal and then not have to paint it? EDIT: Photo from some 3 years ago showing the signals, both the large bracket with three posts and the single signal with the mechanical route indicator: Old and new at Worcester Shrub Hill © Copyright David...

Many thanks. That seems to tie in with the OP's query. Having read the article you linked to it seems to me that translating GPCS into a railway loco from industrial needs is an over-complex arrangements - for example the 'extra air tubes through the boiler into the firebox' introduces yet more...

I wondered if it might be that. But from distant A-level chemistry I thought GPCS was more for fixed installations rather than railway locos, as it served better for less variable loads than a loco has to deal with.

What is GPCS, please? It's not a term that I can find in the BR "Handbook for Railway Steam Locomotive Enginemen" first published in 1957.

Welcome to the Forum! Pinned at the top of the Railway Jobs and Careers Section of the forum is a lengthy thread on Signalling. A look through even the last dozen or so pages will give you some idea of what happens when you attend an assessment centre. Good luck!

Pickering station out to Newbridge and the new carriage shed is all colour light signalling as I recall. I think only the advance starter and the incoming home signals are semaphores.

Thanks - we live and learn!

Seen here in a photo from 2022: A4130 level crossing of preserved railway © Copyright Colin Pyle and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. Unusually for a half-barrier crossing, there are traffic islands in the centre of the road each side of the track. (Click on photo to go...

Yes, I accept the comment about mains water. I also agree possibly an artesian well with a steam pump extracting the water - hence the adjacent chimney stack. I'd wondered about that possibility as well. And I found this photo whose caption does describe this strange blue tank as such: Barrow...

(Click on the photos below to go to the original larger images on the Geograph website.) Barrow Hill roundhouse © Copyright Ashley Dace and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. The caption to this photo (taken 2007, showing the Water tower from ground level) says that it is a...

Those adverts where they've edited out all the short pauses between sentences. They sound so unnatural the content ends up passing me by! No sales to me there!

Very few alarm systems have direct connection to a fire service. They tend to be places like Windsor Castle or other special historic or very high-risk buildings. As mentioned in my post #46 above the majority of systems are connected these days via a private alarm centre who are usually able to...

My congratulations too for the 20th Birthday. You started the same year I joined the St Albans Signal Box Preservation Trust, then itself two years old. I only found this Forum in 2010 after I became the Trust's publicity officer and was looking for places to publicise the by-then restored box!

The Railway Heritage Trust has a brochure http://railwayheritagetrust.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/RHT-Brochure-2020-web.pdf which can be downloaded as a PDF free of charge. In past years the Trust produced an excellent Annual Report illustrating much of the work they did. The last couple...

Precisely because of 'false alarms' - now usually called 'unwanted fire signals' - school and college alarm systems are rarely connected to a fire service control room (alarms to local fire stations went out many decades ago). Most fire services prefer such systems to communicate with a private...