Railway signalling (BE), also called railroad signaling (AE), is a system used to control the movement of railway traffic. Trains move on fixed rails, making them uniquely susceptible to collision. This susceptibility is exacerbated by the enormous weight and inertia of a train, which makes it difficult to quickly stop when encountering an obstacle. In the UK, the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 introduced a series of requirements on matters such as the implementation of interlocked block signalling and other safety measures as a direct result of the Armagh rail disaster in that year.
In railway signalling, a token is a physical object which a train driver is required to have or see before entering onto a particular section of single track. The token is clearly endorsed with the names of the section it belongs to. A token system is more commonly used for single lines because of the greater risk of collision in the event of a mistake being made by a signaller or traincrew, than on double lines.
The Automatic Warning System (AWS) provides a train driver with an audible and visual indication of whether the next signal they are approaching is clear or at caution. To differentiate between the signal state, the AWS has two indications, a clear indication, and a warning indication. If the train driver fails to respond to a warning indication, an emergency brake application is initiated by the AWS.
Radio Electronic Token Block is a system of railway signalling used in the United Kingdom. It is a development of the physical token system for controlling traffic on single lines. The system is slightly similar to North American Direct Traffic Control, which unlike RETB does not have a cab display unit.
The Looe Valley Line is an 8+3⁄4-mile (14 km) community railway from Liskeard to Looe in Cornwall, United Kingdom, that follows the valley of the East Looe River for much of its course. It is operated by Great Western Railway.
The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is 682 kilometres (424 mi) long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of 1,067 mm and serves the large cities of Palmerston North and Hamilton.
The Abermule train collision was a head-on collision which occurred at Abermule, Montgomeryshire, Wales on Wednesday 26 January 1921, killing 17 people. The crash arose from misunderstandings between staff which effectively over-rode the safe operation of the Electric Train Tablet system protecting the single line. A train departed carrying the wrong tablet for the section it was entering and collided with a train coming the other way.
Absolute block signalling is a British signalling scheme designed to ensure the safe operation of a railway by allowing only one train to occupy a defined section of track (block) at a time. This system is used on double or multiple lines where use of each line is assigned a direction of travel.
The railway signalling system used across the majority of the United Kingdom rail network uses lineside signals to control the movement and speed of trains.
Australian railway signalling varies between the states of Australia, because each railway system was established under the different colonial governments with separate legislation. Just as with the notorious variation of Australian rail gauges, there are differing signal systems. The systems in New South Wales generally follow British precedents, although American influence has increased somewhat since the 1990s. Victoria uses American-style speed signalling on its main lines. That can cause confusion where the systems meet.
Signalling block systems enable the safe and efficient operation of railways by preventing collisions between trains. The basic principle is that a track is broken up into a series of sections or "blocks". Only one train may occupy a block at a time, and the blocks are sized to allow a train to stop within them. That ensures that a train always has time to stop before getting dangerously close to another train on the same line. The block system is referred to in the UK as the method of working, in the US as the method of operation, and in Australia as safeworking.
The Wairarapa Line is a secondary railway line in the south-east of the North Island of New Zealand. The line runs for 172 kilometres (107 mi), connects the capital city Wellington with the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line at Woodville, via Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Masterton.
The 8.38 miles (13.49 km) Tawa Flat deviation is a double-track section of the Kapiti Line just north of Wellington, New Zealand with two tunnels; the southernmost section of the North Island Main Trunk railway (NIMT) between Wellington and Auckland. It was built to bypass a limited capacity single track section of the original Wellington and Manawatu Railway (WMR) line which ascended from Wellington to Johnsonville and then descended to Tawa Flat. The original name of Tawa Flat was changed to Tawa in 1959.
Metlink's Kapiti Line is the electrified southern portion of the North Island Main Trunk railway between New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, and Waikanae on the Kapiti Coast, operated by Transdev Wellington on behalf of Greater Wellington Regional Council. Trains run frequently every day, with stops at 16 stations. Until 20 February 2011 it was known as the Paraparaumu Line.
Japanese railway signals, according to the ministerial decree defining technical standards of railways, are defined as indicating operational conditions for railway staff driving trains.
The Kangra Valley Railway is a 2 ft 6 in gauge railway that runs from Pathankot, Punjab to Jogindernagar in Himachal Pradesh. It runs through the sub-Himalayan region of Kangra Valley and is 164 km (101.9 mi) long. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites tentative list. The railway is part of the Firozpur division of Northern Railway. It is the longest Narrow Gauge line in India and also the longest 2 ft 6 in Gauge Railway in the World. The highest point on this line is Ahju station at an elevation of 1,290 meters (4,230 ft). There are 33 stops and 950 bridges.
The Battersea Park rail crash occurred on 2 April 1937, just south of Battersea Park railway station on the Southern Railway, in London. Two electrically driven passenger trains collided on the Up Local line; the second train, from Coulsdon North to Victoria, had been allowed into the section while it was still occupied by the first train, from London Bridge to Victoria. The signalman at Battersea Park, G. F. Childs, believing there was a fault with the Sykes electromechanical interlocking apparatus which was installed at the box, had opened up the case of the instrument and inadvertently cleared the interlock which should have prevented this situation. The official enquiry ruled that he subsequently accepted the Coulsdon train, although he should have been aware that the London Bridge train had not cleared the section. Ten people were killed, including the guard of the London Bridge train, and eighty people were injured, seven sustaining serious injuries. Another accident had occurred at Battersea Park in 1881.
The Rakaia railway accident at Rakaia, Canterbury, New Zealand on the evening of Saturday, 11 March 1899 occurred when the second of two excursion trains returning from Ashburton to Christchurch ran into the rear of the first at the Rakaia Railway Station, killing four passengers. While due to excessive speed, the accident resulted in overdue improvements by New Zealand Railways to signalling and braking.
The first railway line in New Zealand was the line from Christchurch to Ferrymead opened in 1863. Under the “Grand Go-ahead Policy” of public works instituted by Sir Julius Vogel in 1870 the network was rapidly expanded. Initially lines went from the main town and port to the rural hinterland, but the line between the cities of Christchurch and Dunedin section of the South Island Main Trunk Railway opened in 1878. The New Zealand Railways Department was established in 1876, and the rail network was then run by the central government rather than by provincial governments. Signalling installation was handled by district engineers in the maintenance branch. The Rakaia rail accident in 1899 when four passengers were killed showed the deficiencies in railway signalling and braking; Rakaia did not have fixed signals, and rolling stock apart from locomotives did not have air brakes. But those lines with heavier traffic already had block working installed. The first signalling and interlocking engineer had already been appointed in 1899 at a salary of £400; Arthur H. Johnson, who had “considerable experience in England and America” and who was to design and develop a uniform system of interlocking points and signals. <!—NZ Herald 23 May 1898 --> But he resigned in 1899, and returned to England c1901. He was replaced by Henry John Wynne from 1900; with staff of a chief signal inspector in Wellington and several regional signal inspectors. Wynne retired in 1929. Wynne was replaced by Guy Wilfred Wyles (1887-1947) as Signalling and electrical engineer. Wyles had started with Sykes Interlocking Co in London. He married into Wynn’s family, and died of peritonitis three months before his retirement. The first three engineers all trained in England. Signalling in New Zealand was based on British practice for 60 years until about 1922, when it became “essentially indigenous” – partly British with two-aspect mechanical signalling and partly American with automatic three-aspect signalling using so-called ‘”speed’ indicators.
