Bescot Down Tower

Here's the other end of the Story although it doesn't really help very much.

Walsal does have two different slot indications but I'm not sure if they correlate to DT Slot 1 and Slot 3.

Bescot Tower doesn't have any route lights in the WL track circuits so I believe that slot 1 and slot 3 are a single push button not entrance/exit. ( i.e. push to give the slot, pull to take the slot) therefore Bescot Tower doesn't do any route selection for those routes.

The Walsal signaller clearly makes the route selection to set either to the Down Sorting Sidings or to the Up & Down Goods and looking at the slot indications in Walsal there doesn't seem to be any differentiation in the slots for either route.

Also interesting is that Walsal Signal 37 doesn't have the slot tags on the edge of the signal, but logic would dictate that it does read to Bescot Tower and therefore must be slotted. Otherwise why does it have a Shunt Signal and Shunt Entrance Button? I even wonder if the lines from the top slot indication pointing to the applicable signals were missed off when the panel was re-drawn.

So I'm going to guess that slot 3 is the release on 34 and 37 signals (possibly 36 if it reads that way) and Slot 1 releases 30, 31 and 32 signals. Walsal Panel selects whether the route is set to the Down Sorting Sidings or the Up & Down Goods.

Standing by for anyone with local knowledge to confirm or deny.

FF

The Slots 1 & 3 would both read towards the Up & Down Goods.

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The Slots 1 & 3 would both read towards the Up & Down Goods.

Although you can't make it out in the Walsall image that I uploaded, it says the slot applies to both the Up and Down Goods and the Down Sorting Sidings


I'm struggling to work out the purpose of the button at the entrance to the Down Sorting siding, the only sensible thing is for it to act as an exit button for the slots which blows my theory about one shot slot buttons. Unless as you say, it's historical

But interestingly according to the Walsall Diagram the shunt signals on the exit from the Down Sorting Siding and Up & Down Goods are slotted by another box, however the Main routes are not!

Once again this could be an historic arrangement.

• SUB - To signal WL35 *


• SUB - Elwells SDG (RI="SDG"*


• MAIN - Down Grand Junction (RI="M")


• MAIN - Up Wednesbury Goods [RI="G"


• MAIN Down Bescot (RI="B")

It's a combination of both with each box responsible for part of it. Basically, the Walsall signaler is responsible for the main lines and has no control of the yards. He does not know, for example, which road in the yard a train is due to go in to. The Bescot DT controller on the other hand does. So when a route is set into the yard, it's a combination of the Walsall signaler setting the first part to direct the train off the main line and then Bescot controller setting the second part into the specific road in the yard itself.

The actual interplay between the two works like this.....
1) The Walsall signaler enters the train number in the train describer and selects which entry the train will be arriving at. This is done using a special keyboard and has nothing to do with the panel. Up to two trains can be described for each entrance (I think they are named North, South and Middle).

2) The train ID is transmitted to the Bescot DT controller who responds by setting an appropriate route from the requested entry point into on of the roads or sidings in Bescot yard itself.

3) Setting of that route gives a slot indication back to the Walsall signaller.

4) The Walsall signaler then sets the route off the main line and into the sidings from his panel.

The main change is the layout is that there was no facing crossover on the Grand Junction lines so trains from Wolverhampton could not access the down yard at this end (a facing connection was provided to the up yard).

Hooverman's description of someone else finishing off the route sounds rather like someone (one box) pressing the extrance button and someone else (other box) pressing the exit button: that doesn't seem to be the case at Walsall, as the Walsall signaller has both entrance and exit buttons available.

If the train is going in to the Down Sorting Sidings the exit button is the one marked WL at the end of T27. If the train is going on to the Up and Down Goods line the exit button is DT26 and in this case a phone call is made to Walsall PSB to advise that the slot is for the Up & Down as Walsall will need to select the exit button at WL26 instead of WL25 as would be the case if the train is going into the yard.

There is at least one route at Waterloo where the Wimbledon main lines panel signaller sets a route from his entrance to his boundary entrance button;

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There is at least one route at Waterloo where the Wimbledon main lines panel signaller sets a route from his entrance to his boundary entrance button;

At least 4 crossovers possibly more. It's a real pain when you're on your own testing between Panels 1 and 2 because you have to keep going between panels to set the routes. There are also 2 point keys (1 on each panel) for each of the sets of inter diversionary cross overs so either signaller can peg the points.