Signal Box Experience on the Watercress Line

JamesN in post 95007 said:

bugsy in post 95006 said:

I have received a gift voucher which gives me a whole day during which I can spend time in up to 4 of the signal boxes on the Watercress Line in Hampshire, doing what signalmen did in years gone by, throwing levers and setting signals and points.
Should I 'brush up' on the methods employed or just go with the flow?
Has anybody else had a similar experience? I'd be surprised if not.

Go with the flow - they'll teach you everything you need to know. In the majority of cases there are "local" rules that supersede or modify the norm in some subtle way or another.

Definitely. You'll also find that every lever is different in the strength (or weight) it needs and the best pulling technique, sometimes surprisingly so (at Bewdley South (SVR), for instance, one of the heaviest levers in the box was the FPL right outside, while a couple of others considerably further away swung over very easily). I saw some quite beefy PWay types struggle with it. The trick was always to 'snatch' it (a sudden push if going Reverse - Normal, to replicate as far as possible throwing your weight on it when pulling N-R) to get it halfway, after which it virtually did the rest by itself. At the other end of the scale, Leytonstone High Road (on what's now the Gospel Oak - Barking line of London Overground) had a signal - the down home - that would virtually pull itself off as soon as you released the catch; the distants (both mechanical wire pulls, one heading off round the curve to Wanstead) were a very different matter though.

To be honest, the local variations James refers to were often the things that made traditional Absolute Block working particularly interesting, with their combinations of 'Train Approaching' (the old Regulation 1(f), offering forward on receipt (Reg 1(e)) and expedients such as 'overland bells' (always a local instruction) where even those were insufficient. Very little of that sort of thing left now, I fear.