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| Mysterious Train Describer Berth by the Carriage Sidings 09/06/2024 at 09:34 #156516 | |
clive
2756 posts |
I am continuing to work on the revamp of Cambridge (with the aid of a 12-hour plane flight yesterday/today). And I've come across an oddity in the real thing. Well, as it was before they recently decommissioned the panel. The Cambridge train describer basically works between main signals and ignores shunt signals entirely (there are two, I think, shunt signals that are treated as main ones, but that's not important). The north carriage sidings consist of three parallel tracks with a shunt signal at each end (735/7/9 at the north end leading to the shed; 724/6/8 at the south end for exiting the sidings) plus a fourth track which can only be entered from the south end and fans out into multiple non-track circuited tracks; this has a shunt signal 730 for exiting moves. Any train entering has to go past signal 721. An exiting train can head for the main signal 180 leading to the station, via shunt signal 710 into the reception lines, or straight into the south carriage sidings. If (say) 730 had a descriptor berth, then moves to 180 would step across but moves via 710 or into the south carriage sidings would leave the descriptor at 730 since there are no more berths for a while. Now the mystery: there's a train describer berth with no label near the 724/6/8/30 signals. But what does it do? Does the signaller set it to any train leaving the sidings so that it will move to 180 when a train gets close enough? Does the shunter behind 730 set up departing trains in the berth so that trains out of the un-track-circuited tracks get stepped to 180? Is it just somewhere for the signaller to remember a train ID? Anyone got any ideas? Clive Log in to reply |
| Mysterious Train Describer Berth by the Carriage Sidings 09/06/2024 at 09:43 #156517 | |
flabberdacks
597 posts 
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Don't suppose you have a diagram or some other drawing for context?
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| Mysterious Train Describer Berth by the Carriage Sidings 10/06/2024 at 00:56 #156525 | |
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clive
2756 posts |
Here are a couple of photos. In one of them you can see 5H27 has passed 730 and is heading towards 180. The berth in question is the one by the plunger. That's used to tell the shunter that you want to send a train into the sidings behind signal 730 and I don't think it's relevant to this.   Post has attachments. Log in to view them. Log in to reply |
| Mysterious Train Describer Berth by the Carriage Sidings 10/06/2024 at 21:06 #156536 | |
GeoffM
6325 posts
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Sounds like the same type of thing as Eastleigh - one set up berth for all departures from a fan of sidings, especially given that your one is labelled "CARR" and the carriage sidings are right there.
SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Mysterious Train Describer Berth by the Carriage Sidings 11/06/2024 at 00:06 #156537 | |
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clive
2756 posts |
GeoffM in post 156536 said:Sounds like the same type of thing as Eastleigh - one set up berth for all departures from a fan of sidings, especially given that your one is labelled "CARR" and the carriage sidings are right there.Someone sent me some information. It's more complicated that that. Yes, you can set up descriptions and they'll step on as trains leave the sidings (see the picture showing 5H27 doing that). But in addition, incoming trains step into that berth and then only clear out when the train enters a siding. Log in to reply |