Indicator on Grantham Station up platform - what was it for?

[andro]

The forum search facility works really well! I'd been wanting to find out a bit more about the train warning indicator at Hitchin, at the north end of the down platform. Does anyone have a photo of it or a link that they can post here? It's a very long time since I haunted Hitchin with my ABC, but for some reason I still remember the indicator. Even at that time - early sixties - speeds could be pretty high through the station, so bumping a loaded barrow across four tracks must have been a hazardous job. It was a great place to watch trains, and must have been unique in the mix of old and new, with Midland 2Fs from Bedford on the pick-up goods, and the last of the GE E4s on the Henlow leave train. I must revisit one of these days - I hear it rumoured that they have electric trains there now!

[Mickey]

(Hitchin) It was a great place to watch trains...

Yes i agree through the 1950s & 1960s until late 1975 with the arrival of colour light signalling in the Hitchin area followed a short time later with overhead electrification Hitchin station was a great place to watch the passing trains tearing Up & Down the fast lines through the station or being crossed over onto the Cambridge branch at Cambridge Junction and along with other railway related activities going on around the station and with Hitchin Yard & Cambridge Junction (boxes) both close by with both boxes having plenty of semaphore signals between them both (with Hitchin South located further south of the station beside the Down slow line just in sight from the station through the tall bridge hole) it was quite an exciting and thrilling place to be actually.

With regards to the Train Approaching Indicators on the end of the Down slow line platform at the north end of Hitchin station (just at the bottom of the Hitchin Yard box staircase) from memory there were also similar Train Approaching Indicators at the south end of Wood Green station between the Down slow no.1 & Down slow no.2 lines platforms (opposite Wood Green Up Box No.4) and at the south end of the Down fast line platform at Hatfield station and also from vague memory i believe there was also a Train Approaching Indicator just outside Welwyn Garden City (box) applicable to the Hatfield-Luton single line at onetime.

Mickey

[R. pike]

I believe there was also a Train Approaching Indicator just outside Welwyn Garden City (box) applicable to the Hatfield-Luton single line at onetime.

Mickey

I have the Welwyn Garden City weatherproof box with two of the Hitchin indicators working in the back garden.

They can be seen lurking in the background in this shot..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/32297024@N08/9799135334/

[STAFFORDA4]

there's some film of the starter in use at York in the BTF "This Is York" production in the '50s. Around about 11 to 12mins in 60500 departs the old platform 8 with an up express and gets the right away via the starter bell & indicator

try this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation ... 1b9yprvXHA

[Mickey]

I believe there was also a Train Approaching Indicator just outside Welwyn Garden City (box) applicable to the Hatfield-Luton single line at onetime.

Mickey

I have the Welwyn Garden City weatherproof box with two of the Hitchin indicators working in the back garden.

They can be seen lurking in the background in this shot..

https://www.flickr.com/photos/32297024@N08/9799135334/

Nice one R.P. from memory those Indicator boxes were painted a slate grey colour also i was trying to remember if there was a Train Approaching Indicator box located at the north end of the Up platform at Welwyn Garden City as well but i can't honestly remember?.

At Welwyn Garden City at the time of the colour light re-signalling of the area in September 1973 B.R. provided 2 simple STOP/GO indicator boards that were mounted on small posts either side of the barrow crossing located at the north end of the Up side lines for the GPO postmen who would occasionally be required to cross the barrow crossing that crossed the north end of the Up yard lines & the Hertford branch that lead into no.4 platform. The postmen would arrive at the crossing with there trolley load of mails & parcels and stop at the STOP board and then press the button which would ring a buzzer in WGC box and if the signalman was in a position to let the postmen cross the barrow crossing (no trains were signalled) he would press the GO button which would indicate to the postmen that they could walk across the barrow crossing.

Train Approaching Indicators for the main line barrow crossing at the north end of WGC station from September 1973 was provided by 2 LARGE bright white lights mounted on small'ish posts on either side of the barrow crossing that had the 4 main running lines running through it. These 2 LARGE bright white lights were normally 'alight' unless a train was approaching from either the Hatfield or Welwyn north direction and then they would both 'go out' and stay out until after the approaching train had passed over the barrow crossing when both 'lights would light up again' UNLESS another train was approaching then they would 'stay out' until that train had passed over the barrow crossing and if no other train(s) were approaching in any direction both lights would then 'stay alight again' until the next train was approaching WGC, i believe this arrangement lasted until the mid/late 1970s until the barrow crossing was removed altogether.

Mickey

[60156]

Im sure the bells ringing at Alnmouth heralded an imminent arrival.

Could well have been, 52D, certainly there was an electric bell at Fratton until fairly recent times on the up which sounded automatically as a train approached whilst at Hitchin, the signalman in Hitchin Yard box operated a bell to herald the arrival of a train in the up platform. Are there any places where this still happens, I wonder - or has it all been lost in a blizzard of dot matrix?

I think the 'arrival' bell still works at Skegness, I can't say for sure because I'm normally on the arriving train but last year I was delayed leaving by a medical emergency on my train so much so that the next train arrived before we left. I'm almost certain a bell was sounded shortly before it arived.
The 'S' indication is now 'RA' for right away, only place we use it is at Manchester Picadilly being power door stock, ready to start normally being given by 'two on the buzzer'.