I made it known of my desire to learn railway signalling technology. I read and read basic electricity and magnetism books and worked every shift that became available the most common being the Saturday afternoon late shift. Shifts became more regular and I tried to take advantage of these shifts by watching, listening and asking questions.
Quiet times I would get the diagram books out and try to apply my learning of basic electricity and magnetism to them. My advantage of understanding signalling principles from my Motive Power days was certainly an advantage here. Simple circuits were explained to me and circuitry became a bit of a bug. Quite often circuitry was too complex for me. It was slow but I was making progress.
Then, from out of the blue, I was offered the position of Assistant Technician on the branch lines. Again it was a 2 man team. It was a day shift, Monday to Friday, 07.15hrs to 16.15hrs and I would be the Assistant to the Technician. This was a great opportunity to learn signalling technology. The branch lines were lines I was familiar with from my days on the footplate. They stretched from Redhill to Penshurst on the Tonbridge line and from Redhill to Gomshall on the Guildford line. They had everything I needed to build a foundation for learning signalling technology. On the mechanical side you had semaphore signals and shunt signals, mechanical points and gate crossings. On the electrical side you had track circuits, point detection circuits, signal position and light proving circuits, even some colour light signals and to cap it all Automatic Half barriers and Controlled Barriers.
A lot to learn but the right place to learn it. In addition to all of this the branch lines were situated in a very picturesque part of the country winding through, ascending and descending through the North Downs. Box Hill for example towered above us through Deepdene and Dorking Town Stations.
Much later in my working life, working for myself, I designed a distance learning course, Basic Signalling Principles & Associated Circuitry (BSP&AC). It was designed to provide a foundation for learning in the workplace. I wish I had that available during my early years on the S&T. If you know anyone who this may help full details are available at the shop on this site at a very reasonable cost (£15 + Vat for all 5 Books and Videos).
My next blog will introduce you to my Technician, great guy, who was heading towards retirement, together with my experiences on the branch lines.
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