A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW of
RAILWAY SIGNALLING & CONTROL
(or ‘From Bobbies to Balises’)
Stephen Clark*
*Lloyd’s Register Rail, UK
71 Fenchurch Street, London EC3M 4BS
Email: stephen.clark@lr.org
Keywords: History, operations, technology, signalling.
Abstract
The paper presents a historical overview of railway signalling
and its development from the opening of the first purpose-
built passenger-carrying railway in 1830 with hand signals,
through the developments of fixed lineside signals, electric
telegraphs and interlocking mechanisms for points and
signals. From the appearance of power signalling at the turn
of the 20th century, it follows the development of first
electrical and then electronic signalling technology through to
present day communication-based systems.
1 Preamble
The following chapters present an outline history of Railway
Signalling. Although the basic principles of railway signalling
and control are universal, the way in which signalling has
developed in Britain differs in a number of details from
practices used in Continental Europe and America. The
technology described in this paper is therefore essentially that
of ‘British Signalling’, although the opening of the Channel
Tunnel and the consequent promotion of Interoperability of
rail traffic throughout the European Union has led to
important developments, and continues to drive technological
change.
2 Introduction
In September 1830, the Duke of Wellington opened the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world’s first purpose-
built passenger-carrying railway with haulage by
locomotives. There is an irony in the fact that its opening is
now remembered not so much as the dawn of the railway era
but because there occurred during the celebrations Britain’s
first public railway accident, in which the local MP, William
Huskisson, was run down and severely injured by a train
hauled by the ‘Rocket’, driven by George Stephenson.
Despite Stephenson himself driving a special train conveying
the unfortunate man to obtain medical attention, at a speed
reported to be nearly 40 miles per hour, Huskisson died later
the same day.
One can well imagine Stephenson’s feelings as Huskisson
stumbled into the Rocket’s path, but consideration of the
reasons why he was unable to stop in time brings us to the
theme of Signalling and its development.
3 The Beginnings of Signalling
Those of us used to driving cars are familiar with the concept
of ‘stopping distance’. To stop a car travelling at speed
requires a distance proportional to that speed. The Highway
Code tells us that to stop from 30 mph, even with the high
level of friction available between rubber tyres and a dry,
well-maintained road surface, will require a distance of 23
metres or 75 feet, and under the same conditions from 60
mph, not twice but over three times as far, 73 metres or 240
feet.
But for a train rolling on steel wheels along a guideway of
steel rails, levels of friction, and hence adhesion, are much
reduced. In the case of a modern passenger train such as the
diesel-powered ‘Inter-City 125’, the distance required to stop
from its maximum speed of 200 km/h (125 mph) is nearly one
and a quarter miles, even with superior brakes. This is not an
unreasonable comparison with early trains; back at the dawn
of the railway age, the problem uppermost in the minds of
engineers and operators was how to keep them going rather
than how to get them to stop safely and the rudimentary
braking technology then available would not stop a train
travelling at 50 mph on the level in much less than three-
quarters of a mile.
So, with trains hauled by steam locomotives that could reach
speeds of 50 mph or more, you could not rely on a driver who
saw an obstruction ahead being able to brake sufficiently hard
to avoid colliding with it. Neither could he steer out of the
way, so there arose the need for new disciplines that would
ensure a safe separation of moving trains by means of signals
to drivers from the lineside.
Before proceeding, it is worth remembering that at this time Adoption of a white light for ‘clear’ seems odd to us
none of the facilities regarded today as essential to safe nowadays, but in the early to mid-19th century, before the
railway operation existed: widespread use of gas (and later electricity) to light houses,
x no telegraphs, telephones, or other form of roads and public spaces, the countryside at night was
instant communication; profoundly dark, and there was little chance of confusion
x no lineside signals; between signals and external lights.
x no brakes at all on the majority of vehicles;
x no centralised control of points;
x no whistles on locomotives until 1833.
The first signalling systems were therefore entirely human-
based, the line being divided into sections of approximately
two miles with hand signals being given to train drivers by
Railway Policemen stationed at the beginning of each section.
A policeman would indicate a clear way ahead by standing
facing an oncoming train with his arm outstretched. After a
train passed him and entered the section he would assume a
‘stand at ease’ position. He would continue to signal an
obstruction, if another train approached his position, until a
time interval (typically 7 – 8 minutes) had elapsed, after
which he could permit a following train to proceed, but under
caution. In this way train separation was maintained, and to
allow policemen to impose consistent time intervals, the
railway company would issue them with sand glasses or ‘egg
boilers’.
The Time Interval system of signalling did have one
insurmountable drawback. If a train broke down and stopped
in a section, out of sight between two policemen, a member of
the train crew (usually the guard) had to run back along the
line as far as possible to show a hand signal when the next
train approached. Given the poor efficiency of train brakes in
those early days, this would have required a run of at least
half a mile, or more if time allowed, to gain sufficient Figure 1: Great Western Railway ‘Disc and Crossbar’ signal
distance in which a following train could stop.
In the absence of physical safety devices, signalling at the What also appears as odd to later generations is the accepted
dawn of the modern railway age depended on a detailed code practice of a signal conveying a ‘Clear’ or ‘Proceed’ simply
of rules, procedures and instructions that the railway’s by the absence of a Danger indication. Red flags or discs
servants were expected to follow with military discipline. would be turned edge-on to allow a train to proceed, and in
Where mechanical failures led to accidents this was often due the most famous example, a ball signal was displayed at the
as much to lack of understanding of where the system might approach to Reading Station on the Great Western Railway
fail as to the failure itself. and described in that railway’s Regulations thus: ‘A Signal
Incidentally, when a modern train driver calls a signalman Ball will be seen at the entrance to Reading Station when the
(who he may not have spoken to before) on the radio or from Line is right for the Train to go in. If the Ball is not visible the
a signal post telephone, he will often address him as ‘Bobby’, Train must not pass it’. Not until the late 1870s that a serious
a reminder of his railway policeman ancestry. accident called this arrangement into question and the practice
was changed.
4 Fixed Signals In 1841 C H Gregory adapted the moving arm of the
Admiralty’s semaphore telegraph as the basis for a signal,
Although Time Interval working remained in widespread use first used on the London & Croydon Railway. The result was
up until the 1860s, fixed lineside signals began to appear as the first example of what we would now recognise as a
an alternative to the policemen’s hand or flag signals in the ‘railway signal’. The signal was ‘fixed’ in position alongside
late 1830s. At first these simply mimicked hand signals on a the track, but still needed a man there to operate it so, in 1843,
larger scale, with arrangements of moveable flags or discs and Gregory built a device to operate a number of signals and
coloured lights being mounted on tall posts and operated by a points from a central location, together with a mechanism to
policeman, but with the advantage of being visible at greater prevent a signalman from operating them so as to lead to
distances. Signals were displayed in accordance with the derailment or collision. This was however extremely crude,
convention that Red indicated ‘Stop’, Green ‘Caution’ and and didn’t provide what we now understand as ‘interlocking’,
White ‘Clear’. a development that would not appear until 1860.
5 Elements of Signalling device that would provide this communication and start the
long story of electrical railway safety devices was the Cooke
At the most basic level, railway signalling has the & Wheatstone electric telegraph, first demonstrated in 1837.
fundamental objective of preventing trains from colliding This instrument used a pointer or ‘needle’ that could be
with one another or, in other words, providing a means of moved to the left or right to allow messages to be sent by
ensuring Safe Separation. In ‘traditional’ signalling systems spelling out words using a telegraphic code. In the railway
(i.e. from the earliest days of the railway up until the end of application this allowed a policeman to report a train entering
the 20th century), this has required that the railway be divided the section to his colleague down the line, who could in turn
into sections or ‘blocks’, with only one train being allowed to report back when it left the section. If the train didn’t arrive,
enter a block at any one time. The state of a block section was or arrived incomplete, and no report was received, any
established by observing when a train entered the block and, following train would be stopped and detained.
based on the assumption that the train would then keep
moving, it could be inferred that the block would be clear at In this way, a system of signalling in which the whole of a
the end of the measured time interval. Overcoming the train entering a ‘block section’ must be positively observed to
shortcomings of the time interval system requires a more have left it before another can be admitted was a practical
positive form of Train Detection, as will be explained later. possibility. As it provided ‘absolute’ assurance of the state of
the section, rather than the assumption on which time-interval
The second basic signalling element is the signal itself; a working relied, the system came to be called ‘Absolute
visual means of conveying instructions to the driver of a train Block’, the term still used in Network Rail’s Rule Book.
to stop or proceed. On main line railways throughout the
world, the majority of train movements are still controlled by
such signals, using combinations of coloured lights or, in a
dwindling number of cases, movable arms or boards operated
mechanically.
A third important function of the signalling system is to
provide a means of moving points so that train movements
can be directed to different tracks as required, and conversely,
to ensure that such points are not moved or disturbed while a
train is passing, so as to prevent derailment. This feature is
generally referred to as ‘holding the route’ and will be
explained in the section on Interlocking, the fourth element.
There is one other important function that signalling can
perform. For much of the history of railways in Britain,
systems that assist a driver by activating a device on the train
to warn him when approaching a signal that will require him
to reduce speed or stop have been mostly ignored by signal
engineers, the driver being considered as having sole
responsibility for the train’s safe passage along the railway.
For the same reason, supervision to ensure that trains do not
exceed the maximum safe speed permitted on the line has not
been a signalling system requirement, but has been left up to
driver observation, knowledge of the route, and discipline.
Recent developments have however included the warning and
enforcement of speed restriction, as well as observation of
signals, as a core function of the signalling system, as we
shall see.
The following sections describe how the above requirements
of British main line signalling systems have been fulfilled,
and the technologies used to achieve the systems’ objectives.
Figure 2: Block Telegraph instrument
6 The Coming of the Telegraph
Having established the concept of a ‘block system’ as a Figure 2 shows a typical Block Instrument, capable of
means of keeping following trains apart, what was needed showing three indications – ‘Line Blocked’ (the normal
was a simple and reliable form of communication between the condition of the section), ‘Line Clear’ and ‘Train On Line’,
policeman at one end of a section and his colleague at the and which, in conjunction with a single stroke bell for
other that would allow trains to be operated according to a exchanging messages, provides the basis for the Absolute
system of ‘space interval’ working rather than relying upon Block system that eventually controlled train movements
the somewhat fragile protection of time interval working. The throughout the British railway network.
7 A Digression - Railway Braking systems
Although strictly outside the scope of a study of signalling,
mention must be made of railway brakes, without which a
train cannot be controlled and any signalling system is of little
or no use.
Early train brakes were primitive in the extreme; a
mechanical brake being provided on the locomotive or its
tender, with a similar arrangement on a brake van at the rear
of the train. Because there were no brakes at all on the
wagons or passenger coaches in between, stopping and
starting a train required a fine degree of co-ordination
between the driver, who would use the locomotive whistle to
convey his instructions, and the guard to synchronise the
braking being applied and avoid the train being squeezed, or
even worse, stretched, and couplings broken.
Throughout most of the mid-Victorian era from 1840 to 1890,
railway engineers sought to devise means of providing
‘continuous brakes’ which would act on all vehicles
throughout a train. Most of these were unsuccessful, some
spectacularly so, but in the absence of legislation, the railway
companies kept experimenting with systems using rods,
chains, hydraulic, steam and air pressure, and vacuum. It took
a truly horrific accident to force the Government to make
continuous brakes acting on every vehicle and automatically
applied in the event of vehicles becoming inadvertently
detached from a train a legal requirement.
8 A Word about Accidents
At the beginning of the 21st century we are accustomed to the
concept of ‘engineering for safety’, where design and
implementation of complex systems such as aircraft or
industrial plants whose failure can have serious – or, in the
case of nuclear facilities, unimaginable – consequences are
subjected to rigorous processes of review and analysis
throughout their life-cycles to identify, record, and control all
possible hazards.
Development, adoption and use of these processes has been
very largely dependent on experience and understanding of
systems and their behaviour. In the middle years of the 19th
century, however, with railway engineering and safety
disciplines still in their infancy, there was little or no such
experience on which to draw, the evolution of safety being
slow and mostly reactive with accidents frequently providing
an incentive to improve equipment, rules or practices.
Legal regulation of the early railways was surprisingly
limited, the best description of the Government’s philosophy
being ‘supervision without interference’ which under an Act
of Parliament passed in 1840 allowed the Board of Trade (the
Government’s economic advisory committee) to appoint
Railway Inspecting Officers. These were serving officers
recruited from the Army’s Corps of Royal Engineers with
powers to inspect and report on new railways and approve
their opening for public use, and to investigate the causes of
railway accidents.
Unfortunately, it was very seldom the case that innovation in
the field of railway signalling was followed by a headlong
rush by railway companies to implement new technology.
Many of the devices and systems that we now think of as
providing undeniable safety benefits were available for many
years before companies would agree to install them, either
because of the costs involved, or often because they had been
developed by and used on ‘another Company’s railway’. For
example, slow take-up of the telegraph block system was in
no small way due to the stubbornness and arrogance of
railway company directors. This attitude was clearly
demonstrated by the Company Secretary of the London,
Brighton & South Coast Railway in a much-quoted reply to
the Board of Trade regarding the Inspecting Officer’s report
into a serious accident in Clayton Tunnel in 1861:
“My Board feel bound to state frankly that they have
not seen reason to alter the views which they have so
long entertained on this subject, and they still fear that
the telegraphic system of working recommended by
the Board of Trade will, by transferring much
responsibility from the engine drivers augment rather
than diminish the risk of accidents”.
Note those words - ‘Recommended by the Board of Trade’ –
it was to be nearly 30 years before a catastrophic accident
forced the Government to give legal powers to the Board of
Trade to not just recommend but enforce the adoption of basic
safety systems on passenger railways. In the meantime,
Inspecting Officers continued to investigate every accident,
recommending in one report after another adoption of the
three basic safeguards of railway safety:
x interlocking between points and signals;
x a system of Absolute Block to control trains
(i.e. rather than the time interval method);
x continuous and automatic brakes on
passenger trains.
On 12 June 1889, however, the inadequacies of both time
interval block working and non-automatic brakes were
highlighted by the collision at Armagh in which 78
passengers were killed, a third of them children on a school
treat. Public opinion was so outraged that the British
Government was compelled to pass – less than three months
later - the Regulation of Railways Act 1889, which finally
gave the Board of Trade’s Railway Inspectorate legal powers
to compel any railway company in the UK operating
passenger trains to provide the above safeguards, often
shortened to the more memorably monosyllabic ‘Lock, Block
and Brake’.
The history of railway signalling in the Victorian era is thus
linked closely with that of accidents. For further insights,
readers are encouraged to obtain the original, and arguably
the best, study of British railway accidents, ‘Red For Danger’
by L. T. C. Rolt, first published in 1955 and reprinted and
updated a number of times since then.
9 The march of technology - Signals
Arrangement and layout of signals
The story of the development of signals over the history of
railways has been one of steady, but slow progress. The
evolution from the policeman’s hand signals to the ‘fixed
signals’ of the 1840s has already been mentioned in section 4
and, apart from the development of the signal-box concept, by
which control of a number of signals was concentrated at one
point to enable easier – and safer – operation by one man, the
form of the semaphore signal as we would recognise it today
had emerged by the 1860s. At this point, signals on British
railways were designed to present a horizontal red signal arm
to drivers as a ‘Danger’ or ‘Stop’ indication, the arm being
lowered to signify ‘Proceed’. Figure 4 shows such a ‘lower
quadrant’ Stop’ signal with, to the right of the arm, the
coloured spectacles that would move in front of an oil lamp
and give corresponding Red and Green indications at night.
Figure 3: Lower quadrant semaphore Stop signals
Signals such as this were used throughout the British railway
network from the 1860s through to the end of the 20th century
(two new lower quadrant signals were in fact installed at
Banbury as recently as 2011). Even with the advent of power
signalling schemes from 1900 onwards, signals still took the
form of semaphore arms, operated either electrically or by
compressed air power.
The early years of the 20th century were characterised by the
development, all over Britain, of what we would now call
‘urban transit systems’. First to come had been the
underground railways in London, followed by the deep-level
Tubes. Next on the scene were the new electric tramways,
providing fast (and clean) door-to-door transport at frequent
intervals. When in the early 1900s, the tramways started
pushing out into the suburbs, particularly in South London,
the railway companies were very concerned at tramways
unashamedly trespassing on their turf and so started a
programme of electrification of existing suburban railway
networks so that they could compete on a more even footing
in an attempt to win back lost passengers.
At the beginning, the electrified services were operated using
traditional mechanical signalling methods of the type we have
already seen. However, as electrified networks spread and
levels of train service increased, it became obvious that the
ability to operate a suburban network with frequent and fast
electric trains interspersed with longer-distance steam-hauled
services required radical improvements in the signalling
arrangements. Not only was it necessary to increase line
capacity, but the ability to keep trains moving in all weather
conditions, particularly the dense fogs with which London
and other cities suffered, demanded an improved signal.
In November 1921 A E Tattersall read a paper to the
Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE) on ‘Three-
Position Signalling’, which was a defining moment in the
history of railway safety and control. This paper examined
the future direction of signalling, what signals should be
presented to drivers, how these should be given, and how the
system should be controlled. As a result, the Institution set up
the ‘Three Position Signal Committee’, which reported in
December 1924 that future signalling developments should
adopt three-aspect colour-light signals as their basis,
including the long-argued use of Yellow as the colour for
Caution signals. With this agreed, the way forward was
finally clear for signalling using the aspects we know today.
A further outcome of what was now the ‘Three-Aspect Signal
Committee’ had been the recommendation that a fourth aspect
should be considered to allow differentiation on lines carrying
mixed traffic and, in 1925, the resignalling of London’s
Blackfriars and Holborn Viaduct stations (now part of the
Thameslink route) introduced the first four-aspect signal.
Introduction of the Double Yellow, or ‘preliminary caution’
aspect, allowed not only more trains to be accommodated on
a given section of line, but for them to run closer together.
High-performance electric trains, stopping frequently and
rarely reaching more than 50 mph, could drive confidently at
this speed and not brake until sighting the single yellow
aspect, whilst heavier, faster and less well-braked trains could
start to brake on sighting the double yellow aspect, which
would give two sections in which to stop.
An overwhelming advantage of colour-light signals however
is that they can be operated automatically, with no human
intervention, simply by the passage of trains. Instead of the
railway being divided into block sections of several miles,
from one signalbox to the next, automatic colour-light signals
can be positioned at regular intervals along the railway, each
controlling its own block section, the status of which is
monitored by means of track circuits or some other means of
Train Detection (see section 11).
The use of sequences of colour-light signals has been the boxes, each with a coloured lens at the front; a four-aspect
basis of British signalling since the ‘Modernisation’ era of the signal thus consists of four such boxes stacked vertically and
1950s and 1960s. The system is based on a sequence of four arranged, reading downwards, Y – G – Y – R. The optical
distinct indications or ‘aspects’, as follows: arrangements uses a pair of Fresnel lenses (i.e. with the glass
x Green (G) – Clear; proceed at maximum formed into a number of concentric prisms) for each aspect,
permitted speed. with the inner lens coloured and the outer clear. A 24 watt
x Double Yellow (YY) – Caution; next signal lamp, fed at 12 volts, is accurately positioned with its filament
ahead at Single Yellow. at the focal point of the lens arrangement (the low voltage
allows a short filament to be used), giving a concentrated
x Single Yellow (Y) – Prepare to stop; next
beam with a spread of no more than 5°, visible at up to
signal ahead at Danger.
1200m in daylight when correctly sighted and adjusted.
x Red (R) – Danger; do not pass this signal.
Each lamp is provided with two independent filaments, the
For a modern passenger train travelling at up to 125mph
second (which is of necessity slightly out of focus) being
(200km/h), the distance required to stop from first sighting a
switched in when the first is detected as having failed, so
signal showing a Caution aspect is approximately 1¼ miles
keeping the signal alight. Failure of the first filament causes
(2km). This means that if the railway is divided into block
an alarm to be raised at the controlling signalbox, so alerting
sections of 1km, with a signal positioned at the entry to each
the technician; in the event that no action is taken and the
block, a driver sighting a Double Yellow aspect and initiating
second filament also fails, the next signal in the rear will be
a service brake application will have the 2km distance
held at Red, so avoiding the possibility of a driver
required to stop before reaching the Red signal. Conversely,
approaching and missing a ‘dark’ signal.
a driver seeing Green aspects can continue at the maximum
permitted speed for the line. Although colour-light signals of this type are simple in
construction and effective in operation, the need for constant
supervision of filament lamps with a rated life of only 5000
hours (7 months) has proved a strong incentive for
development of signals that are both more fault-tolerant and
require less energy. Within the past ten years, therefore,
signals using Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have seen
widespread adoption on Britain’s rail network. Although
these give the same indications as filament lamp signals, the
size of an LED allows each aspect to be formed by a matrix
of individual devices in which failure of one, or even a
Figure 4: Colour-light signals - sequence of aspects number of LEDs will have little or no effect on the readability
of the signal, and hence on the safe operation of the railway.
A significant benefit of this arrangement of signals is that the
regular and frequent placement of signals and hence block
section will allow trains to follow one another at much closer
intervals, or ‘headway’. As a train moves along the line, it
will cause each signal to show Red as it passes. In the case of
fully automatic signals, however, as the train vacates the
block section approaching the signal that is now showing Red
to protect it, the aspect of the next signal back in the sequence
will change from Red to Single Yellow, the one behind that
from Single Yellow to Double Yellow, and the one behind
that from Double Yellow to Green. With signals spaced every
1km, therefore, the driver of a second train following more
than 3km behind the first will continue to see Green aspects.
For a line with trains running at 200km/h, with signals 1km
apart, therefore, the practical headway interval for non-
stopping trains following one another is less than two
minutes.
This arrangement is referred to as Multiple Aspect Signalling
or ‘MAS’ and is in use on all main lines, as well as a number
of secondary lines, throughout the network

Signal construction Figure 5: Multiple-aspect LED signals

Up until the 1990s, the majority of colour-light signals found
all over the British railway network (and abroad) consisted, in
very simple terms, of a number of filament lamps in black
10 Point Operation and Detection
Points, by which we mean the whole assembly of fixed and
moveable rails by which trains are switched from one track to
another, have been a feature of railways ever since the
beginnings of rails and flanged wheels. However, irrespective
of the technological advances in signals, in communications,
in train detection and train protection, point operation remains
an essentially mechanical task, satisfying the need to secure
points to allow the safe running of ever faster and heavier
trains.
It should also be remembered that points have the ability to
generate more train delay-minutes per incident than almost
anything else; a signalman can authorise a driver to pass a
failed signal, or to proceed over a failed track circuit at
caution but, when the points fail, the integrity of the track
becomes suspect and the railway stops like a clock with a
spider in the works.
The key functions of any point operating mechanism are:
x To lock the switch (movable) rails safely in
position for the passage of trains;
x To detect that the switch rails are correctly
positioned relative to their corresponding
stock rails and locked;
x To move the switch rails from one position to
the other with sufficient force to ensure
reliable operation within an acceptable time;
x To move the switch rails sufficiently to
provide wheel flange clearance throughout
the length of the open switch;
x To ensure that an obstruction anywhere
between the closed switch and stock rails
prevents detection of correct switch position;
x To allow the switches to move in a run-
through situation before derailment is caused.
In the mechanical era, these functions were carried out by
connecting points directly to a lever in the signalbox through
a system of rods and cranks which could transmit the
signalman’s pushing and pulling of the lever over a distance
of no more than a few hundred yards. Following several
serious accidents in the late 19th century, a requirement was
added for facing points (that is, points over which a train can
proceed in one of two directions depending on their position)
to be provided with an independent locking device to secure
them in position. This Facing Point Lock or FPL frequently
took the form of a bolt which engaged in one of two slots in
the ‘stretcher bar’ joining the tips of the switch rails together,
and was operated by a separate lever in the signalbox.
Interlocking was provided to ensure that levers controlling
points or FPLs could not be moved once a Proceed signal had
been shown for a train to pass over them.
With the coming of power signalling in the early 1900s, a
number of different mechanisms for moving and locking
points were developed, using either electric power or
compressed air. The use of air power found wide acceptance
in the early years of the 20th century in various ‘electro-
pneumatic’ signalling systems as air-operated mechanisms
were simple, robust, and a large concentration of points could
be supplied from a centrally-located compressor plant.
Signalling installations, in which signals (still semaphore
arms at this time) as well as points were operated by air
appeared at a number of major stations such as Glasgow
Central, Newcastle, around Manchester and on the London
and South Western railway main line from London to
Basingstoke. Other major users of compressed air power
included the railways of the London Underground, on many
of whose lines points and other equipment are still air-
powered to this day.
Figure 6: Alstom style ‘HW’ point and lock machine
From the 1920s, however, electric operation of points
appeared on a wide scale, using a variety of designs of ‘point
and lock machine’ in which the functions of unlocking,
moving, re-locking and detecting the switches was carried out
by a machine fixed to the track beside the points. Figure 6
shows a current design of ‘all-electric’ machine, widely used
and still being installed on the UK rail network
An innovative approach to point operation was adopted by
British Railways in the 1960s with the development of the
Rail Clamp Point Lock operating system (often referred to
more simply as the ‘Clamp Lock’), based on a idea much
used in Europe where locking and securing of the point’s
switches is achieved through the use of a hook, or a claw, or
in the British case, a J-shaped arm to clamp each switch rail
closed (see Figure 7). Movement of the points and actuation
of the clamps was effected by means of hydraulic rams, with
pressure provided by a trackside ‘power pack’ containing a
motor-driven pump, valves to select the direction of
movement and a hand-pump to allow the points to be moved
manually when required.
With the increase in train loads, train speeds and, more
recently, Network Rail’s adoption of larger and hence heavier
rail sections, several new point operating mechanisms have
appeared in recent years with the intention of improving
availability and simplifying maintenance activities. As higher
train speeds require larger radius curves, high speed points in
turn require longer and heavier switch rails, and components
are subjected to forces of a magnitude often unknown in other
industries by the passage of high speed or heavy trains.
 A further important development in the field of points and
point actuating mechanisms has been the adoption of
Condition Monitoring. Given an essentially mechanical
assembly such as a set of points, it is possible to provide
continuous monitoring of parameters such as operating
current and time taken by the points to move so that failures
can be predicted, as for example when both current and time
to move start to increase, indicating that increased force is
being required to overcome friction caused by a seized
connection or lack of lubrication of essential moving parts.
The results obtained can be compared with known and
expected changes in performance over a point machine’s
maintenance cycle, so that the otherwise inevitable failure
that will bring the railway to a halt can be avoided.

Figure 7: Operation of a Clamp Lock point mechanism

Although increases in train speeds and changes in other

operating conditions have led to a change in standards such
that Clamp Locks can no longer be used for new installations,
they have been installed in large numbers and many are still
in use. The Clamp Lock concept lives on, albeit in an updated
form, in the ‘Hy-Drive’ point machine now being installed by
Network Rail.
Mention has already been made of the heavier rail sections
and longer switch rails required on main lines to allow higher
speeds to be maintained through points. A long-standing
problem with long switches is that their basic shape, which is
basically standard rail sections planed to an edge at the ‘toe’
(moveable) end of the switches, requires greater force to
move the switch the further away from the toe it is applied. In
order to meet the requirement to maintain a clear path for
wheel flanges throughout the length of the switch, therefore,
the force produced by the point machine must be applied not
only to the toe end of the switches but also at one or more
additional points or ‘back drives’ along the length of the
switch.
The basic movement of the Hy-Drive machine is a Clamp
Lock mechanism designed to fit within a hollow bearer (i.e. a Figure 8: Hy-Drive point operating system
sleeper) under the toe end of the switches which provides the
primary drive to the switches. A special Power Pack with dual
pumps is provided to deliver an increased hydraulic flow, and 11 The march of technology - Interlocking
this is used to drive a number of additional hydraulic
actuators located at the back-drive positions along the length The Era of the Signalbox
of the switches, at each of which the correct position of the Following the Regulation of Railways Act of 1889, Britain’s
switches is electrically detected. Figure 14 shows a Hy-Drive railways were forced to adopt the triple safeguards of Lock,
layout with four back-drive positions, looking from the heel Block and Brake (see section 8), and so by the end of the 19th
of the switches towards the toe end of the points. century, all the basic elements of the signalling system
To fulfil the requirement that a point machine should not outlined in section 5 were in place.
resist the forces generated by a vehicle ‘trailing through’ the Once the issue of communication along the railway to allow
points in the wrong direction to the extent that the vehicle is Absolute Block operation, and of giving consistent signal
derailed, each individual drive is applied to the switch rail indications to drivers had been sorted out, there remained the
through a sacrificial connection (a shear pin) that will fracture important consideration of how to apply signalling safely to
when a force in excess of 30kN is applied, such as would be the ever more complex station and junction layouts that were
experienced by a wheel flange forcing its way between a developing.
closed switch and its stock rail.
Nowhere was the application of Victorian ingenuity more
evident than in the field of Interlocking, the purpose of which
was (and still is) to prevent the displaying of Proceed
instructions to drivers that will lead trains into conflicting
movements with other trains, or that will conflict with the
positions of points. From the 1860s, the spread of signalling
across the network provided the incentive for development of
more reliable and positive methods of interlocking and a host
of inventions appeared, with different companies seeking to
patent their particular method of interlocking and then
convince the railway companies of its virtues. By the 1890s,
some 40 different methods of interlocking – all achieving the
same end - had been designed, built and patented and, even
today, over a dozen different designs are still in use in
Network Rail’s several hundred surviving mechanical signal
boxes.
The principles of interlocking can be explained most simply
in mechanical terms where movement of a lever in a
signalbox lever frame can be arranged to either ‘lock’
(prevent the movement of) or ‘release’ (permit the movement
of) one or more other levers, where one lever equates to an
individual signalling function such as a signal or a set of
points. Interlocking can be arranged to ensure that a lever
cannot be pulled for a signal to show a Proceed instruction to Figure 9: Arrangement of a mechanical signalbox lever frame
a driver unless levers controlling points between one signal
and the next are set in the correct position, and levers
operating signals controlling conflicting movements are all Mechanically interlocked lever frames reached a peak of
set to Danger. complexity and size at the turn of the 20th century, the British
These simple interlocking principles, established when record being set by a frame containing a single continuous
mechanical interlocking was in its infancy, have remained the row of 295 levers in a signal box at York, installed in 1909.
basis of signalling control and interlocking systems right up Some of the interlocking mechanisms were of quite
to the present day, through the era of electro-mechanical astonishing ingenuity, but were at the same time impossibly
interlockings, where signalling equipment was controlled difficult to maintain - the designs which survived the longest
electrically through contacts operated by miniature levers therefore tended to be the simplest and most robust.
with miniaturised mechanical interlocking, to the relay The zenith of mechanical interlocking development in Britain
interlockings used from the 1930s up to the 1990s. Even came in the 1920s, with the installation of major power-
today’s electronic and processor-based interlockings still operated signalling schemes at London Bridge, Cannon
adhere to the basic principles of mechanical interlocking. Street, Charing Cross and Manchester Victoria, all operated
Semaphore signals were by this time in widespread use to from miniature lever frames with mechanical interlocking of
control train movements, being operated mechanically from bewildering complexity. It was becoming clear by this time,
interlocked lever frames in signal boxes. Figure 9 shows a however, that there was a limit to the size of a mechanical
sectional view of a typical mechanical signalbox, in which the interlocking (even a miniaturised one) and so signalling
operating floor is at first floor level so as to give the designers from the 1930s onwards turned towards
signalman a good view of the layout under his control, with interlocking using electrical circuit techniques, based on the
the ‘operating’ part of the lever frame above the floor. The use of electromagnetic relays.
interlocking mechanism (shown in the diagram as ‘locking From the first ‘relay interlocking’, installed in 1933, up until
boxes’) is below floor level so that it both remains the 1980s, nearly all new signalling schemes used relays to
inaccessible to the signalman while allowing a technician to carry out interlocking functions, controlled by switches or
carry out maintenance in the lower storey of the signalbox push-buttons on a control panel. One of the earliest such
without interfering with operation of the railway. Mechanical schemes, started in 1939 but delayed by the Second World
connections - wires for signals and rodding for points – are War until it was finally commissioned in 1951, was the
attached to the ‘lever tails’ (to the left of the diagram), taken complete resignalling of the York area, previously controlled
down to ground level to pulleys or cranks, and then out from seven signal boxes containing a total of over 750
through the front wall of the signalbox to the trackside. mechanical levers, replaced by a control panel from which
825 individually signalled routes could be operated.
The reference here to ‘routes’ is significant. Practice in
Continental Europe, particularly in France, had since the turn
of the 20th century been to allow a signalman to operate a
single control device or ‘levier trajecteur’ to set up a complete
route through an interlocking area, from the signal that would
authorise the train’s movement, to its point of destination
ahead. This was in direct contrast to the traditional British
practice of providing a lever for each function by which each
individual set of points must first be moved to its required
position, concluding with operation of the signal.
The York signalling operated on a similar principle known in
Britain as ‘One Control Switch’ or ‘OCS’, where the turning
of a single switch would set a complete route for a train
movement from one signal to the next, in the course of which
all the required points would be moved to their correct
positions, followed by the signal changing or ‘clearing’ to a
Proceed aspect. When the train passed the signal, it would
return to Red automatically, following which the signalman
would restore the switch to its normal position.
From the 1950s to the present day, however, the method of
operation standardised on Britain’s railways has been the
‘Entrance-Exit’ principle, where a switch or pushbutton
associated with the signal from which the route is to be set is
operated first (as the ‘Entrance’) followed by a further
pushbutton at the signal or other destination point ahead, the
‘Exit’. Operation of these two devices will, as in the OCS
system, move all intermediate points to their required
positions and then clear the signal, the entrance switch being
restored (or pulled in the case of a pushbutton) after the train
has entered the route.
Figure 10: Miniature Entrance-Exit panel at Potters Bar, 1956
As the Entrance-Exit method of Route Setting uses the
minimum number of control panel devices (switches or
pushbuttons) it not only paved the way for the development of
compact control panels (see Figure 10) but, along with the
introduction of electronic remote control systems in the
1960s, allowed areas of control to be greatly extended, with a
number of ‘satellite interlockings’ being controlled from one
central point. Over the last 50 years, therefore, the Entrance-
Exit concept has become the standard method of operation of
all new signalling systems on the UK rail network.
Despite the advances in electronic systems, particularly in the
area of communications and remote control, Britain’s
railways were comparatively late in adopting electronics and
computer techniques to the ‘safety critical’ areas of signalling
technology, particularly interlockings, where errors in
operation can lead directly to train collision or derailment, but
in 1985 the first processor-based Solid State Interlocking
(SSI) was brought into use at Leamington Spa. Developed by
British Railways’ Research Department in collaboration with
two major signalling suppliers, GEC General Signal (now
Signalling Solutions Ltd.) and Westinghouse Signals (now
Siemens), it has been installed extensively throughout the
network over the last 30 years, and has also been sold to a
number of overseas railway administrations in Europe and
Australia.
SSI is based on the use of triple-redundant processors,
working in a two-out-of-three (‘2oo3’) configuration. In the
majority of cases, an SSI-based signalling scheme uses one or
more interlockings at a central location (often but not always
co-located with the Control Centre), communication with the
lineside equipment being provided via fail-safe data links,
duplicated for availability. These links connect the central
interlockings to Trackside Functional Modules located near or
adjacent to the points or signals to be controlled, one
interlocking being capable of controlling up to 40 signals and
between 20 and 40 sets of points, located at distances up to
several hundred kilometres from the interlocking.
In the mid-1990s, Railtrack, which was at that time the
infrastructure operator of Britain’s main line railways,
selected a number of international suppliers to undertake pilot
projects, with a view to increasing competition and capacity
in signalling system supply. Because this involved the
adaption and application of suppliers’ existing interlocking
systems, many of which had been developed in conjunction
with their home railway administration’s rules and operating
preferences, modifying systems to make them suitable for
British main line layouts and signalling principles was not a
straightforward matter. At least one project failed to come to
fruition for just that reason, with others becoming mired in
costly re-designs (and much additional assurance work) and
substantially delayed. However, the British-designed SSI had
in the meantime been upgraded and both the main UK
suppliers subsequently developed backwards-compatible, up-
to-date products that use modern hardware together with UK
signalling principles, implemented in SSI data.
The Era of the Control Centre
In the beginning, as we have seen, the signalbox was the
Control Centre of the railway and the signalman was the
signalling power supply, the operator of the signalling and the
regulator of the service. With the availability of power
operation from about 1900 onwards the ‘brute force’ element
of signalling could be removed, but the signalman was still
essentially a manipulator of machinery and, although
technology was available by the time of the First World War
to enable the area of control of one signalbox to be extended
to cover the whole of a large station area such as Glasgow
Central or Newcastle, the signalman’s view of the overall
railway was still limited. Even the early control panels of the
1930s did little to extend the signalman's area of control
beyond the immediate environs of his 'box' so that in many
cases, signalling simply developed from a job that you did
standing up to one you could do sitting down.
From the 1960s, however, the use of remote control systems
that offered an alternative to extending a control area by
installing miles of very expensive signalling cable marked the
beginning of the convergence of 'signalling' and
'communications'. Nowadays, the two are barely
distinguishable, as in the case of SSI.
The design and architecture of SSI (and other processor-based
interlockings) allow for control from a variety of Human-
Machine Interface (HMI) devices: a conventional Entrance-
Exit panel with pushbuttons and switches, or a screen-based
workstation equipped with touch-screens, or a more
ergonomic layout based on the familiar ‘point and click’
method. Development of screen-based signalman’s interfaces
has proliferated in recent years, with modern signallers’
workstations now including not just conventional signalling
controls and indications, but supervision of associated
systems such as power supplies, communications (telephones
and drivers’ cab radio), video images from level crossings and
information systems. Figure 11 shows the Bletchley
Workstation in the Signalling Control Centre at Rugby, from
which an operator controls train movements over the West
Coast Main Line in the Bletchley and Milton Keynes area.
Other workstations cover Watford, Northampton, Rugby and
the Trent Valley route to Nuneaton and Stafford.
Network Rail is currently pursuing a strategy for
concentrating control of the UK main line network into a
small number of large Rail Operating Centres whereby
existing signalling control systems will be replaced or
overlaid with a ‘Traffic Management’ (TM) system that will
take productivity and performance to even higher levels with
operators’ roles covering wider geographic areas and much of
the routine signalling activity being performed automatically.
Figure 11: Workstation in the Area Signalling Centre at
Rugby
12 Train Detection
Track Circuits
One of the essential elements of a railway signalling system is
a means of knowing where a train is in order to protect it from
other trains. In the early days of railways, the policeman
stationed at the beginning of a block section signalman
observed when a train entered but, until the coming of the
electric telegraph, it was not possible to determine with any
certainty that it had continued on its journey and vacated or
‘cleared’ the far end of the section, so an assumption based on
time intervals had to be used instead.
Once communication between policemen at the ‘entering’ and
‘leaving’ ends of the section could be provided by means of a
telegraph link, it became possible for the leaving end
signalman to advise his colleague when a train had vacated
the section so that a second train could be admitted. In the
days before continuous brakes which would automatically
apply and stop the train in the event of breakage of a
coupling, it would be possible for a train to become divided
such that vehicles were left behind to obstruct the section.
Proof that the complete train had left the section was therefore
provided by the Tail Lamp fixed to the last vehicle, which the
signalman or policemen had to observe before declaring the
section to be Clear.
With the safeguards offered by this method of working,
known as ‘Absolute Block’, and the guarantee of its operation
by a highly disciplined workforce, the safe signalling of trains
could be ensured under all conditions, including the ever-
present possibility of mechanical breakdown of the train,
which had always been a major shortcoming of the Time
Interval system.
The first real advance in the area of Train Detection, whereby
the position of a train could be determined automatically,
came in 1875 with the invention of the ‘closed track circuit’
by William Robinson in the USA. In this system, the limits of
a section were defined by insulating the rail joints and an
electric current was circulated in the rails from a supply at
one end of the section to a detecting device at the other. The
presence of one or more axles of a train would effectively
form a short circuit, so causing the detecting device (an
electromechanical relay) to be de-energised, so announcing
the train’s presence. Additionally, any disconnection in the
circuit such as a loose wire or a faulty relay, would show the
same indication as though a train was occupying the section –
the system was thus inherently ‘fail-safe’.
Track circuit technology based on Dr Robinson’s patent
became available in Britain from the 1880s in Britain,
although its use was at first limited to isolated sections within
manually signalled areas to remind the signalman of a train
waiting out of sight of the signal box. Early main line power
signalling installations brought into use in the 1900s
continued to use devices such as depression bars and treadles
(which can only detect a train’s ‘presence’ at a particular
point rather than its ‘absence’ from an entire section) and
generally managed without them, although signalling on the
newly-electrified underground and Tube lines in London
made extensive use of track circuiting from 1905 onwards.
On the main lines, the track circuit rapidly gained ground as
an essential safety feature of the signalling system from the
1920s onwards, and as schemes grew in size and complexity,
track circuiting was always there. One of its principal benefits
was the ability to control signals (either power-worked
semaphores or colour-lights) without human intervention over
long stretches of line, the first such installation being brought
into use by the London and North-Eastern Railway (LNER)
between Marylebone and Neasden in 1923 in connection with
a resignalling scheme to increase line capacity between
London and Wembley for the British Empire Exhibition.
Previously, with Absolute Block working, many hundreds of
small intermediate or ‘break-section’ signal boxes had been
provided to divide up stretches of line between stations and so
increase line capacity, allowing trains to run at more frequent
intervals, each of these having to be manned for two, or
sometimes three, shifts every day. Now, these remote and
often inaccessible boxes could be replaced with one or more
sections of ‘automatic signals’ so that trains could safely
follow one another at closer intervals, each train protecting
itself by replacing the automatic signals to Danger as it
passed, and allowing them to show ‘Proceed’ again when it
vacated the section at the next signal ahead. This method of
operation, where signals are controlled at and between signal
boxes by track circuits rather than signalmen communicating
with block telegraph instruments, is used up to the present
time on all main lines and many secondary lines in Britain,
where it is known as ‘Track Circuit Block’.
Where sections of automatic signals were provided so that
signal box control areas extended over several miles, there
was a need for the signalman to know what was going on
beyond his field of vision. The spread of power signalling
installations with continuous track circuiting was
accompanied by the appearance of the now familiar
illuminated track diagram. The first was installed in 1905 at
the station now called Acton Town as part of an electro-
pneumatic signalling installation on the newly-electrified
District Railway, and their use eventually became universal.
Figure 12: Illuminated Diagram at Acton Town, District
Railway
Even away from the major station and junction areas, where
power signalling had not yet taken over from Absolute Block,
track circuits started to appear as aids to the signalman, for
example to prevent a lever being worked to move points
under a train, or to remind him of a train standing at a signal
out of sight of the signal box. Track circuits could also be
used to provide controls on block instruments which, together
with electrical proving of the position of the signals, would
enforce the discipline of block and signal operation and so
reduce the possibility of human error.
The basic track circuit is an admirably simple idea as its
widespread use over the past century shows. The principle of
track circuiting does however suffer from several significant
problems, which are always present and which have needed to
be taken into account over the period of its development.
Firstly, the principle of operation of a track circuit is that the
presence of a conducting path between the two running rails
should be immediately detectable so as to protect the section.
In an ideal world, therefore, the normal state of the rails
should be that they are insulated from one another, or at least
exhibit a high electrical resistance such that the change of
resistance caused by the presence of a train’s axles can be
detected. In practice, however, the insulation of one rail from
another is far from perfect owing to a number of factors
including the rail fastenings, the condition of the sleepers
supporting the rails, and the state of the ballast surrounding
the sleepers, which together can reduce the resistance to 5
ohms or less over a 1km section.
Secondly, the resistance between rails and the wheels of a
train occupying the track circuit should be as low as possible,
and ideally zero, thus giving a perfect short circuit. Again, for
a number of reasons including the actual wheel-to-rail
contact, contamination of the railhead by rust or, in the most
extreme case, the presence of an organic film left by the
crushing of fallen leaves, the resistance of this path may not
be significantly lower than the ‘ballast resistance’ existing
between the rails. The difference between track circuits
providing a robust and reliable means of train detection and
being over-sensitive and unreliable always therefore depends
on detecting devices being designed, installed and adjusted so
as to be able to sense this, often marginal, difference.
One feature of track circuit technology that has led to the
application of a great deal of electrical engineering ingenuity
is that of ‘Immunisation’, or avoidance of electrical
interference with track circuits on electrified lines where the
running rails serve also as the return path for the trains’
traction supplies. As an example, a Pendolino train on the
West Coast Main Line has a power rating of 7MW, equating
to a current of 280A at 25kV, but its traction return path
shares the rails with track whose sensitivity is less than 0.5A
but must nonetheless detect its presence,. A track circuit
being falsely energised by a stray current would almost
certainly lead to an accident.
For railways electrified with an AC supply, immunisation
(not only of track circuits but of lineside circuits susceptible
to induced voltages) has in the past been achieved by the use
of DC relays with specially-designed magnetic components
that increase their impedance such that application of AC at
over 100 times the relay’s normal operating voltage will not
cause the relay to energise and give a false ‘Clear’ indication.
Conversely, lines with DC electrification, as used on the
London Underground and many early suburban rail systems,
used track circuits operated by AC, with special relays
designed to operate only in the presence of two separate out-
of-phase AC supplies, the loss of either one of which would
cause the relay to de-energise. Such relays operate by means
of a movable aluminium vane suspended between two coils in
which the presence of the two supplies, with the necessary
phase relationship, causes the vane to move and operate the
relay’s contacts. Relays of this type are still in use in large
numbers on lines of the London Underground where their
size, shape and construction has inevitably led to them being
dubbed ‘fish tanks’.
Figure 13: ‘Fish tank’ AC vane relays on London
Underground
Over the years, immunisation of track circuits against
interference from traction supplies has tried the signal
engineer’s ingenuity to its utmost. Where both AC and DC
electrification were found together (such as between Euston
and Watford), all sorts of ingenious solutions were developed,
such as AC track circuits operating at a frequency of 83ѿHz
which would provide immunity to both DC and to 50Hz AC,
as the frequency was remote from both the fundamental
traction supply frequency and its harmonics. Later
developments of this idea included the use of locally-
generated low audio frequencies derived from vibrating reeds,
again carefully chosen to avoid harmonics.
A further spur to technological development in the area of
train detection has been the widespread adoption of
continuously welded rail on high speed lines. Up until the
1950s rails were laid in 60-foot lengths, with bolted
‘fishplate’ joints and it was a relatively easy matter to insulate
such joints to define the end of a track circuit section, with
intermediate joints being bonded to ensure electrical
continuity. Such joints however required a very high standard
of maintenance to keep the track straight and level, and the
ability to weld rails into continuous lengths of up to a
kilometre led to great improvements in the smooth riding of
trains and a reduction in maintenance.
Without physical joints, however, a different solution was
required to define the ends of track circuited sections. This
was the ‘jointless’ track circuit, the ends of which are defined
by deliberately short-circuiting the rails at the track circuit
boundary. If the track circuit is then powered at a sufficiently
high frequency (originally between 1.0 and 3.0kHz), the loop
formed either side of the short-circuit can be tuned to resonate
at that frequency, and if adjacent track circuit sections are
supplied at different frequencies, effective separation of track
circuits can be achieved.
Early versions of the jointless track circuit were considered
unsuitable for use on electrified lines, but continuing
developments eventually overcame the problems of
interference by the adoption of coding techniques whereby
the track circuit’s basic ‘carrier’ frequencies would be
modulated between a pair of lower frequencies to produce a
waveform that would be detected, demodulated and analysed
in the receiver, a system known as frequency shift keying or
FSK.
As a postscript to the subject of track circuits, there have been
significant advances in traction control technology since the
early 1990’s, in particular in the area of semi-conductors that
can switch at higher frequencies than the power supply
frequency used by earlier thyristor and ‘chopper’ control
systems. This has led to the development of ‘Three-Phase
Drive’ traction inverters for both AC and DC rolling stock to
provide variable-frequency three-phase waveforms which can
be used to drive induction motors, which are lighter and more
reliable than the DC motors used previously. As these
inverters produce complex switching patterns, it is necessary
to design them so as to avoid generating critical signalling
frequencies. As it is possible for inverters to fail in a mode
that will generate frequencies that could cause dangerous
failures of signalling equipment, considerable effort has been
put into systems to detect malfunctions of the traction control
equipment on trains such that potentially hazardous fault
conditions could be detected.
Axle Counters
Although track circuits possess the great virtue of inherent
simplicity, problems brought about by environmental
conditions, both natural (such as ballast resistance) and the
man-made issues of electrical interference from other railway
systems, have led to the adoption of Axle Counting
techniques as an alternative.
A particular physical characteristic of track circuits is that,
given the low values of ballast resistance present even on
well-maintained track, the maximum distance over which a
single track circuit can be made to work is between 1 and
2km. If longer sections are required, these will require
multiple track circuits, which may be undesirable for
environmental, technical or economic reasons.
It was for these reasons that the electronic axle counter, first
used in Germany in the 1960s, has been developed as an
alternative means of train detection. By this means, train
detection can be provided for long sections of line which
would otherwise require multiple track circuits, by a single
axle counter section.
A further advantage of the use of axle counting would be
realised if the line was lightly used, or carried vehicles with
light axle loadings, as the issue of sufficiently good wheel to
rail conductivity to ensure operation of a track circuit would
be avoided. Similarly, areas of extremely low ballast
resistance, such as through long, wet tunnels, or even in cases
of ‘zero resistance’ where rails are bolted directly to the
steelwork of a bridge so making the use of track circuits
impossible, can be equipped with train detection.
As the name implies, an axle counter records the number of
axles entering and leaving a given section of line by detecting
and counting the passage of train wheels over a ‘counting
head’. This consists of two inductive sensors which are able
to determine the direction of travel of the train by the order in
which they are activated and so determine whether the wheels
counted are entering or leaving the section. The number of
axles counted is transmitted as a data telegram by a trackside
electronic unit to the interlocking where the count is recorded
by an ‘evaluator’ unit. When the number of wheels detected
as leaving a section is determined by the evaluator to be the
same as the number previously seen to be entering it, the
section is considered to be clear.
Figure 14: Axle counter count heads and trackside electronics
unit (‘mushroom’)
A moment’s consideration of this method of train detection
will reveal a striking similarity with the principles of
Absolute Block signalling, where entry of a train into a
section must be followed by observation that it has left, with
the tail lamp confirming that it is complete.
While freedom from most of the problems that affect track
circuit operation has been a powerful incentive to the
development and spread of axle counters as a preferred
method of train detection on high speed railways, other issues
have emerged, particularly those associated with the
behaviour of axle counters following ‘disturbance’, either by
failure of the equipment or its power supply or, more often,
by engineering works.
A track circuit provides continuous detection and so will
recover from a power failure to indicate the presence or
otherwise of a train. An axle counter, however, which detects
the presence of trains only at intermittent points, will remain
in a disturbed state, unable to determine the occupancy of any
section until a subsequent ‘count in’ is followed by a correct
‘count out’. When this occurs, a reset and restoration process
must be followed to ensure the section is clear and the
equipment returned to full functionality, a process which may
cause some operational inconvenience, as a high level of
confidence is needed to manually declare a section Clear that
the signalling system is showing to be Occupied.
Although both track circuits and axle counters have their
advantages, and their adherents, current practice tends
towards the adoption of axle counters as the preferred method
of train detection, given their freedom from the
susceptibilities of track circuits to electrical and
environmental interference
13 Train Protection
Warning Systems
This paper has so far considered a number of technological
advances in the field of railway signalling, focusing on the
Essential Elements outlined in section 5, namely, signals,
point operation, interlocking and train detection and the part
each plays in the overall safe operation of a modern railway.
It is however an unfortunate fact that irrespective of the level
of care and ingenuity applied to the designing and
implementation of signalling systems, ultimate safety of the
railway will still depend totally on the train driver observing –
and obeying – the lineside signals. Throughout the 20th
century, in Britain, not only did railway accidents without
number occur as a result of drivers overlooking, misreading
or ignoring the signal telling him to stop (the situation that we
nowadays call a Signal Passed At Danger, or SPAD) but
railway signalling development continued to focus almost
entirely on protecting signalmen, rather than drivers, from the
consequences of their errors.
Attempts to solve the problem are almost as old as the
railways themselves. In 1840 the London & Birmingham
Railway experimented with a means of giving audible and
visual signals to a driver on a locomotive if he passed a signal
at Danger by means of a lever on the track which engaged a
lever below the locomotive to sound a whistle and turn a red
lamp in the driver’s face. Adoption of such a device,
however, at a time when railway companies were arguing
against even the use of block telegraphs and other aids to
safety on the basis that they would make signalmen and
drivers careless, would not happen for many years.
In 1900, however, the Great Western Railway (GWR)
suffered a fatal SPAD accident at Slough and started
experimenting with an electro-mechanical system of
‘Automatic Train Control’ (ATC) which sounded a horn in
the locomotive cab to warn the driver on the approach to a
signal showing Caution, or a bell to confirm that it was at
Clear. If the driver did not acknowledge the horn signal
within 2 – 3 seconds, the train’s brakes (continuous vacuum
brakes on the GWR) would then be applied automatically and
bring the train to a stop.
The system, which was activated by contact between a ramp
mounted on the track and a ‘shoe’ on the locomotive, was
subsequently installed on the GWR’s main line from
Paddington to Reading, and eventually (by the early 1930s)
all over the GWR network, from which it finally disappeared
only in the 1970s, well into the British Railways era.
Until nationalisation in 1948, railways in Britain had been
private, commercially-driven bodies, each with its own
operational and engineering practices, preferences and
prejudices, as illustrated by the proliferation of designs for
lever frames, signals, and block telegraphs in the late 19th
century. Even when 120-plus railway undertakings were
combined into the ‘Big Four’ companies (Great Western,
London Midland & Scottish, London & North Eastern and
Southern) in 1923, many of the old ways remained.
For a railway to adopt a system developed by another
company was unthinkable and, away from the GWR, no
development of protection or warning systems took place.
Accidents caused by drivers ignoring or misreading signals
therefore continued to occur, and the Railway Inspectorate
continued to argue in vain, in one Accident Report after
another, for adoption of ATC.
After the nationalisation of Britain’s railways in 1948,
therefore, one of the first actions of the new British Transport
Commission was to undertake the installation of ATC
throughout the principal rail routes of its network. Trials were
started, using a system of track-mounted magnets to operate a
horn or a bell in the driver’s cab, similar to the GWR ATC,
but with the addition of a visual indicator to remind the driver
that he had received a warning, and that it had been
acknowledged. Soon after the new system went on trial on the
East Coast Main Line in 1952, a catastrophic double collision
occurred at Harrow & Wealdstone in which 112 passengers
and train crew were killed, and the Inspecting Officer had no
hesitation in stating once again that ATC would have, without
a doubt, prevented this accident.
By the time trials of the new system had been completed,
reports prepared and approval given, work had only just
started before another major collision occurred following a
SPAD in fog in south-east London. Installation of the
Automatic Warning System or ‘AWS’, as it was now called,
then went ahead steadily and extended to all BR’s main lines
and most of the secondary lines, where it remains in use.
As an interesting contrast to the development of ATC in
Britain, French railways were being equipped with a warning
system similar to the GWR ramp as early as 1875. Called the
‘Crocodile’, it acted in a similar way to ATC on the approach
to a signal (that is, as a vigilance device), and required the
driver to acknowledge a warning within 4 – 5 seconds, or the
brakes would be applied. It has been suggested that GWR’s
ATC was based on the Crocodile concept but, whereas ATC
has now passed into history, the wavy ramp of the Crocodile
remains a familiar feature on main lines throughout France,
Belgium and Luxembourg, over 130 years since its
introduction.
Figure 15: BR AWS magnets (permanent magnet on left)
Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS)
AWS is a ‘warning system’, and is required to work with
trains of widely differing weights, speeds and performance
characteristics. For this reason it does not have the ability to
give the unequivocal ‘Stop’ command of the ‘trainstop’
devices used on London’s Underground and other metro
systems. Also, because of the driver’s ability to acknowledge
a warning and prevent the brake application, it will not
provide protection in cases where signals are deliberately
ignored or misunderstood. The only system that can provide
this level of protection, as well as constant supervision of
speed, is Automatic Train Protection or ATP.
Following several serious accidents in the late 1980s, the
Government gave an undertaking that BR would fit ATP
throughout its network within five years, a somewhat rash
promise that was later modified to ten years. Because no
British signalling manufacturer could at that time deliver an
off-the-shelf technical solution, BR initiated two trial ATP
installations. The two main routes between Paddington and
Bristol were equipped with a system called ‘TBL’ from
Alstom in Belgium, and the German ‘Selcab’ supplied by
Alcatel (now Thales) was installed on the Chiltern Line routes
between Marylebone and Banbury. Both systems used a
system of track mounted loops and transponders to relay
information from the trackside to the train regarding the state
of the signals and the permitted speed on the line ahead so
that the driver could control the train within an envelope of
protection, under the supervision of the ATP.
Implementation of both trial systems was well under way by
1994, when Railtrack, who had succeeded BR as owner and
custodian of Britain’s railway infrastructure, announced that
national implementation would result in an estimated cost per
life saved of over £14 million and produced a report that
argued that national fitment of ATP was ‘not reasonably
practicable’. The trial installations were nevertheless
completed, and will continue in service until transmission-
based signalling meeting European standards is introduced on
theses lines in the future.
When BR initiated its ATP trial projects in 1991 the Channel
Tunnel was still under construction, and implementation of
the concept of ‘interoperability’ that would allow operation of
trains with compatible signalling systems throughout the
member states of the European Union was still some years
away. Railtrack therefore recognised that an interim train
protection solution should be investigated.
The Train Protection & Warning System (so called because
its trainborne equipment combines the functions of a trainstop
and overspeed protection with that of the existing AWS) was
based on available technology and effectively offered a ‘low- Figure 16: TPWS loops arranged as a Train Stop
tech’ solution to mitigate the consequences of SPADs.
Despite much criticism from the media when nationwide
fitment of TPWS was announced as the alternative to ATP, Trials of the equipment were put in hand in 1996 on the
the origins and philosophy of TPWS are sound, as was Thameslink line between Brighton and Bedford, and
explained in a paper to the Institution of Railway Signal Thameslink (now First Capital Connect) electric multiple unit
Engineers in 2001 by the head of Railway Safety (now the (EMU) trains were fitted with the train-carried equipment.
Rail Safety and Standards Board): During the time that this work was going on, two major
TPWS came from an idea by what was then BR SPAD-related accidents occurred, firstly at Southall in
Research (BRR). If AWS has an Achilles heel but a September 1997, and then at Ladbroke Grove in October
new system is too expensive to be justified, why not 1999. The latter accident occurred less than two months after
look at enhancing AWS to deal with the deficiency? Parliament had enacted the Railway Safety Regulations 1999
British Rail Research evaluated the potential in which the provision of a system of train protection on all
performance of many different options and trains, and at ‘selected signals’ (those protecting junctions and
concluded that the addition of an automatic train points of conflict) was finally mandated by law, to be
stop and a single speed trap [now called the completed by the end of 2003. TPWS thus came to be
‘overspeed sensor’] in the rear of the signal installed at 12,000 ‘selected signals’ throughout the British
represented the best option and would reduce ATP main line network and on all trains, where it will remain in
preventable risk by circa 70% where applied. use, together with AWS, for the foreseeable future.
The objective of TPWS thus became to deliver approximately Dependence on simple frequencies and the need for them to
70% of the possible ATP benefit by enhancing AWS to be active to initiate a brake application means that TPWS
provide, in addition to the existing warning function, a brake does not follow the ‘fail-safe’ principle normally expected of
application when a train failed to stop at a red signal (train a signalling system, although it does provide significant
stop) or should a train approach a red signal at a speed mitigation. In-service evidence indicates that it has been
deemed higher than appropriate (i.e. an overspeed). successful as, prior to the introduction of TPWS, the fatal
accident rate as a result of SPADs was approximately one
Pairs of loops, each about one metre in length, are mounted in
every 15 months and at the time of writing there have been no
the track and emit different pairs of simple sinusoidal
SPAD-related fatal accidents in the 15 years since the
frequencies when energised. Both loops are energised when
Ladbroke Grove accident. More significantly, statistics
the signal is at Danger and the magnetic signals are detected
produced by the Rail Safety & Standards Board’s based on
by a receiver on the train. As the train passes over the loops it
the monitoring of occurrence and severity of SPAD events
receives the two frequencies in a sequence determined by its
show that between 2001 and 2007 the SPAD risk fell by
direction of motion, the frequencies being arranged such that
around 90%, whilst the number of SPAD events fell by about
the train detects first an ‘arming’ frequency and then a
30%.
‘trigger’ frequency. If the arming frequency is decoded as a
train stop and a trigger frequency is detected immediately
afterwards, the brakes are applied. As there is allowance for
there to be a gap between detection of the two frequencies,
the brake is applied if the trigger frequency follows the loss of
the arming frequency by less than 150ms. If the frequencies
are received in the opposite order, i.e. trigger before arming,
the train equipment will remain ‘unarmed’ and so ignore the
trigger frequency.
14 Into the Future - ETCS system, providing continuous communication between the
interlocking (located at the Control Centre) and trains via
As Britain’s railways moved into the 21st century, the issue of GSM-R radio, all lineside signals having been removed.
harmonisation of railway signalling and operations across the
European Union loomed large. When it at last became
possible to run trains between Great Britain and mainland
Europe after the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994,
practical issues such as the need to equip trains travelling
from London to Brussels with four different signalling
systems (as well as drawing power from three different
systems of electrification) assumed greater significance 1.
To overcome these and similar problems as the railway
systems of the EU grow and expand, the European
Commission issued an Interoperability Directive in 2008 to
ensure compatibility of signalling systems in EU Member
States. Future signalling developments in Great Britain will
thus from now on be inextricably bound up with those in the
rest of Europe.
The European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) is
a European-led specification for the control and management
of railway traffic, developed by European railways and
manufacturers to harmonise signalling equipment and railway
operations across the EU. Its essential components, from a
signalling point of view, are the European Train Control
System (ETCS), a specification for the signalling interface
between trackside infrastructure and railway vehicles, and the
Global System for Mobile Communications – Railways or
‘GSM-R’. GSM-R is based on public GSM cellular radio Figure 17: A pair of Eurobalise transponders
technology, but provides additional functionality and operates
on specific frequencies reserved for railway use. In order that
the equipment and communication protocols of ETCS should Additional communication between fixed points on the track
not become the monopoly of a single supplier, the system’s and the train provides position references and direction
functionality and interfaces are described in a series of information by means of ‘Eurobalises’ (often referred to
generic Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs). simply as ‘balises’), passive transponder devices mounted
between the rails that are powered by electromagnetic energy
In practice ETCS provides a system of train protection transmitted from ETCS-fitted vehicles and which transmit a
whereby lineside and onboard (train-carried) signalling predefined set of data packets to the vehicle’s onboard
equipment can communicate so as to supervise the driver’s equipment when energised.
operation of the train and intervene if this exceeds the
envelope of safe operating conditions, either in terms of train Train detection is by means of axle counters, and trains
speed, or the distance the train may travel (this latter is additionally report their position back to the control centre,
referred to as its ‘Movement Authority’). based on the distance travelled since passing the last balise.
There are no lineside signals, the driver’s Movement
The system may be implemented at a number of ‘levels’, Authority being transmitted by radio, based on the train’s own
depending on the application: Level 1 provides for the position, that of the train or trains ahead, the correct setting of
superimposition of ETCS on a line already equipped with points and the permitted speed. Today’s driver of an ETCS-
conventional lineside signals and train detection, whilst Level equipped train on the Cambrian Coast line can therefore
2 dispenses with the lineside signals altogether. Level 3 watch speed, distance and movement authority being
(currently at the trial stage) requires no fixed system of train displayed on a screen in the cab and control the train
detection, each train communicating its own position on a confident in the envelope of protection that the signalling
continuous basis to the lineside equipment and thus providing system is providing, which will automatically intervene and
what is in effect a system of ‘moving block’. brake the train to a stop if any of these are exceeded.
At present, the application of ETCS in Great Britain is So ends, for the time being, a 180-year journey that started on
confined to a pilot installation on the Cambrian Coast line in a wet September day back on the Liverpool and Manchester
North Wales, between Shrewsbury, Aberystwyth and Railway where the ‘Rocket’ approaches, its driver crossing
Pwllheli, commissioned in March 2011. This is a Level 2 his fingers as he peers through the gloom and the pouring rain
to catch a glimpse of the Bobby’s hand signal.
1
Extension to London of the signalling and electrification systems
used in the Tunnel allowed these numbers to be reduced to three and
two respectively after opening of the complete HS1 route in 2007.
15 A Final Thought
This paper has been able to give only a brief outline of the
development of British railway signalling practice since 1830,
but the author hopes that it will stimulate the reader’s interest
sufficiently to investigate other sources. Those seeking further
information should start by referring to the series of textbooks
on railway signalling and communications matters published
by the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers, which
describe not only the theory but also the engineering and
technology of signalling, as well as its application in the
context of an operational railway.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the many friends and
colleagues from main line, metro and heritage railways who
have knowingly (or in some cases unknowingly) contributed
to this paper during his 40-odd years in railways and
signalling, and to Lloyd’s Register Rail Ltd for the
opportunity to present what I hope will be a stimulating
introduction to the subject.
I would also like to acknowledge the help of the Institution of
Railway Signal Engineers, from several of whose publications
I have extracted facts, figures and photographs, in particular
Figures 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 and 17.