CPL signals and how they operate

[NW Mailing List]

Arghhh! The story below will make more sense if I hadn’t reversed the directions. See corrections noted below.
-- 
Larry Stone
lstone19 at stonejongleux.com

> On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:50 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 5, 2020, at 14:14, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>> P. S. When moving from signaled to non-signaled territory, what is the aspect
>>         displayed on the last signal ?
>> 
> 
> If there’s actually a signal at the end of signaled territory, it should be displaying Restricting. But if there’s no signal, then the previous signal should be Approach and if you’re lucky, there will be a sign saying “End ABS” or similar at the end. And if you’re not lucky, then you’re just expected to know where the end is.
> 
> When I was in Sandusky, CTC ended about 1/4 mile before the first yard switch. WB heading into the yard, there was a signal at the end of CTC that displayed Restricting unless that last 1/4 mile was occupied in which case it displayed Stop and Proceed (so since it knew if that last short block was occupied, it was providing block protection). At the yard switch, nothing indicated you were now on completely unsignaled track. EB leaving the yard, there was nothing at the yard switch and the first signal you saw was the CTC home signal 1/4 mile east. So that last block was signaled WB but unsignaled EB. But have something enter that 1/4 mile of unsignaled EB [corrected] track (such as a yard engine needing to get from the departure side to the receiving side) and if an WB [corrected] movement had already been lined up in the CTC, it would knock that down (yes, there’s a story here of me needing to cool down an angry Bellevue trainmaster and get him to understand that just because the signals were knocked down did not mean anyone went by a red signal or violated any rules).
> 
> Further down the “main” (a bypass track around the yard), there was a distant signal to the NYC diamonds that showed Approach continuously (I believe it was an unlighted semaphore) with no block protection - just sort of a reminder that you were approaching an interlocking. Since that track was normally only used to get locomotives from the receiving yard to the engine house (east of the NYC diamonds), nothing going past it was normally crossing the interlocking so it was pretty pointless.
> 
> — Larry Stone
>    lstone19 at stonejongleux.com
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