Miscellaneous: Operating Equipment & Practices

Signalling Procedure: misc_equip236

An extract from the ‘Great Western Railway Regulations for Train Signalling on Double and Single Lines’ detailing the operation of the Tyer's No 6 Single Line Electric Train Tablet and a photograph of a single line tablet for the branch line between Bearley North Junction and Alcester Junction. A Tyer's No 6 tablet instrument system was installed between the Great Western Railway’s Bearley Signal Box and Midland Railway’s Alcester Signal Box in December 1905, with an experimental ground frame with ‘tablet locking’ at Great Alne. This system replaced the ‘one engine in steam’ wooden train staff system that had been in use since the branch had been opened in 1876. The Tyer's No 6 tablet instrument system was worked in accordance with the Midland Railway’s Regulations for Electric Train Tablet working.

With the construction of the North Warwickshire Line a new Signal Box was opened at Bearley North in 1907 to control the two junctions and two single line sections were created – Bearley East to Bearley North (known as Bearley North Curve) and Bearley North to Alcester Junction. Originally both sections were controlled by Tyer's No 6 tablet instrument systems, but that for the Bearley North Curve was later replaced with Tyer's No 9 key token type instruments (see 'gwrbj807' and 'gwrbj2348'). The Key Token No 9 instrument had been invented and patented by GWR Signalling Engineers Alfred Blackall and Charles Jacobs in 1912 and was licensed to Tyer for manufacture. It became the standard GWR single line instrument being; more compact, easier to use and with less moving parts, easier to service and repair. The Tyer's No 6 tablet instrument system was retained between Bearley North and Alcester due to the preference of the Midland Railway for this system. It was replaced with a ‘one engine in steam’ staff system from 18th May 1942, when the section of branch line between Great Alne to Alcester was closed.

Photographs - Great Western Railway / S Turner (GW Railwayana Auctions)

Robert Ferris

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