Re: TRAMWAY "SAFEWORKING"

[David McLoughlin <davemcl@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz>]

Barry Campbell wrote:
>
> The Sydney & Newcastle electric systems were controlled until the 1930's
> by a branch of the railway dept and kept some railway characteristics to
> the end. OTS&T working on single lines was one of them. Does anyone know
> how other systems coped with single lines and other such railway things
> such as complicated junctions.

Brisbane had colour light signalling for single tracks. The most complex
junctions, such as Woolloongabba, Petri Bight and the Valley, were
controlled by signal boxes, elsewhere the points were changed by power
on/off contacts on the overhead.

The last stretch of single track on a main Melbourne line, Trugannini
Road at the end of the Carnegie 67 route, used a kind of staff
arrangement... city-bound trams passed a little wooden card or something
to the driver of the first Carnegie-bound tram they passed after leaving
the single track. Only trams with the card could use the single track.
The line was duplicated about 1990.

IIRC the only signal box in use in recent times in Melbourne was at the
top of Swanston Street, where most Swanston Street trams terminated. It
is sitting unused now, and trams shunt at the University. Elsewhere,
junctions used power/coast points and increasingly now, transponders.
This is even at complicated junctions such as Camberwell Junction and St
Kilda Junction.

David McLoughlin
Auckland New Zealand

"When you meet the Head of State in England, you only have to go down on
one knee."
-- John Cleese, in reply to a radio reporter’s question asking about
differences between England and the United States.