Re: Electric Staff in Victoria

[David Langley <del@ancc.com.au>]

Les Brown wrote:

> David Langley <del@ancc.com.au> wrote in aus.rail:
>
> >There was an interesting situation some years ago at Violet Town where they put
> >in a closing lever without including the staff instruments in the circuit.
> >There was nothing to prevent Benalla and Euroa sending opposing trains towards
> >Violet Town with ALL the signals hanging off. Needless to say it was black
> >banned before it was used the first time and the closing lever was only used
> >after TO's had arrived, and then it was no use for all the pass because it
> >closed for the non platform straight road.
> >
> You mean to say that railway management would have permitted an unsafe
> working practice but for union opposition?
>
> I have heard stories about this before, but I find it difficult to
> believe that management would have permitted the possibility of a
> "corn-field meet", without having their heads examined. I mean, in the
> event of a serious accident, they would the first up on criminal
> charges.
>
> Could someone please explain this?

The story is certainly true as I worked as a signalling technician in the north
east. The way we heard it was that the authorities, at that time not many with a lot
of railway knowledge, sanctioned a scheme (cheap) that would enable the signalman at
Violet Town to cease duty before the last goods on the down went through. That train
would often be some hours behind the previous down train (all the ups had gone) and
the signalman was on duty for all that time in order to signal it through the manual
boom barriers that existed at that time.

The signalling people when asked to design a scheme put in the arrangements I have
described because I think no-one had actually thought that any ups would ever be
involved - and they probably would never had been. However, it still didn't stop the
possibility of the opposing moves and so it was never used. I'm not sure that it was
direct Union action that stopped its use, I think that the local safeworking people
also realised what had been provided but too late to have it changed into something
more useful.

If some one had suggested that all they needed was a closing lever that converted
the booms to automatic via the down departure signal being placed at clear (no up
signals being off) by the crew of the train as it stopped for a staff exchange, then
all would have been OK. The staff exchange box was provided (not required before
this) in a hut adjacent to the down departure signal that had been converted to a
light signal in order that the signal box lever could be reverse to lock the road
but held at stop until a key switch was operated after exchanging the staff.. Maybe
what it needed was a simple electric release of the closing lever by the forward
section staff being out of the instrument and locked into the staff exchange box in
order to reverse the closing lever. Of course, it is all history now.

David Langley.