Re: VR Staff & Ticket and Pilot Working

[Eddie Oliver <eoliver@efs.mq.edu.au>]

Gavin Potter wrote:
>
> Victoria as far as I know never had switching out levers or things like that
> at train staff and ticket stations, but did have switching facilities at
> electric staff stations to switch out intermediate instruments.

It is interesting (?) that NSW theoretically had short and long section
staff-and-ticket instances in considerable numbers (even if they were
virtually never applied) but very few short and long section electric
staff instances. Victoria was exactly the opposite. 

There was only one NSW case of short and long section electric staff in
NSW in relatively recent times, i.e. Nooroo could theoretically be
opened to split the section Monkerai - Stroud Road. Although the
facility lasted until maybe the 1960s, I doubt that it was ever used
after about the late 1940's. Can anyone confirm or deny this, and/or
comment on other such instances in NSW?

We did of course use divisible electric staff (in our sense of that
term) in many places, sometimes with an intermediate block post and
sometimes just with time interval working. Am I right in thinking that
what we call a divisible staff (i.e. an electric staff which can be
physically split into "staff" and "ticket" portions) is a "composite
staff" to Victorians?

Another NSW oddity was the ability in at least two places to replace
electric staff over several sections with ordinary train staff and
ticket over the combined sections - i.e. the Belmont line where the
electric staff sections Adamstown - Fernleigh Loop - Dudley Junction -
Redhead could be amalgamated into a single staff-and-ticket section, and
an instance on the Richmond line in the latter years
pre-electrification.

Eddie