Behind the scenes at Exeter West Signalbox

We take a look around the Exeter West Signalbox at the Crewe Heritage centre courtesy of the Exeter West Group and get a behind the scenes look at how the demonstrations and the equipment operate.
Our thanks goes to Will,Elliot,Rob and Chris for all the days fun and activities.

[@Vincent-ow9lj]

I'm in awe of the engineers who designed that interlocking, all without computers.

[@D.music85]

Amazing video, I keep watching this over and over

[@irseminorrailwayssection9491]

Thank you

[@TransitZone]

@@irseminorrailwayssection9491wait a minute was the simulator on a MacBook, the arrow looked kinda like it

[@irseminorrailwayssection9491]

The sim can be ran from a laptop or an operator in the outside room

[@TransitZone]

@@irseminorrailwayssection9491oh thank you, do recommend the simulator?

[@elljones6159]

Lovley Video and I recognise those faces! :P

[@safetyamsv3515]

Just wanted to know how many people it would take to run this signal box in it's heyday?

[@irseminorrailwayssection9491]

I believe two signals Allen and possibly a train recorder for the book/announcing

[@safetyamsv3515]

thank you for the reply

[@petermaneely2341]

where was the train

[@irseminorrailwayssection9491]

In cyberspace mainly 😀

[@cannadineboxill-harris2983]

I wanted to know why don’t dig a tunnel and do an extension for the main line Train so they extend the new abandoned underground stations.
Why couldn’t they use the part D78 Stock train doors on the sides and also restructure the front face of the A60 and A62 stock that includes the class 313, class 314 and class 315 remix and make them all together and also redesign them an overhead line and also make them into six cars per units and also having three Accessible Toilets on that six cars per units A60 and A62 stock trains and also convert the A60 and A62 stock trains into a Scania N112, Volvo TD102KF, Volvo B10M, Gardner 6LXC, Gardner 6LXB and Gardner 8LXB Diesel Engines and also put the Loud 7-Speed Voith Gearboxes even Loud 8-Speed Leyland Hydra cyclic Gearboxes in the A60 and A62 stock, class 313, class 314, and class 315 and also modernise the A60 and A62 stock and make it into an 11 car per unit so it could have fewer doors, more tables, computers and mobile phone chargers?
A Stock Train and also having 8 DisaAccessiblelets on those A stock trains. why couldn’t we refurbish and modernise the waterloo and city line Triple-Track train tunnel and make it bigger and extend it to bank station, making it into a Triple-Track Railway Line so those 4 European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden to convert the waterloo and city line Triple-Track Train tunnel into a High-Speed train?
The Third Euro tunnel Triple-Track Train line to make it 11 times better for passengers so they could go from A to B. then put the modernised 11 car per unit A Stock and put them on a bigger modernised waterloo and city line Triple-Track train tunnel so it could go to bank station to those 4 European countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden. The modernised refurbished 11 cars per unit A stock could be a High Speed The Third Triple-Track Euro Tunnel Train So it is promising and 37 times a lot more possible to do this kind of project that is OK for London Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden. Oh by the way, could they also tunnel the Triple-Track Railway Line so it will stop from Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex so that the Passengers will go to Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden and also extend the Triple-Track Railway Line from Bank to Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex Stations so that more people from there could go to Germany, Italy, Poland And Sweden Easily. Why couldn't they extend the Piccadilly line and also build a brand-new underground train station so it could go even further right up to Clapton, Wood Street and also make another brand new tunnel train station in Chingford and could they extend the DLR?
All of the classes 150, 155, 154, 117, 114, 105, and 106, will be replaced by all of the Scania N112, Volvo TD102KF, Volvo B10M, Gardner 6LXB, Gardner 6LXC and Gardner 8LXB Diesel Six carriages three accessible toilets are air conditioning trains including Highams Park for extended roots which is the Piccadilly line and the DLR trains.
Could you also convert all of the 1973 stock trains into an air-conditioned maximum speed 78 km/hours (48 MPH) re-refurbished and make it into a 8 cars per unit if that will be alright, and also extend all of the Piccadilly train stations to create more space for all of the extended 8 car per unit 1973 stock air condition trains and can you also build another Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive Companies and they can order Every 17 Octagon and Hexagon shape LNER diagram unique minor no.13 and unique small no.11 Boilers from those Countries such as Greece, Italy, Poland, and Sweden, can they make Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive speeds by up to 117MPH so you can try and test it on the Original Mainline so it will be much more safer for the Passengers to enjoy the 117MPH speed Limit only for HS2 and Channel Tunnel mainline services, if they needed 16 Carriages Per units can they use those class 55’s, class 44’s, class 40’s and class 43HST Diesel Locomotive’s right at the Back of those 16 Carriages Per Units so they can take over at the Back to let those Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive’s have a rest for those fascinating Journeys Please!!!! oh, can you make all of those Coal Boxes’ 16 Tonnes for all of the 117MPH Mayflower and Tornado Steam Locomotive’s so the Companies will Understand us, passengers!! so please make sure that the Builders can do as they are Told!! And please do something about these very important Professional ideas Please Prime Minister of England, Prime Minister of Sweden, Prime Minister of Germany, Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister of Poland and that Includes the Mayor of London.

[@irseminorrailwayssection9491]

Thank you, that must be the longest question we’ve had and whilst not necessarily signalling related it is a detailed question.
A lot of what various railways do is down to three basic things, 1;applied standards,2. Monetary issues, 3. Politics at all levels
If I may
All railways have good ideas, over time many engineers have good ideas and like to drive things forward for the benefit of the system they work for but within what they company has set up over the years for how to achieve this you find that there can be standards working against those ideas, especially if there’s a big change to the way things are traditionally done, as I could say who wrote a particular standard say track dimensions and you’d say this was down to person A, who learned it from person B and so on, eventually person Z was the very first person who defined the standard and that was down to no one being before them so they used best practice, in the case of the railway the first wheels on wagons being made by Carter’s doing horse carts, so what dimension did they use, the best practice of what the carters used at that time.
Standards however should be realistically flexible to accommodate new technology and practices and this is something that LondonUnderground had to do on one of its major resignalling schemes, they talked to the contractor and rewrote the standards to help make the way forward progress.
Hence i term applied standards , as standards define what practice or processses we should apply to a system from the outset, but applied standards are defined during the term of the project or equipment and change to suit the outcome of the final solution.
Look at the motor industry, there’s standards on how to build cars but you can have whatever wheels,trims,lights,stereos or colours you want after the fact.
Monetary issues are a big number two issue, the best example I can use here is SpaceX, as Mr Musk has already noted ,the best part is no part, everything that is added costs more to the overall cost and adds more complexity into a system ,with more causal failure modes added along the way, so as you noted some of the issues with various stock types,doors etcetera ,there will be a lot of resistance against these ideas from both a company’s cost basis from the supplier cutting down costs and from the purchaser who wants both value for money and also a cheaper end product over its life term.
The GWR was a fantastic company that drove standardisation of a lot of its locomotive parts, later on the southern region and network southeast achieved similar things from the colour schemes of trains and stations all being same down to interchangeable power units in various stock.
Politics, the final problematical head of the giant beast that causes the engineer issues, some years back it was muted to build HS2 a new station outside Crewe, it didn’t get good favour as Crewe being a town built up around the railway junction wouldn’t do well if its main station was now outside the area directly but not every large town can have its central station built in the middle of itself just like that, many of us wondered why not rejuvenate the half of the station that’s largely unused to what is needed then move over the traffic to that and then rebuild the other half of the station better, finally you could use the station in two halves then ,one for HS2 one for legacy trains but both with the ability to be used for either in emergency, local politics have defined a lot of why this hasn’t happened.
In the hope valley a scheme to put a loop in part of the National park ,requiring digging out most of a large hillside banking didn’t go ahead, however many commented that why didn’t NR put the loop a mile back at Bamford where loops and land existed some time ago when the building of the Derwent dams went ahead early in the nineteenth century, in the end this is where the loop was constructed and that project is now ongoing, local politics and the national park all having their day to effect the final outcome.
So there’s a lot of reasons why things don’t always go the way we think, that said there is more chance of getting different viewpoints heard nowadays thanks to social media and technology, that’s drives ideas forward.

[@liamo8932]

@@irseminorrailwayssection9491 I can't believe you even attempted to answer that question(s)

[@anubis6864]

@@liamo8932 I don't blame him either. What a load of irrelevant waffle!

[@liamo8932]

@@anubis6864 I still have a headache