Victorian functionality
The electric token machine has stood the test of time on Britain's railways, a typically simple but effective Victorian method of safely signalling trains over single lines.
The stroke bell at the side is for the transmission of the relevant bell signals and the token is released by the signaller at one end holding the bell plunger in on the machine in sufficiently long enough for the token to be released at the other end. This is indicated on the dial above.
This is the machine at Midge Hall signal box that controls the section to Rufford. Strange to think that these aluminium ingots will have been the same ones I handled as an 18 year old signalman when I worked my first box at Rufford in 1983.
Victorian functionality
The electric token machine has stood the test of time on Britain's railways, a typically simple but effective Victorian method of safely signalling trains over single lines.
The stroke bell at the side is for the transmission of the relevant bell signals and the token is released by the signaller at one end holding the bell plunger in on the machine in sufficiently long enough for the token to be released at the other end. This is indicated on the dial above.
This is the machine at Midge Hall signal box that controls the section to Rufford. Strange to think that these aluminium ingots will have been the same ones I handled as an 18 year old signalman when I worked my first box at Rufford in 1983.