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30 January 2012
Page Updated
11 November 2011

Signalling Record Society

News & Announcements

The appearance of news on this page is very much dependent on members sending news snippets to the webmaster !!

The British Power Signalling Register

The British Power Signalling Register is a free listing and historical analysis of all power signalling equipment installations ever commissioned in Britain. Latest version 11.2 is now available. It has been compiled by SRS member Andy Overton and may be obtained here.

[11-11-2011]

Signal Box Diagram CDs

Since publication of the box diagrams CDs, about 150 new drawings have been added to the Society's Drawing Office collection, most of the new drawings are Great Western box diagrams but they also include a number of LNWR diagrams. The new drawings have been digitised and should now be available for print orders.

An update CD has now therefore been made available so that purchasers of the CDs may update their collection. The list of amendments will continue to be available via the web site, as will changes and additions to the technical documentation (locking tables, lever leads etc.) but amended diagrams included on the CD will no longer be available 'on-line' at full resolution.

The update CD includes a description of each of the published CDs, a note of the amendments to the CDs (previously available in full via the Society's web site) and a list of the new drawings now published. The CD also includes a copy of each Company List of Box Diagrams, GW, Southern, LMS and LNER and provides a link to a thumbnail image of every diagram held by the Drawing Office, some 3500 in total.

The update CD will be available from August 2011 at a cover price of £10 plus £1 UK P&P, members may deduct £1 from the total. Order Form here.

[11-07-2011]

Signal Box Registers

Amendment sheets to the volumes have been published and may be downloaded free of charge here.

[11-07-2011]

Signal Box Registers

Volume 1, Great Western, is now published as a second, revised, edition and may be ordered here. Supplies should be available about 8 June. The revised volume has 332 pages and includes a considerable number of amendments not previously published. Subscribers to the CD update service will automatically receive an amended version of the volmes 1 and 4 CD.

[09-03-2011]

Signalling Record CDs

The Committee is pleased to announce that the first two CD’s containing backnumbers of the Newsletter and the Signalling Record are now available for sale to members. The first CD contains copies of the Newsletter from number 1 through to the final issue number 101, while the second CD covers the Signalling Record from number 1 to number 78. Both CD’s are fully indexed. Details here. We would also like to take this oportunity to thank Chris Cock and his team for all their hard work in carrying out this project.

[09-03-2011]

Signal Box Diagram CDs

Three more CDs are now available:

'Great Western in North Wales', which includes Shrewsbury to Chester, the Cambrian Railway and the North & West line.

'Southern Railway Sections P, S and X', which includes Worting Junction to Weymouth, Yeovil and Southampton, as well as S&DJR and Isle of Wight.

'Southern Railway SE&CR and LB&SCR', which includes joint lines.

[21-02-2011]

Signal Box Diagram CDs

The next three Signal Box Diagrams CDs will be published during March 2011, completing the coverage of the Great Western and Southern Railways. Detail of the coverage is given on the SRS web site, along with 'thumbnail' images of the box diagrams and ordering information as soon as they are available. The CDs are:

'Great Western in North Wales', which includes Shrewsbury to Chester, the Cambrian Railway and the North & West line.

'Southern Railway Sections P, S and X', which includes Worting Junction to Weymouth, Yeovil and Southampton, as well as S&DJR and Isle of Wight.

'Southern Railway SE&CR and LB&SCR', which includes joint lines and subsumes the previous title 'SR Sections A & B' which is almost out of print.

[06-02-2011]

Signalling Atlas 2010

An amendment sheet has been produced and is now available here.

[7-01-2011]

Digital Archive Project

The Society is creating a Digital Archive from original paper material available in its Archives. The first items to be added will be copies of the Weekly and Periodical Operating Notices and their equivalents. As the Digital Archive expands other operating notices including Sectional Appendices and Signalling Notices will be added. It is hoped by doing this to make parts of the Archives more accessible and to overcome the deterioration of paper copies that were never designed to be kept more than a few weeks.

The Digital Archive will also contain material provided by members of the Society and members are invited to contact the webmaster with offers of material from their own collections that can be usefully added to the archive and make it as comprehensive as possible.

Details of what is already available and how it may be accessed will be found in the Archives section of the web site.

[6-12-2010]

Warley Model Railway Exhibition

The Society awarded a prize for the 'Best Signalled Layout' to “Midhurst”.

[6-12-2010]

Signal Box Diagram CDs

The 'South Wales' and 'West of England' volumes are now available.

[26-11-2010]

Signal Box Diagram CDs

The 'West of England' and 'South Wales' Signal Box diagrams CDs should be available from 18th November 2010. A few more diagrams have been added to the 'amendments' available for download for titles already published. If any member has additional information or corrections to the published information, then this would be most welcome.

[08-11-2010]

John Morris Collection

The late John Morris' collection of locking tables, amendment state pages, lever leads and other items for GW boxes, amounting to some 25 or more lever arch files, has been digitised and is now available to download from the Society web site (as well as being published on the signal box diagram CD series). This amounts to several thousand A4 sheets.

[08-11-2010]

2009 C H Betts Award

The prize for the best historical article for the year was awarded to Chris Cock for his contribution on "Edward Davy: Block Signalling Pioneer".

[30-08-2010]

Signal Box Diagrams

GW Sections E and F are in course of preparation with an planned release date of late September 2010; and sections H to Q and T, U & V for late 2010. More details here.

Amendments to the lists are available to download free of charge here.

[31-07-2010]

George Pryer's Signal Box Diagrams

The Society has been authorised to reprint George's series of 27 volumes. Work is now under way to review the content to incorporate information that has come to light since they were originally published. More information will be given in due course.

[30-06-2010]

Signalling Atlas

The 2010 edition of the Atlas was published in April. More details here.

[23-04-2010]

Signal Box Diagrams

GW Sections A and B are in course of preparation with an planned release date of March 2010. They will be issued on two separate CDs. More details here.

[04-01-2010]

Web Site Move

The Society's Web Site now has its own fully fledged domain rather than being hosted as a sub-domain by one of the members. The change took place on 25 November. Despite careful planning and sequencing, circumstances outside the control of the Society conspired to disrupt the smooth transition with the result that the site became invisible for a time after 1530 hours. We apologise if this caused you any inconvenience.

If you have bookmarked any specific pages, please ensure your bookmark is updated to http://www.s-r-s.org.uk/ pagename.

[26-11-2009]

Newsletter Copy

Members are reminded of the regular deadlines for sending in items for inclusion in the newsletter. These are set out here. Items can be sent through the web site here.

[23-08-2009]

Signal Box Diagrams

The GW Sections G, R and S box diagrams CD will contain several new items, not previously available, as well as the SRS box diagrams for the area: the new items include Bordesley South dog chart and 'cutaway' view of mechanical locking, Kingham SRS style diagram for 1949 and 1958 as well as a box-style diagram for 1949, SRS-style diagrams for Malvern Wells (1954) and Handsworth Junction (1956) also a hand drawn diagram of Kidderminster Station (BR) as at 1971 and box-style diagrams for Kidderminster Station (SVR) (2009) and Tramway Junction (October 1967). More details here.

[20-08-2009]

Howard-Turner Prize 2008

This prize is awarded every two years for the best technical article appearing in The Signalling Record for the year in question. For 2008 the judges, John Francis and David Stirling, found some difficulty in judging between several excellent articles. In the end they were most impressed by John Creed's article, "Early Trials with Axle Counters on the SR", which is therefore awarded the J. T. Howard-Turner Prize for 2008.

John Creed's article deals with a technical topic in an interesting and accessible way, including some of the internal railway issues associated with it. Detection of trains is so fundamental to any signalling system that we tend to take it for granted, although occasionally this trust is rudely shaken by changes elsewhere on the railway system. The SR was having to deal with one of these challenges, where conventional track circuits could not be relied on in certain tunnels.

Congratulations to John on winning this well-deserved award. We look forward to future years when there are equally strong fields of contenders.

[01-07-2009]

New Web Site

The new web site of the Signalling Record Society went live on 3 May 2009. Our thanks indeed to Tim Bourne for running the previous web site and for ensuring a smooth transition.

[03-05-2009]