Railway signalling: Dudleyport

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Back in the 1960s, Dudleyport was the largest of the boxes on the Stour Valley that I got to work. The mechanical box was situated on a double track main line using Absolute Block signalling. The next box to the left (the Birmingham direction) was Albion. The next box to the right was Mond Gas Company's Sidings, which was usually 'switched out' (closed), making the block section Dudleyport to Watery Lane. Between Dudleyport and Watery Lane there were also two additional goods line, paired by direction. The goods lines used Permissive Block signalling whereby a second (or subsequent) train could be allowed into an occupied section. The line diverging top right joined the South Stafford Line at Sedgley Junction, giving access to Dudley. This was also Absolute Block.

When the Stour Valley Line was constructed, it lay a few miles away from the important town of Dudley, so the branch was constructed to get passengers the rest of the way. The name 'Dudley-Port' indicates that your journey to Dudley was not quite over. The more usual euphemism was 'Road' - 'Clarbiston Road', for instance, was nowhere near the village. Although there were originally some through trains to Dudley, most passengers had to change onto the 'Dudley Dodger', a 'push-pull' or 'railmotor' train, which waited in the third platform. Passengers from Birmingham only had to cross the island platform to reach the 'Dodger' but, in the opposite direction, passengers from Dudley to Birmingham had to go through the subway to the up platform.

Although I remember push-pull fitted 2-6-2 tanks on the 'Dodger', by the early sixties when I got to work Dudleyport box, the service had reduced to a couple of trips a day operated by a single-car DMU, invariably called the 'Bubble Car'. Other DMUs worked the locals but, apart from some main-line diesels, trains were still steam-hauled.

The area had one other claim to fame - Palethorpes Sausage factory was only a short distance away. In 1896 this was the largest sausage producer in the world! Every afternoon, most of their production was loaded into their own railway vans at their private siding, brought up to Dudleyport and individual vehicles were attached to various expresses which stopped at Dudleyport for the purpose. In the morning, the empties would be returned and taken back to the Palethorpes siding. Under cost pressure from supermarkets, production was moved in 1967 to a new plant at Market Drayton.

All the points were mechanically operated, all the signals were semaphore, single wire operated, apart from the down distant. When Albion's down starting signal was converted to a colour light, Dudleyport controlled the change from yellow to green. One remarkable survivor was the platform starter from the bay platform, which was a lower-quadrant London and North Western signal with a wooden post. The main arm (lever 14) allowed trains onto the branch to Dudley. There were then two subsidiary semaphore arms mounted on brackets - the left one (lever 15) read to the carriage sidings, the right one (lever 16) read to the Down Goods.

Note that 'Up' and 'Down' on the branch were labelled to correspond with the South Stafford Line, which the branch joined at the next box, Sedgley Junction. Thus, a Down train on the main line turning left at Dudleyport would suddenly become an 'Up' train.

The box itself was a standard London and North Western design with a brick base and 70-lever frame. As was standard on the London and North Western and many railways, the frame was on the track side so that the signalman faced the tracks as he worked the levers. Continuous windows on the track side plus windows at each end of the box gave a view of movements outside. However, the block shelf above the levers partially obstructed the view and as more electrical equipment, such as signal light repeaters, was often added as time went on, visibility could be impaired. Later L.M.S. and British Rail practice was to place the frame away from the track so that, in theory, the view towards the track was less obstructed. Personally, I have always preferred the original arrangement.

Down trains on the main line required levers 2 (Home 1), 3 (Home 2 on the big wooden gantry spanning the main lines), 4 (starter on the large tubular post signal) and, finally, 1 (the distant). The top six inches of lever 1 had been removed, as a reminder to signalmen not to take a swing at it, because the only action of this lever was to work an electrical contact box under the floor.

Up trains on the main line required levers 69, 68, 67 and finally 70. Now this lever remained mechanical and certainly required some effort. The wire operated the weight bar for signal 70b, which was mounted underneath Mond Gas Company's Sidings signal. The wire then extended further to operate the weight bar for signal 70a, underneath Watery Lane's Up Starter. Electrical repeaters on the block shelf showed how successful you'd been at "giving the driver the back 'uns", that is, clearing the distant signals so that an approaching driver knew that all your signals were "Off". These repeaters could show 'ON' (signal arm horizontal, displaying a warning to an approaching train), 'OFF' (signal arm raised through 45 degrees) or just 'WRONG' which was somewhere in between the two valid positions.

>Matters obviously became more interesting if you were also dealing with freight trains on the goods lines, a train on the branch, or performing some shunting. There are many points of interest in the layout and maybe we'll return to Dudleyport again.

Working for the Big Boys

Back in 1975, G.E.C. (the English General Electric Company, not to be confused with the separate American business, General Electric or G.E.) was an industrial giant. You name it, G.E.C. made it - what we now call a clongomerate, but I don't remember the term being used then. Under the not altogether benign rule of Arnold Weinstock, the business had accumulated cash reserves of over 800 million pounds, then a huge sum (and not to be sniffed at now!).

They'd set their sights on the contract to electrify the main line railway in Taiwan which runs the length of the island from Keelung in the North, through the capital Tai Pei to Kaosiung in the South and after agressive international bidding, they won the contract. The telecommunications part of the contract was farmed out to the Overseas Projects Department at G.E.C. Telecommunications in Coventry. They had world-wide experience in cables, transmission equipment and general telephony. But the project required quite a lot of special-purpose systems for train despatching and maintenance which were outside their normal scope.

So my firm secured a sub-contract to design and supply the special-purpose systems. The requirements in Taiwan were novel, so we had a lot of design work to carry out. But we could adopt some parts of our existing designs and our previous railway experience was invaluable. We were so proud to obtain work from such a prestigious company as G.E.C! We entered a steep learning curve as we discovered just how demanding working for G.E.C. could be but we were also fortunate that the head of Overseas Projects was Eric Hancock. He represented what I regarded as the best of G.E.C. - experienced, competent, thorough, incisive, scrupulous and completely fair. He could also be demanding and infuriating.

I represented my firm at the regular progress and interface meetings chaired by Eric Hancock. Around the table would be representatives from each of the sub-contractors, all much larger firms than mine. Eric would demand brief, cogent answers to a series of well-formulated questions which would quickly test the weak points of any sub-contractor's position. I learnt a lot about business meetings from watching Eric, the expert ringmaster. He detested obfuscation and empty rhetoric and he could be scathing in interrogating the people around the table. I was amazed at how badly-prepared a lot of the attendees were and how they attempted to conceal their ignorance with "waffle". I learned to be prepared with facts, tell the truth briefly and admit it when I didn't have answers. To my surprise and relief, this seemed the magic formula and I seemed to get off very lightly compared with others at the meetings.

Eric would press to obtain undertakings about what would be achieved by what date and it was wise to ensure that what was promised was done. Woe betide those who failed in this respect, because Eric would have carefully recorded each undertaking in the minutes which were circulated. He would push for his "pound of flesh" and would examine each commercial agreement to ensure that what had been agreed was provided. But he was not unreasonable and if you could show that some work he required was not within your scope, he would discuss an extra payment to be made.

Although I had great respect for the man, his intransigence could be infuriating. I remember one occasion when he refused point-blank to pay a very considerable sum owing to us until I credited VAT amounting to, I think eighteen pence. I explained that the discrepancy had accumulated over a long series of invoices from individual 'rounding errors' in calculating the VAT. The methods used were in accordance with the VAT regulations. He would have none of it. His method of calculation gave different 'rounding errors' and that was it. He got his credit note, we got our cheque.

I learned a lot from Eric over that, and subsequent contracts for G.E.C. When he passed away, some years later, I was surprised to find myself devastated. All disagreements forgotten, I remember him only with fondness.