Best search term for signal boxes/switch towers?

[marknewton]

I've been looking for photos of typical Japanese signal boxes or switch towers by using "信号所", but without much success. What search term should I be using?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[bikkuri bahn]

If you had 本屋 to it, as is 信号所本屋, you may get better results.

 

This website has some nice pictures (Okoba on the Hisatsu Line in Kyushu):

http://yoshiokasyd.web.fc2.com/Annexes/Retro_Photos/Kyuusyuu/hisatsu/signal_house.htm

 

*also try 信号扱所 and 信号てこ

Edited April 6, 2016 by bikkuri bahn

[marknewton]

That's great bb, thanks for that.

 

The photos of the box at Okoba are fascinating. As far as I can tell the points are operated by the lever frame, while the signals are operated by the miniature levers, which is an arrangement I haven't seen before. I'd assume that the original signalling was semaphores operated from the lever frame, then later converted to colour lights. Nor have I ever seen miniature levers that were inverted. That's different!

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

Edited April 6, 2016 by marknewton

[westfalen]

It would be interesting to see a close up of the printed diagram hanging on the wall in the first photo to make more sense of which levers did what.  some of the numbers on the levers and switches seem to be duplicated and in one photo the signalman is pulling lever 12 which is one of the starting signals on the indicator board.

 

The thing that caught my attention most though was that you had to take your shoes off to enter the signal cabin, I could never imagine that catchong on here.

[katoftw]

If you had 本屋 to it, as is 信号所本屋, you may get better results.

 

This website has some nice pictures (Okoba on the Hisatsu Line in Kyushu):

http://yoshiokasyd.web.fc2.com/Annexes/Retro_Photos/Kyuusyuu/hisatsu/signal_house.htm

 

*also try 信号扱所 and 信号てこ

Oh I'm loving that website.  Being a Kyushu fanboy and all. haha

 

Not that it doesn't have railways from all over.  But railway history towards the west of Japan is always harder to find.

Edited April 7, 2016 by katoftw

[Jcarlton]

It's a shame that none of the Jr's have picked up on the fact that signal boxes/towers make great museum objects. Especially if the kids can pull the levers and work the signals.

[westfalen]

Yes, as someone who spent 20 odd years working in such places before CTC put me permanently at a suburban station selling tickets I usually gravitate towards such exhibits if a museum has any looking at the differences, and a lot of similarities to places I have worked.

 

The local railway museum here in Ipswich has saved the Ipswich signal cabin from the termites and vandals and it is now stored under cover at the museum site along with all the levers and interlocking frame (even an antique computer monitor) awaiting funding to do something with it.  Hopefully they turn it into a working exhibit to show how things were not always done with a computer and mouse.

 

[miyakoji]

West, if they call you to put all those levers back together, will you do it? :)  I'm a big fan of puzzles, but...

[westfalen]

West, if they call you to put all those levers back together, will you do it? :)  I'm a big fan of puzzles, but...

I just worked them, if anything broke you called the signal maintainers and put your feet up and read the paper. :icon_scratch:

[kvp]

Lever frames are modular but almost always set up as groups in the factory. These base frames are not on the pictures. Imho anyone doing the disassembly would have removed the lever assemblies in one piece if anything but scrapping was planned. You just disconnect the rod/chain/wire mountings and remove the floorboard screws and it lifts out intact. Doing the same with the tensioning equipment one level below allows reassebly later.

[westfalen]

Lever frames are modular but almost always set up as groups in the factory. These base frames are not on the pictures. Imho anyone doing the disassembly would have removed the lever assemblies in one piece if anything but scrapping was planned. You just disconnect the rod/chain/wire mountings and remove the floorboard screws and it lifts out intact. Doing the same with the tensioning equipment one level below allows reassebly later.

The lever frame is intact as is the interlocking frame in the lower floors.  I think the main obstacle to putting it all back together is the railway museum being a part of the Queensland Museum and having to compete for funds with more important things like bringing an exhibit of medievel European artifacts to Brisbane.

 

[kvp]

Great, then only the levers have to be reinstalled. Imho if a few enthusiasts assembled the frame to working order, then maybe the museum would see more in it as the rest is just carpentry.