Railroad signal aspects

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
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In the December 2002 MR is an article titled "Understanding railroad signals, by Andy Sperandeo. At the end of the article under “More on the
Web site” it says to visit the MR website “For a Glossary of signal terms, plus a table of signal aspects, indications and rules.” I’m unable to find either of these on the MR website. Can anyone please show me a link to this information. I will be operating on a club layout with signal control and need to familiarsze myself with at least basic signaling. Thanks for any help.

Capt. Brigg Franklin CEO: Pacific Caascade Railroad in HO gauge

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Hi,

If you don’t find the M-R article link you could take a look at a NORAC chart and get a good representation of signal aspects and rules.

http://rail.pgengler.net/signals/fixed_norac.html

The above is commonly used on roads east of Chicago and some of the western roads now use the GCOR rules.

http://utu199.progressthroughunity.org/documents/Signals

Around the layout, I keep a handy selection of laminated charts for reference.

Of course you can really get buried in signal rule details very quickly. This site, among many, has some good reference material:

http://www.lundsten.dk/us_signaling/index.html

Hope that helps, Ed

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My guess is that it may have been something posted temporarily in connection with the article.

The good news is, there’s plenty of information out there on signalling - however, you may want to talk to someone at the club and find out what kind of signalling they are using. Real railroads have used Automatic Block Signalling or Centralized Traffic Control, Route signalling or Speed signalling etc. over the years, and the meaning of each signal (i.e. the information it’s trying to convey) can differ depending on what system the railroad (real or model) is using.

http://www.railroadsignals.us/basics/basics4.htm

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Signals in a sentence:

Green on top means go, all red means stop and anything else means go slower.

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In addition:

On the layouts I run on, if there’s a two-headed signal at the point end of a switch, it will tell you which way the switch is thrown. And thus, which direction you’re going to go.

If red’s on top, you’ll take the diverging route.

If red’s on the bottom, you will not.

Knowing that can be handy.

And red over red means there’s a train ahead–stop.

Also handy is knowing that, if you have a red just before the frog-end of the track switch (usually the end of a siding), either there’s a train ahead, or the switch is thrown against you. You can tell if it’s the former by looking at the other signal facing in your direction–it will also be red.

Ed

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Why don’t all of the railroads use one unified common set of rules instead of the two (NORAC and GCOR)?

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Many railroads developed evolved their own signal styles over time concurrently.

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That’s a very handy and workable system for a model railroad, but should be noted that’s not how many/most prototype systems actually behave.

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Norfolk Southern and CSX both have their own rule books, inaddition to some of their lines (former Conrail?) using NORAC. Canadian National has their own rule book for their US lines.

Even within the GCOR roads, there are slight differences in rule interpretation. Some rules may not be in effect on all the railroads that use GCOR. Signals do not appear in the actual GCOR rule book. They may have a GCOR number, but only appear in each railroad’s special instructions.

signals.jovet.net/rules/index.html

Jeff

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