Australian Railroad Crossing Signals

[chris96]

Wow nice find, shame that’s it’s very expensive though

I know , maybe over time it'll come down in price.

[freebrickproductions]

Wow nice find, shame that’s it’s very expensive though

I know , maybe over time it'll come down in price.

Some antique stores (here in the US, at least) will do haggling, if you want to try your hand at getting it for a better price.

[chris96]

Some antique stores (here in the US, at least) will do haggling, if you want to try your hand at getting it for a better price.

Unfortunately, the antique stores around here tend to be pretty strict when it comes to the price. But it could still be worth a shot I suppose.

[Jack2003]

Sadly Hunts Road, Freshwater Creek has had it's new gated signals installed and commissioned as of yesterday, so sadly this means it's R.I.P to the last ever mechanical bells on the Warrnambool line. I ended up heading down to the crossing on our way home from Lorne this afternoon and I took some pics of the new gated setup:

Pics of the southern gated signal:






The previous gateless signal base is still there, but will probably be ripped out this week:



Pics of the northern gated signal:






The previous gateless signal base is still there, but will also probably be ripped out this week:


Looking towards Moriac:


Looking towards Mount Dundeed:


The previous gateless signals, relays and whistle post sign have been placed next to a fence and the one with the incorrectly installed crossbuck has had the bottom half removed. Both gateless signals have had the hybrid bells taken away:





The previous relay box base is still there and will probably be ripped out this week. The relay box itself has been taken away:


This upgrade turned out to be pointless as it's a quiet road and the new gated signals should've been used at a passive crossing instead

Anyway that's all from me

[McK&H.Aust]

Sadly Hunts Road, Freshwater Creek has had it's new gated signals installed and commissioned as of yesterday, so sadly this means it's R.I.P to the last ever mechanical bells on the Warrnambool line. I ended up heading down to the crossing on our way home from Lorne this afternoon and I took some pics of the new gated setup:


The previous gateless signals, relays and whistle post sign have been placed next to a fence and the one with the incorrectly installed crossbuck has had the bottom half removed. Both gateless signals have had the hybrid bells taken away:


This upgrade turned out to be pointless as it's a quiet road and the new gated signals should've been used at a passive crossing instead

Anyway that's all from me

Thanks for the pictures, seems like a waste of fairly new equipment that was on the gateless signals, surely they could have reused the LED lights on the new signals. Hopefully the hybrid bells were taken away for safekeeping.

[McK&H.Aust]

BTW, I have some interesting news to share. According to a signalling technician from Metro who I was lucky enough to speak to today, the old un-adjusted GS Type 1 E-Bells at Macaulay Rd in Kensington were originally installed as a trial all the way back in mid 2002 and were the first ones in the country! A few other crossings such as Park St in Moonee Ponds and Munro St, Coburg (yes, apparently it originally had un-adjusted Type 1's too) were added later in 2002 (I imagine the Safetran Type 1's at Gaffney st in Pascoe Vale were introduced around this time too). After these trials proved successful, the bells slowly started being rolled out across the network in 2003. Originally, E-Bells were only intended to be used at crossings in residential areas as a "quiet alternative". It wasn't until Westinghouse officially discontinued support for the Hybrid bell (which he believes happened around 2008) that E-Bells were deemed to become the new standard across the network. I was told that a lack of spare parts is the main reason why Hybrid bells are being retired so quickly around Victoria and that by 2023, all of Metro's M-Bells will (unfortunately) most likely be replaced He said most signal maintainers really liked the Hybrid bells, but the higher ups at Metro decided that there were enough benefits to using E-Bells to warrant them as the equipment of choice going forward and that "updating" crossings would end up being more cost-effective in the long run. This is also the reason why some older gate mechs are starting to be replaced too.

One other thing, the maintainer told me that the signalling department absolutely despised Barker Technics bells back in the day as they were a real pain to deal with due to their complexity as well as reliability issues. He said he would love to get rid of them, but since they're set up more like a PA system with specialized wiring and components, they're too difficult to remove! A complete re-wiring of the crossing (including the control cabinet itself) would be needed to even attempt to install regular bells at locations with BT setups. That's why they never really took off in areas outside of Melbourne. Still, at least that means they should be pretty safe from replacement in the near future.

Thanks for the information, must have been a very interesting conversation! I did see a basic circuit diagram for the Barker Technics e-bells and it seemed to show a separate driver/tone generator unit inside the relay case, with wires running out to the "bells" which are simply just the speakers. They sound nice but I can see why they don't use them any more, much simpler to have a normal bell which only uses two wires and doesn't require special equipment inside the relay case.

That's very sad news about Metro having plans to retire the remaining hybrid bells, despite the signal maintainers liking them. Sounds like a typical decision made by an office jockey rather than the people out in the field who actually have to work with whatever equipment they are given. I guess that will only leave us with a few hybrid bells on ARTC and heritage lines.

[Jack2003]

Sadly Hunts Road, Freshwater Creek has had it's new gated signals installed and commissioned as of yesterday, so sadly this means it's R.I.P to the last ever mechanical bells on the Warrnambool line. I ended up heading down to the crossing on our way home from Lorne this afternoon and I took some pics of the new gated setup:


The previous gateless signals, relays and whistle post sign have been placed next to a fence and the one with the incorrectly installed crossbuck has had the bottom half removed. Both gateless signals have had the hybrid bells taken away:


This upgrade turned out to be pointless as it's a quiet road and the new gated signals should've been used at a passive crossing instead

Anyway that's all from me

Thanks for the pictures, seems like a waste of fairly new equipment that was on the gateless signals, surely they could have reused the LED lights on the new signals. Hopefully the hybrid bells were taken away for safekeeping.

Well the whole upgrade was pointless since this is a quiet road and has never had any near misses or accidents, the new gated signals should’ve been used at a passive crossing on the Mildura line instead.

[chris96]

Thanks for the information, must have been a very interesting conversation! I did see a basic circuit diagram for the Barker Technics e-bells and it seemed to show a separate driver/tone generator unit inside the relay case, with wires running out to the "bells" which are simply just the speakers. They sound nice but I can see why they don't use them any more, much simpler to have a normal bell which only uses two wires and doesn't require special equipment inside the relay case.

That's very sad news about Metro having plans to retire the remaining hybrid bells, despite the signal maintainers liking them. Sounds like a typical decision made by an office jockey rather than the people out in the field who actually have to work with whatever equipment they are given. I guess that will only leave us with a few hybrid bells on ARTC and heritage lines.

It certainly was an interesting conversation! It's always nice to get an "insider's perspective" from the people who have to work with this equipment. Apparently, the Barker Technics E-Bells were officially discontinued in 1999, but BT still support them and have spare parts available (If only Siemens had taken a similar approach with the Westinghouse Hybrid Bells ). The Barker Technics bells are very unique so I do hope this means they are able to remain in service for some time yet. I imagine they must have been a pretty groundbreaking design when they were first released. They've been around since at least 1991 as shown in this video:


Also, thanks for the update Level Crossing Fan! Such a shame to see more Hybrid Bells removed, but at least they managed to survive as long as they did.

[Applehead137]

So I recently noticed something after doing some research on first generation Westinghouse Hybrid bells . I noticed on the back some of them have a yellow marking engraved into the bell which has the number of the bell. These numbers r different to the numbers on the gong btw which some bells do have . The number on the back is actually the in the order of the bell built . Number 06 would have been the 6th hybrid bell ever built while number 039 was the 39th ever built.

Here are the ones that I’ve been able to find

06 Old Geelong rd Hoppers Crossing
015 Cherry Street Werribee
018 Private Collection , TheRailRanger
019 Oakover Road , Preston
029 Brunt Road Beaconsfield Officer
039 Mill Road Hamilton

07 was at Bryan Street Swan Hill
013 used to be at Glenferrie rd Kooyong but was replaced with a different hybrid bell a couple years ago
024 was at Camp Rd Campbellfield but crossing got removed .

I wonder what other crossings there are that had hybrid bell numbers . Also not all 1st generation hybrids have numbers on them .The ones at Allendale Rd diamond creek , Arden Street North Melbourne , Webster street Dandenong are unmarked .

[Jack2003]

I have a few things to share. Firstly the crossing at Wyalong Street, Caragabal has unfortunately had it's Western Cullen Hayes mechanical bell replaced with a Safetran Type 3. The bell was sounding a bit rough and eventually probably died. Here's McK&H Aust's video of the crossing when it had a Western Cullen Hayes bell:


Here's a pic showing the crossing with the new Safetran Type 3:


In other news the crossing at Harefield Road, Harefield was meant to be upgraded with gates on the 24-26 of June, but the upgrade has been postponed to later this year for some reason. The upgrade is pointless as it may see quite a bit of truck traffic, but it's not that dangerous. This also means that the crossing at Coach Road, Gerogery will be the last gateless crossing on the NSW section of the North East line. Here's an article on the crossing: https://www.juneesoutherncross.com.au/s ... e/?cs=1505

Also according to this Street View of Princes Highway, Loftus on the Sydney Tourist Tramway in March this year, the median signal on the southern side has been knocked over and is leaning on a 45 degree angle, the equipment is unharmed though and the signal may have been fixed now: https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-34.050 ... 384!8i8192

Lastly some very sad news and that is Allendale Road, Diamond Creek has sadly had it's hybrid bells and Westinghouse gate mechs replaced and probably the incandescent lights as well. This only happened just yesterday and Main Hurstbridge Road has also most likely been trashed too. Here's a Facebook post explaining about it:


Anyway that's all from me