A journey to Sweden, 1989: A complicated meet at Ånn

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Much farther north: Here are photos from a station at the mittban to Östersund and Storlien in Norway. Our next goal was actually the inlandsban at Östersund, but as our train from Stockholm would have stopped there too early in the morning, we continued to Ånn, to return to Östersund a couple of hours later with another train. That small station saw quite a number of trains while we were there, including an interesting meet between two trains.

The interlocking at Ånn was a "centrallås" (central lock), with ground-operated points ("klotväxels" = "ball points", named for the round weights on the points levers) which were locked electrically. The first photo, farther below, shows this interlocking apparatus, which was mounted on the station building's outer wall.

Unfortunately, I do not know much about the various indicators on the panel. Here is a short description of them, with my assumptions and questions in italics:

• At the bottom of the panel, there are two route levers. The left has positions marked with A¹ and A¹_o, the marks on the right are B¹ and B¹_o. The routes with "o" are used when the station is not manned: Key K¹⁴ then is used to clear home and starting signals for trains running in both directions. Obviously, only incoming routes are mechanically selected with the route levers. Moreover, signalled routes into track 2 are not supported—even we will see a train coming into track 2 later!
• The row above the route levers contains the locks reversing the stop signals, all of which are cleared by keys of type K¹⁵.
• To the left of the lock for starting signal C, there is the lock for key K¹⁴ mentioned above. Next, there is a key of type K¹¹ (for a set of points and/or a derail?—"låst" meaning "locked"), and finally two keys of type K¹ (for the outermost points?).
• Mechanical indicators above the locks show their internal positions. It seems that signals are cleared by turning a K¹⁵ key, which can be removed afterwards—starting signal C is cleared, but there is no key in its lock, only the mechanical indicator display a white disc.
• The indicator lights in the row above show the stop signals' positions with red and green lamps. Directly below them are emergency stop switches to throw them to stop.
• At the very left and right, there are two indicators looking like distant signals. However, later photos show them alight, even though neither corresponding home signal is cleared. Thus, there purpose must me something else.
• The topmost row contains six more indicators:
• Two outermost "Lp låst" indicators; I assume that this is a "lone blocked" indicator. Lp could be the abbreviation for "lastplats", meaning loading track. Many lines in Sweden had a block system called "Lastplats-blockering", which allowed locking of points for spurs between two stations, however, I would guess it was used as a (simple?) line block system ...;
• "Sp a/c" and "Sp b/d" are next; these could be route lock indicators;
• Finally, "SS 1+" and "SS 2+" are innermost; these could be track occupation indicators for tracks 1 and 2.
• To the left of the panel, there is an additional box for a K¹⁵ key, with two indicators "Lp låst" ("Lp locked") and "Lp fri" ("Lp unlocked"). Could this be an actual release for a set of points on the line to the next station, i.e., a real "lastplats"?

After so much text, here is the image showing this interlocking panel:

Interlocking panel, Ånn, 20.7.1989

The following picture shows an illuminated "distant signal" (or whatever else) indicator:

Interlocking panel, Ånn, 20.7.1989

Our night train from Stockholm had not yet left the station:

SJ Rc4 1272 with night train, Ånn, 20.7.1989

SJ Rc4 1272, Ånn, 20.7.1989

The factory plate shows that at least one carriage was almost new:

Factory plate Kalmar, Ånn, 20.7.1989

Something's happening:

Interlocking panel, Ånn, 20.7.1989

A ballast train is waiting in the loop track:

SJ Hg 778 and SJ Hg 664 with a ballast train, Ånn, 20.7.1989

SJ Hg 778, Ånn, 20.7.1989

And on the third track, the engine of a tamper was started up:

Ballast tamper, Ånn, 20.7.1989

The tall train director operates his panel—I think that he clears the starting signal for the ballast train:

Train directory, Ånn, 20.7.1989

On this photo taken from farther away, the innermost lamps in the top row are now dark. I think this means that both track 1 and track 2 are now unoccupied:

Interlocking panel, Ånn, 20.7.1989

But a short time later, the next train arrives:

SJ Rc5 1331, Ånn, 20.7.1989

And a short time later, another train rolls into loop track 2—however this was accomplished. The tamper is to the left:

SJ Rc5 1342 with opposite train, Ånn, 20.7.1989

Both tracks of the small station are now occupied. We entered the one on the left, which should take us back to Östersund:

Both tracks occupied, Ånn, 20.7.1989

Next, the train that had arrived first continued towards Storlien. But the second train did not simply leave the loop track on the other side—rather, it did a more complicated manoeuvre: For some reason (too far to walk to the points on the other side of the station? but how had the ballast train left earlier?), the train was pushed back over the points over which it had arrived—here is a photo taken of the train director standing at the reversed points:

Being pushed back over the points, Ånn, 20.7.1989

The next photo shows the locomotive pushing, with the train director leaning on the flag at the points lever:

Being pushed further, Ånn, 20.7.1989

A short time later, the points had been moved to normal, and we were rolling on track 1. Altogether, the whole meet had taken about ten minutes, as one can see from the clock on various photos:

On to Östersund! Ånn, 20.7.1989

Here is a last, blurred photo of the interlocking panel and the train director. It seems that my idea about the innermost indicators is problematic: Track 2 should be free now, but the corresponding lamp is still illuminated:

Driving by the interlocking panel, Ånn, 20.7.1989