Something about Italian semaphores - Albano Laziale, 1990

Deutsche Version dieses Postings

This is a posting which tries to clarify a few first concepts of old Italian semaphores. There will be more, and more explanations, in later postings—but let's start with the first few pictures I have taken.

Immediately after reaching Rome, we set out for a short trip to Albano. Somewhere along the line, I took this picture of a searchlight signal:

Signal on the line to Albano Laziale, May 1990

Already, we are at the stub station at the end of the line. It seems that Italy, it was required that there is a full stop signal at the tracks ending in a stub station. Of course, the signal had a fixed horizontal arm and was not connected to any lever. At Albano, it appears as if the line once continued behind the station—but this is certainly not so.

Update 5.10.2019: I was wrong here. "Rossano" left a comment in the German posting: The line actually continued to Campoleone on the (old) main line from Rome to Naples. But this segment has already been closed in 1927 (or 1935?).

There probably was a reversing track for locomotives in earlier times; and the signal might have had the purpose of securing the crossing road immediately behind it—but this wasn't necessary any longer in 1990:

Signal at end of line, Albano Laziale, May 1990

On the other side, however, Albano had a semaphore ("segnale semaforico") as its home signal. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of it when we entered the station. But I took a picture of the signal lever on the platform. On the right side of the lever's wire wheel, one can see a small catch lever which can be unlocked with a key. After lifting the catch, the large lever can be pulled, which pulls the wire and clears the signal:

Signal lever, Albano Laziale, May 1990

The following picture shows the railcar on which we rode up and down the line—but much more interesting is the special way signal wires were routed in Italy: To the left of the lamppost, one can see another, unexpected shorter post:

FS railcar, Albano Laziale, May 1990

Here we can see the post somewhat enlarged; and one can discern the signal wire coming out of the ground and then bend around a pulley at the top of the post:

Signal wire post, Albano Laziale, May 1990

And here, the post is enlarged even more, with coloured lines that indicate the signal wire's path:

• In the foreground, the wire passes the pulley at the top of the post (orange),
• then it continues (yellow) in a height of maybe four meters to another post far in the background,
• where it is finally routed downwards again (red).

At the bottom of that post, another pulley allows the wire to go to the signal lever near the ground. One can see that in Italy, it was customary to run signal wires high above the ground, at least near platforms. I do not know the reason for this; later photos will show that most such wires had later been relocated to ground channels. But here at Albano, the old up-and-down was still in place:

Signal wire path, Albano Laziale, May 1990

My last picture from Albano shows the weight of a locally thrown single slip (in Italy, they are called deviatoi inglese, i.e., "English points", incidentally):

Single slip, Albano Laziale, May 1990