Of Interlockings And Other Machines ...: January 2022

Saturday, January 22, 2022

The railway museum at Letschin im Oderbruch, 2020 - a tour with pictures, part 3

Deutsche Version dieses Postings

After the generation of mechanical frames, electro-mechanical ones were introduced in Central Europe. Siemens & Halske (abbreviated S&H) installed the first one in 1894 at Prerov in Moravia (then, a part of the Habsburg monarchy), with another one in Germany at Berlin Westend in 1896. These were one-of-a-kind frames, but soon thereafter, Siemens developed a standard type called "1901" after the year of its introduction. The locking bed was taken from the mechanical Siemens type 3414 (which was very rarely installed in Germany, but was a standard type throughout many other European countries). This example of a 1901 frame stood at Berlin-Halensee:

S&H 1901 originally at Berlin-Halensee, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The next type was designed from the ground up in 1907—here is one that survived at Eberswalde::

S&H 1907 originally at Eberswalde, railway museum Letschin, 2020

And here a small frame of standard type 1912 can also be seen—this type is obviously directly derived from type 1901. 1912s and minor variations that were developed over the following decades numbered in the thousands and were installed in many European countries:

S&H 1907 originally at Eberswalde, to the left there is an unknown S&H 1912, railway museum Letschin, 2020

S&H 1907 originally at Eberswalde, on the left an unknown S&H 1912, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The following picture shows a large 1912 frame from an unknown location:

S&H 1912, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Special Siemens & Halske frames were built for the Berlin underground. Similar frames were also used on Vienna's "Stadtbahn" (the precursor to the underground) in the 1920s, some of which I documented a few years ago—that posting has some additional explanations of this type (currently only in German). It is unclear whether this type was called "1915" officially:

S&H 1915 originally at Kottbusser Tor (Berlin underground), railway museum Letschin, 2020

During the times of the GDR, the Siemens type 1912 was modernized in many respects, which lead to type E12/78 (E for electro-mechanical, 12 for 1912, 78 for the year of the modernization):

E12/78 originally at Seelow (Mark), railway museum Letschin, 2020

In addition to the standardized E12/78, there were many additional improvements of 1912 type frames in Germany as well as in other countries. Here are a few examples from the Letschin museum:

Unknown modified interlocking frame derived from S&H 1912, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Larger stations with many points often had multi-row frames, typically with two or four rows (there was also a seven-row fame at Maastricht in the Netherlands). Here is a frame with two lever rows from Berlin-Grünau:

VES two-row lever frame originally at Berlin-Grünau, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Saxon railways for a time used a special "Saxonian station block", which allowed to set routes in large stations more efficiently than standard station blocking circuits. However, because of its technical complexity, it was not used anywhere else. Here is a command frame for such a Saxon station block from Dresden-Neustadt, built by Siemens. The frame looks similar to the upper part of a Siemens two-row lever frame which was used in Austria at signalbox 4 at shunting yard West in Linz:

Command frame of a Saxonian station block from Dresden-Neustadt, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Of course, there were other manufacturers of electro-mechanical frames besides Siemens. Here is a frame by AEG (an abbreviation for "Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft", i.e. "general electric company"):

AEG electro-mechanical frame originally at Henningsdorf bei Berlin, railway museum Letschin, 2020

AEG electro-mechanical frame originally at Henningsdorf bei Berlin (in the background S&H 1901 originally at Berlin-Halensee), railway museum Letschin, 2020

Finally, here is a frame by Gaselan:

Unknown Gaselan two-row electro-mechanical frame, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The same frame, but here a station block of type 51 stole into the picture:

Unknown Gaselan two-row electro-mechanical frame, railway museum Letschin, 2020

In the last picture, one can see another two row frame by Gaselan, which did its work at shunting signalbox Fgw at Frankfurt/Oder:

Gaselan-Zweireihenstellwerk originally at Frankfurt/Oder, railway museum Letschin, 2020

That's it, with electro-mechanical frames. The next and final posting will be about relay interlockings at Letschin.

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

The railway museum at Letschin im Oderbruch, 2020 - a tour with pictures, part 2

Deutsche Version dieses Postings

Here is the next posting from Letschin, with pictures by Robert Herzog. We will see a number of mechanical lever frames, and interestingly, the ubiquitious German Einheit frame will get only a handful of pictures—most of the frames are of older types.

The first one, however, is an Einheit frame, originating from the dependent signal box at Rotes Luch. On the left side of the frame, one can see a signal crank (they are used for signals that are far away from he signal box), then there are standard single levers, and in between a double lever for a three-aspect semaphor. Above the frame lock, there are two newer key locks, and on the far right there is a route lever reused as a signal lever, with additional lever locks. Behind the frame, one can see the block instruments. Below them, there are the route levers, while above them one can barely see a few repeaters:

"Einheit" frame originally at dependent signal box Rotes Luch, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Here is another photo of this frame, behind a table with various telephones:

Telephone, "Einheit" frame originally at dependent signal box Rotes Luch, railway museum Letschin, 2020

This enlargement from the previous image shows the plates and additional devices above the block instruments in more detail:

"Einheit" frame originally at dependent signal box Rotes Luch, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The next frame is, once more, an "Einheit" frame. This one is from block post Obersdorf (b. Müncheberg):

"Einheit" frame originally at block post Obersdorf (b. Müncheberg), railway museum Letschin, 2020

But let's now look at some older frames. The first one is of type Jüdel 6000, most probably from Saxonia. The first picture shows the complete frame, with the typical German arrangement of the Siemens block instruments and the route levers on the left and the signal and points levers on the right. In contrast to "Einheit" frames, the signal levers are here far away from the block instruments, which probably requires long signal sliding bars:

Jüdel 6000 frame, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The route levers are almost vertical, with rods reaching down into the housing of the block sequence locks:

Jüdel 6000 frame, railway museum Letschin, 2020

This image shows the lever frame from the other end. The first three levers are for signals, two of them have knobs at the end which is typical of older Jüdel frames. On the first lever, a lever lock was added later. To the left of the signal levers, there are points and FPL levers:

Jüdel 6000 frame, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Between the last two levers, there is a frame lock, and a route lever is lying around:

Jüdel 6000 frame, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The next frame is was built by Gast for the station of Spremberg, with levers of type Bruchsal J. Here are the block instruments and the route levers:

Gast originally at Spremberg, levers of type Bruchsal J originally at Forst (Lausitz), railway museum Letschin, 2020

Here are the route levers and the block sequence locks:

Gast originally at Spremberg, levers of type Bruchsal J originally at Forst (Lausitz), railway museum Letschin, 2020

This image has more details of the levers. One of them is a double levers for the FPL of points no.1:

Gast originally at Spremberg, levers of type Bruchsal J originally at Forst (Lausitz), railway museum Letschin, 2020

The following frame was built by Stahmer for the dependent signal box W25 at Leipzig main station:

Stahmer originally at Leipzig Hbf W25, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Next one: Zimmermann & Buchloh, the frame is from Rehfelde:

Zimmermann & Buchloh originally at Rehfelde, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Also built by Zimmermann & Buchloh, this frame is from the signal box at Tiefensee:

Zimmermann & Buchloh originally at Tiefensee, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The next image shows the block instruments from Forst (Lausitz), which probably worked together with a key interlocking:

Line block instruments originally at Forst (Lausitz), railway museum Letschin, 2020

Here we see an unknown "Einheit" frame (or parts of it):

"Einheit" lever, railway museum Letschin, 2020

And finally, here is a host of levers and signal cranks from different German manufacturers, mounted on an Einheit frame:

Levers, railway museum Letschin, 2020

So much for another posting from Letschin—next time, you'll see a handful of electro-mechanical frames!

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

The railway museum at Letschin im Oderbruch, 2020 - a tour with pictures, part 1

Deutsche Version dieses Postings

Almost exactly east of Berlin, at Letschin im Oderbruch, there is a small railway museum which mainly shows interlocking frames from the eastern parts of Germany. The collection consists of mechanical frames of various types, electromechanical ones as well as relay interlockings from old Gs0 to the Russian EZMG type (EZMG is the Russian abbreviation for Elektritscheskaja zentralisazija malych stanzij Germanii, which in English means Eletrical centralization of small stations in Germany). Robert Herzog has given me more than 70 images showing mainly the museum's exhibits which I'll present here with a few short explanations.
The first image shows the museum entrance, with some exhibits presented outside—the upper part of an old Prussian compartment car, various signals including an Hl signal (these signals were standardized over all of the OSShD territory, from East Germany to China), an EZMG signal as well as new German Ks signal:

Railway museum Letschin, 2020

Here are the colour light signals and two train indicators:

Railway museum Letschin, 2020

The rest of this posting, however, is dedicated to the simplest mechanical interlocking, namely varios key interlockings.
The first one is a wall-mounted key interlocking (or "central lock") as described in the German "Einheit" (meaning "Standard") drawings. The horizontal bars are moved by the keys representing the "incoming information"—typically, these are keys for points. The vertical bars release the keys in the locks on the upper edge, which reprsent the "outgoing information"—typically, these are keys that in turn release signal levers. This central lock is from signalbox R2 at Lübbenau:

Wall key interlocking according to "Einheit" drawing from signalbox R2 at Lübbenau, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Here is, for comparison, a drawing of such a key interlocking from the bool "Erläuterungen zu den Einheitszeichnungen für Stellwerksteile" ("Explanations for the standard drawings for interlocking parts"), published in 1927 by the German Reichsbahn:

The inventor of these key interlockings was Paul Bouré from France. He called them "serrure centrale" and had patents in many countries. Railways in many countries—but not Germany—chose a similar name, for example "Zentralschloss" in Austria or "centrallås" in Sweden, which are both direct translations of ("central lock"). Here is a diagram from Bouré's US patent 640,359, which is accessible e.g. on Google's patent website:

US patent drawing for central lock by Paul Bouré, US Patent Office, Patent 640,359

The key interlocking at the museum is actually for mounting on a wall, as can be seen from the two small brackets at the top left and right. Probably for space reasons, it was mounted here below the block instruments. The vertical bars could, in principle, be connected to the locking rods of the block instruments, which would lock the points keys electrically. However, here the are separate key locks for this purpose. Thus, for reversing points, the signalman had to turn the key in the lock below the instrument, put it into a route lock on the key interlocking, turn it, and now could turn the points keys to unlock some points:

Key interlocking and block instruments from signal box R2 at Lübbenau, railway museum Letschin, 2020

The rugged construction of these old key interlockings was later replaced with a more elegant one, where all the moving parts are inside a case, and all locks are mounted in a single row at the lower edge. These type is commonly called "Einheitsschlüsselwerk" even though the older ones also were specified in "Einheit" drawings. Coloured segments on the route bars indicate whether all necessary keys are present to unlock a route key—a nice feature missing from all other central locks I know.
At Letschin, there are three "Einheitsschlüsselwerk" key interlockings, which you can see here:

Einheitsschlüsselwerk from Küstrin-Kietz, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Einheitsschlüsselwerk from traffic bureau Rotes Luch connected to block instruments, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Einheitsschlüsselwerk von unbekanntem Bahnhof, railway museum Letschin, 2020

Finally, here is an extremly simple key interlocking, as it is used today on many German lines using rules akin to TWC (train warrant control). This one sort of gives you "from 2 make 1": If both keys for points 19 and 20 are turned in the upper locks (as seen in the picture), and then one pulls the bar to the left (alos as in the picture), one can turn key "19+ (20+)" and take it from the lock. What then happens with it, I do not know ...
Both upper keys, by the way, have to have the same key blade, as the lock inscriptions are the same. Still, the signalman needs two of those keys to release the bar and therefore the route key:

Simple key interlocking and block instruments from Seefeld (Mark), railway museum Letschin, 2020

This is the end of this first posting with R. Herzog's pictures. In the next one, we will see real lever frames!