"Mechano-electric" interlocking at Greymouth, 1992

In the considerable time we had to wait in Greymouth for the return trip over Arthur's Pass, I took some pictures at the signal box. The station had lost most of its tracks, as you can see from the last picture in the previous post, but at least three tracks had survived, two tracks went to the yard furtheron, and also the Rapahoe Industrial Line was still connected here:

Track and signal panel, Greymouth, September 1992

On the lever frame, which looks like a Saxby & Farmer frame to me, there were 32 levers, but 16 of them were unused spares, i.e. not (or most probably not longer) in use:

Lever frame, Greymouth, September 1992

The signals, although operated by levers, were colour light signals throughout, and the points were also electrically operated, as can be seen at the cut-off lever handles. Even with regard to the locks, such interlockings often raise the question of whether they are mechanically or electrically established—I don't know about this interlocking, but in southern England I have seen lever frames that provided all the locking logic electrically via lever locks: I'd like to call such a construction "mechano-electrical" and postulate that Greymouth was nearly such a beast (but I will try to find out what was really still mechanical here). Here are some details of the lever frame:

Levers 1 to 6, Greymouth, September 1992

Levers 21 to 26, Greymouth, September 1992

Levers 24 to 32, Greymouth, September 1992

Above the levers, there was the track board already shown above:

Track and signal panel, Greymouth, September 1992

Here, at the top right, you can see the red indication of the returning Tranz-Alpine train set, which will later take us back to Christchurch (without any photos taken by me):

Track and signal panel, Greymouth, September 1992

From the outside, the signal box looked like this (and still looks like this—the building is apparently still standing):

Signal box, Greymouth, September 1992

In this picture, looking north, you can see an inner starter on the right, an outer starter far out on the left, and the upper part of the supporting structure of the old Cobden Bridge directly to the right of the signal box building. Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture of that bridge, because I didn't bother to see what else was interesting nearby:

Signal box, Greymouth, September 1992

The last picture from Greymouth is the inner starter:

Starting signal 15, Greymouth, September 1992