GWR Signal Lever ? Information

another interesting fact, i just cleaned off the paint on the 2nd half of the rod this morning and found that it had been welded in the middle, the top section which had the pivot hole to connect to the catch lever had the 32 on it and the bottom half with the catch block was marked 26. so still keeping in line with the 26/32 mix.

 

That's interesting- it implies that when there was a need to shorten the handle, rather than change the whole lever the top half was cut off and replaced with a ready-prepared short handle. Welding the two halves together in the box is something I've not heard of before, but that's not to say it couldn't happen.

 

I think it far more likely the lever would have been altered at Reading Signal works and not worked on in the box itself. The photos shown so far suggest the weld to have been carefully finished off by grinding etc. - very unlikely to be done in a box due to scattering sparks and debris into the works of the rest of the lever frame.

 

Not the lever the lever is fine with just the handle shortened Reading style but the actual round rod was welded in the middle, its difficult to get a pic as obviously it was fettled after welding but i can see the area where it is welded where the two rods lines do not flow right, but it is easy to see from the top and bottom as they are stamped for two different signals, the catch block end is stamped 26 as pic below left which would have been from the original installation at the box, and the top half is stamped 32 which is what all other parts of the replacement lever are. pic below right



tried to take pics to show the weld area but its difficult to show on a pic its obvious if you are holding it and rotating it round, but here are a couple of tries (the join is in the area between the green lines ) moved the saddle to the top to make photography easier, the yellow in the middle of the lever remains for two reasons, firstly that bit could not get into the dip tank and second i left it for now just as a reference when the new paint arrives, once i am happy i will sand that off.


from the pivot point hole at the bottom of the lever to the top of the shortened handle is 45¼"



that section of the rod is in the open when lever assembled above the bottom retaining saddle (my term) that holds the bottom of the rod with the spring in place, so nothing has been rubbing in that area and it is like that all the way round, i have found in my research that the GWR made 2 different types of signal frames one from 1870 till around 1925 and the other from 1926 ish to 1966 and i am just wondering if the replacement Reading reduced handle lever could have come from one type but the catch block end of the rod was different needing the swap of the catch block end of the rod to work from the existing frame (and of course that part could have been removed and welded outside of the box)

so in conclusion it seems that all of the replacement lever with the reading shortened handle is from a lever that was no 32 in its original frame, but for some reason the bottom of the rod with the catch block on it was cut from the original long handled lever 26 and welded to the bottom of the replacement assembly with the description place and the catch block end being the only 2 things marked for 26. fascinating in a way, would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the time to find out why.

 

and i have now found the correct terminology for my so called bottom retaining saddle it is the spring box, much simpler