propelling

Very much depends on the railway and their rule book. On the NYMR, once upon a time the token was taken to the box but, now, it stays on the disabled loco. As regards laying out assistance protection, as distinct from emergency protection, this is only done when the direction the assistance is coming from is known.
I'm sure that there are other railways, including the big railway, that do this.

 

We lay out protection of either direction... So I'm told.

 

Correct - The MHR do exactly the same thing. Enginemen set dets in front of the loco and the Guard sets dets behind the last Carriage - I'm a bit rusty on this but aren't there 8 in total? 1/4 mile then every 20 yards in front of the loco and the same behind the train??

 

300 yards from the obstruction and then 3 spaced10 yards apart. So the last one will be 330 yards from the obstruction.

 

Your rule book probably requires you to do this but,in reality, why place dets in both directions? The NYMR rule book doesn't require this, nor does the Network Rail Rule book:

"You must carry out assistance protection in the direction from
which the assisting train will arrive.
You must place three detonators 20 metres (approximately
20 yards) apart on the line on which your failed train is standing
300 metres (approximately 300 yards) from the rear or front of the
train, as appropriate."

 

How can you be 100% sure where assistance is coming from?

 

Interestingly KESR book says fireman goes to nearest staff or token signalbox (M.2.1.1), not necessarily the direction from which assistance will be provided. In other words the emphasis is on getting the staff/tablet/token as quickly as possible to a signalman, so that arrangements can then be made for assistance to be provided.
Having laid out protection in the opposite direction (not necessarily rear) the guard returns to his train. If the assistance is to come from the Guards direction, then the fireman will have to return to the train and so advise the Guard so that he may meet the assistance at the protection.
Unless of course you are in a trainstaff section, in which case the staff has to be physically transferred with fireman to the end from which the assistance wil come.
Nowadays with lineside phones over much of the line, and a strong likelihood that at least one of the traincrew will have a mobile phone in their bag, then a clear understanding as to which direction assistance will need to come from can be reached before anyone sets off for a long walk.

 

The Signalman may not know where assistance is coming from. For example. If the A-Set failed on Cranbrook road you have two very possible locations for assistance...

 

Hopefully the Signalmen involved will have a better idea where assistance is coming from before it's ready to enter the occupied section! If the Driver (or Fireman, or whoever) of the disabled train is at the wrong end, along with his protection, then he's going to have to pootle off to the other end instead, picking up his protection along the way. Hopefully, though, the Signalmen, along with the Duty Traffic Manager or equivalent, should be able to make a pretty quick and reliable decision as to where assistance is to come from, before the Driver goes off to lay assistance protection in the first place.

 

Quite, KESR operates with a "controlling signalman" (normally Rolvenden) to make such decisions on a normal running day (in liaison with the on-call Operating Manager if necessary) or a Controller for special events.

They would certainly know where trains are, and being opposite the loco depot can see if there is a likelihood of getting assistance from there.

Obviously on the "Big Railway" these decisions would have to be taken with a wider overview.

 

The above discussion throws up the problem that each heritage railway has its own rule book. These are generally, but not necessarily, based on a 'British Railways' rulebook of some issue. The 1950 rule book (Oct 1961) edition is quite often used but there are many railways that utilise the 1972 or 1980 versions and others keep up to the Network Rail Group Standard rulebook Each of these rulebooks has variations and it is very difficult to comment on another railway basing it on your own rulebook.As regards obtaining assistance, nowadays, mobile phones are prolific and advantage should be taken of that fact.

I also remember that Major Olver had a personal dislike of people having detonators and did not like railways to have or use them. 'Your train speeds are low and there is no need for them. If you need to rescue a train, the fireman/guard should simply exhibit a red flag and the assisting loco should just proceed slowly and with caution.' was his usual comment. I don't know about the Bluebell, but the Talyllyn, Festiniog and Middleton never carried them in the early days.

 

during my time at the MHR we did carry phones which plugged into lineside posts and enabled us to contact the signal box in emergancy but as far as i know were never used because often we would call the controller direct on his phone if we had a failed loco but my only experience of a loco failing we managed to continue to ropley, where we came off

 

It's not just our drivers that (wrongly, at least as far as our Rule Book is concerned) immediately contact the DTM (Control) when they fail then, without a thought for the Signalman (who should, for us at least, be the immediate point of contact) who can't start planning to work around the failure because he doesn't know what's going on, let alone think about the consequences of a train detained mid-section without the Signalman being reminded of its presence!