Railway block code

The railway block signalling bell code is a system of bell rings used in Great Britain to communicate between manually operated Signal Boxes (the system is not used in modern power signal boxes, unless it is a fringe box to an older signalbox). Each signal box would have a bell circuit to the box on either side of it along the line. The equipment would consist of a plunger or tapper (rather like a Morse key) which if pressed, rings the bell in the neighbouring box. The neighbouring box would have a key for communicating back, therefore each box has a key which rings the bell in the other box. Where a signal box communicates with more than one other box (in either direction along the line, and possibly along a branch line too), each bell would have a different tone, so that the signalman could tell them apart by ear.

Although codes varied from region to region, the following shows a few selected standard UK bell codes:

These would be used as follows (assuming a simple exchange between two signal boxes on a plain section of line) between two signal boxes A and B. Assume a train is to pass from the block controlled by A to the block controlled by B. This must be agreed and permitted by the signalman in box B. Here is the sequence of bell codes and associated actions:

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