Signalling block systems

Signalling block systems enable the safe and efficient operation of railways to avoid collisions between trains. Block systems are used to control trains between stations and yards and not normally within them. Any block system is defined by its associated physical equipment and by the application of a relevant set of rules. Some systems involve the use of signals while others do not. Some systems are specifically designed for single track railways for which a danger exists of both head-on and rear-end collision, as opposed to double track, whose main danger is rear-end collision.

A block system is referred to as the method of working in the UK, method of operation in the US and safeworking in Australia.

Trains operate according to a strict timetable, that is cannot leave a station until an appointed time and until any other trains they were to meet at that station have arrived. Rarely used as a block system, as if one train is delayed, all trains it is scheduled to meet are delayed. This can quickly lead to all trains on the railway being affected.

This method is not authorised for use in the UK.

Popular on single track lines in North America up until the 1980s, Train Order operation was less a block system and more of a system of determining which trains would have the right of way when train movements would come into conflict. Trains would make use of a predetermined operating plan known as the timetable which made use of fixed passing locations often referred to as stations. Amendments to the operating plan would come from a train dispatcher in the form of train orders, transmitted to the trains via intermediaries known as agents or operators at train order stations.

This method is not currently authorised for use in the UK. A similar system, known as Telegraph and Crossing Order, was used in the 19th century, but after three serious head-on collisions in the 1870s (Menheniot, Cornwall Railway, 1873; Thorpe, Great Eastern Railway, 1874; Radstock, Somerset & Dorset Railway, 1876) its use was condemned.

In North American train order system was often implemented on top of other block systems when those block systems needed to be superseded. For example, where manual or automatic block was implemented, train orders would be used to authorize movements into occupied blocks, against the current of traffic or where no current of traffic was established.

If a single track branch line is a dead end with a simple shuttle train service, then a single token is sufficient. The driver of any train entering the branch line (or occupying any part of it) must be in possession of the token, and no collision with another train is possible. For convenience in passing it from hand to hand, the token was often in the form of a staff, typically 800 mm long and 40 mm diameter, and is referred to as a train staff. Such a staff may be a wooden staff with a brass plate stating the section of line on which it is valid, or it may be in the form of a key.

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