Whitechapel King levers

'They', or more accurately 'I', have. I can't remember if it was November 2011 or February 2012 though I'm afraid.

www.flickr.com/photos/42537798@N02/6122070916/in/photostream/ This is on flkr. I trained at Whitechapel cabin 40 years ago and cannot remember if it had King levers. There is no reason it could not have.I cannot see any on this recent photo. As a boy i went into the east London signal cabin on the southbound platform. It only had about six levers.

According to Traffic Circular 7/12 it was from 20/2/12.

King Levers will by pass the SR's (Stick Relays) which require the signal lever to be re-stroked on a manually operated signal frame. Once the signaller has set the require routes in this case all the straight routes they then pull over the king lever then just leave it. Once the king lever is over the signals will just clear automatically and make the site a automatic area requiring no input from the signaller at all.

For a while, Whitechapel operated as if it was an area of Automatic signalling as there were no points in place. The only thing that the signaller could do was maintain trains to time. The auto working switches were a similar to a King lever as they ensured that the Stick Relays remained energised after each train had passed, so the signaller didn't have to restroke.

When the points were reintroduced, there was a change to the mechanical locking arrangements to introduce the two king levers, which in addition to maintaining the stick relays up, also mechanically lock the signal levers needed for through running in the reverse position, which guarantees that the point levers are mechanically locked normal.

With these safeguards in place an Illuminated 'A' can be lit at each signal, allowing Train Operators to treat the signal as an Automatic one when it remains at danger. In theory, this could effectively lead to the cabin being closed at certain times, though this hasn't been the case so far.

As Whitechapel and Aldgate East are only emergency crossovers they should not need a signalman. Are the Sunday reversers still there? Maybe the supervisors are qualified. In my day the Whitechapel Station Inspector was qualified to work the cabin as I was as a Relief Booking Clerk.