Talk:Sunshine rail disaster

Questions

Is post 25 a Home or a Distant signal?

Were there any track circuits?

Quarter Mile Safety Zone.

In British (and presumably Victorian) practice, a train cannot be accepted from the previous station on the Bendigo line unless:

• there is an Outer Home Signal a quarter mile (440yards) from the Home Signal Post 24;

• or if no Outer Home, by holding the train at the previous station.

Tabletop (talk) 02:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

• There would not have been track circuits, it was 1908.

• The order of signals in Queensland are distant/home//starter where the station is between the home and starter. NSW has outer home signals, though, and Nyanda (a station that controlls a level crossing across both QLD and NSW lines), uses separate terms for these two systems. At a guess, i would put the signals on 24 and 27 as distants.

• Victoria is on 5'3" guage, and i should look for some Irish practice here too.

Wendy.krieger (talk) 09:23, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Can confirm post 25 was a distant, 24 a home. See the diagram at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10659447 Triptothecottage (talk) 05:36, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Visibility of the home signal

It was given in evidence that a report had been made the previous January that the siting of the home signal (protecting a train standing at the platform) was poor and its indication could not be seen prior to passing the previous (distant) signal.

Why would it be necessary to see a home signal before passing the distant signal? That's what distant signals are for. I couldn't find anything about that in the references given at the end of the paragraph. --PhiH (talk) 11:06, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Because the driver of the Bendigo train could see the upper light of Post 20 which was at green for the Ballarat train - in fact he saw this green light before sighting the red light of the distant. So in approaching Sunshine he first saw the green light of Post 20, then the red light of Post 25, and then (after passing the distant) the red light of Post 24. This was confusing, particularly as he knew he had been accepted under full line clear. This was not made much of as the driver admitted that he recognised the distant signal, and understood that being at danger he might have to stop at the home signals. And the problem with Post 24 was not that the "siting was poor", it was that the lamp was badly adjusted and was pointing into the adjacent field. MAndrewWaugh (talk) 12:53, 11 June 2026 (UTC)