Background
The Cambrian Railway, which traversed Wales from Whitchurch in Shropshire to Aberystwyth and Barmouth, via Dyfi Junction, contained a number of single line sections. The small station of Abermule (or Abermiwl) was a crossing station between two such sections. To the east was Montgomery (also known as Trefaldwyn), to the west was Newtown (also known as Y Drenewydd). The English names were in contemporary use, and appear in most reports on the accident.
To protect the single line sections, Tyer's Electric Train Tablet apparatus was used. Two linked machines were used on each section, one at each end. To allow a train to proceed into the section, a call button would be pressed on one machine, alerting the operator on the machine at the other end, who would then press a release button which allowed a tablet (a metal plate inscribed with the name of the section) to be withdrawn from the caller's machine. The tablet would then be placed inside a pouch fitted with a metal loop (which allowed it to be quickly picked up or handed over by a train crew while in motion) and given to the driver of the train as proof of his authority to occupy the section. Until the tablet was replaced in one of the machines, another tablet could not be withdrawn from either of them. (Differently-shaped spindles prevented a tablet from another section being inserted into the machines.)
This system had protected the Cambrian railway for many years. There was a weakness at Abermule, in that the electric tablet machines and the other block telegraph instruments were kept in the main station buildings, while the signals were worked from a separate signal box at the east end of the station, and some of the points from a ground frame at the other end of the station. Regulations specified that only the stationmaster or signalman were to work the tablet machines, but it was common for both to be occupied with duties away from the station buildings, and it became accepted practice for any member of the station staff to work them.
Read more about this topic: Abermule Train Collision
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