Naming
In any node-based control system, proper identification is critical to ensuring that messages are properly received by their intended recipients. As such, signalling control points are provided with names or identifiers that minimise the likelihood of confusion during communications.
In the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries, each signal box is assigned a unique name based on the geographical locality. Where multiple signal boxes existed at one locality, suffixes such as "West" and "East" were added to the geographical name, or they would be individually numbered, e.g. "Stockport No. 1", etc. In very remote areas, the name may be derived from the lineside mileage, e.g. "73rd Mile".
In Central Europe, it is common to issue signalling control points with a regionally unique location code based roughly on the point's location and function. The signalling locations may have longer, full names associated with them, but the identification codes can be employed more efficiently. However, schemes that simply number signal boxes from one onwards are also in use, e.g. in Austria.
In North America, signalling locations were most often provided with one or two digit telegraph call letters that were locally unique to the rail line or division. These letters could stand for the control point's location or function as a form of mnemonic aid, but sometimes they were simply randomly or problematically chosen. The purpose of the short IDs were to reduce overhead when transmitting messages in Morse code. As time went on and voice communications replaced the Morse code the codes began to be replaced with more human recognizable names, again often based on geographic location. As control passed from field operators to centralised dispatchers, the dispatching desks took on identifiers that could encompass geographic areas or entire routes as well as simple numbers or programmatic identification codes.
In most cases where the control locations are still in the field adjacent to railway tracks, the name or code of the control point is plainly labelled on the side of the signal box structure as an extra visual reminder to the train operators where they are. Moreover, wayside signals may also be equipped with identification plates that directly or indirectly indicate who controls that signal and that stretch of the line.
Read more about this topic: Signalling Control
Famous quotes containing the word naming:
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Yet will I call on him!—O, spare me, Lucifer!—
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—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
“The night is itself sleep
And what goes on in it, the naming of the wind,
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
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in a time of famine?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)