Comment by red_admiral
1 day ago
> I do imagine these panels must have been interactive with all the buttons?
"Spurplan" (roughly "track plan") signalling control panel. To allow a train from point A to point B, you hold down the button at A and then press B. If there's no conflicts, it will set the switches along the way, lock the route (so you can't set a route that interferes) and then "open the signal", as they say in German, at point A.
This was a customizable system built out of standard components, which served its purpose well for a long time. Point your favorite translation tool at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaisstellwerk for more details, or http://www.stellwerke.de/ if you want to go down a rabbit hole.
> Rotte [And I believe this was a way to annotate that something was… fixed, maybe? Or on its way to being fixed?]
Rotte = work gang. Reminder tag to not send a train down there.
See it in action: In this video[1], a signaller instructs a railfan in routing a couple of trains through Swindon (UK), using such a panel.
Shortly after the video was shot, this panel was decommissioned and removed. In 2018 it was brought back to life at the Didcot Railway Centre [2], where it continues in operation, backed by a simulator. Centre visitors can try their hand at operating the panel [3].
The panels "utilise square tiles called ‘Dominos’, patented by a Swiss company called Integra, to construct the panel diagram. Each Domino is 40mm square and has a small section of the layout on it, such as one signal, or one set of points. Many hundreds of small Dominos are then formed into a mosaic to build up the required panel diagram." [4]
Photo gallery [5]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76fAHAxv0Dw
[2] https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/116/the-signa...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Jfm9Zqo_M
[4] https://didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/article.php/680/more-abou...
[5] https://photos.swindonpanel.org.uk/
Ah, that explains it. I was wondering what the Luftwaffe had to do with running trains.
(Rotte was a formation of fighters, making up a Schwarm, and then a Staffel, the standard unit of fighters during WWII).