The first Saturday after the Christmas surprised us with a spring weather. Sunny day and a belly-fat accumulated during the Christmas fest encouraged to an increased physical activity. No wonder that on this day a large group of PARE member and volunteers appeared in the engine shed. Due to the winter season the range of duties was limited to rather dull but necessary maintenance works.

First of all a parcel left after the demolished battery cart shed badly needed some tidying up. The shed – a typical post-communistic, sloppy construction – disfigured the appearance of the office building and made its wall catch humidity. In the past years it was carefully disassembled, yet there was hardly any time to clean up the patch of ground left after the shed. At last we’ve managed to accomplish this and now the levelled terrain awaits seeding some grass.

Another non-railway but necessary works regarded the prevention of breaking into the roundhouse. Slowly we cut off any possible migration routes for burglars by putting bars in windows and properly securing the temporary precautions, even in places which seemed inaccessible (ex. due to height). During the Saturday works we managed to shut the last unsecured window above axle lathe.

Each winter it is vital to provide appropriate social conditions, namely the appropriate heating. Dispatcher office is mainly heated by means of tile stoves which consume several cubic metres of wood each year. Despite the warehouse full of appropriate fuel, there is always a need to cut it down into smaller pieces. We are really grateful to the members that took up this rather ungrateful but essential task.

On the occasion of Christmas Holidays
and the coming New Year 2014
to our colleagues from PARE, their families and relatives,
and all the supporters and fans of our Association,
we would like to wish many health, luck and perseverance in the common aspiration.

Board, Members and Volunteers of
Polish Association of Railway Enthusiasts

Courtesy of PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe we managed to extend our collection with automatic block signaling (ABS) devices of type E. It was the first common type of automatic block at Polish railway network (except the earlier, two-aspect ABS utilised exclusively by Electric Commuter Railway), designed by Swedish company L. M. Ericsson and manufactured domestically by ZWUS in Katowice.

Former semi-automatic block signaling had limited capacity. Only after the introduction of the automatic block and division of the route into braking-distance long sections it become possible to shorten the gap between following trains and increase the line’s capacity. Therefore ABS was first deployed on main, busy lines.

Block signaling of type E has the following features:

• it is single-direction – the full capacity can be achieved only when driving in the principle direction (i.e. on the right track),
• it is three-aspect – except the red and green aspect, block signals can display orange aspect, depending on the number of free blocks in front of the oncoming train.

A curiosity of this type of ABS is the way of sending of the control current between two neighbouring signals. The control signal was send as a phase of track current decoded by a three-state relay of type JRY.

Currently, automatic block of type E is becoming obsolete and is slowly replaced with a bidirectional, four-aspect ABS.

With regret we would like to inform about the death of our collegue, Ryszard Drobik. The funeral will take place on Saturday, 7th December 2013 in church in Krypno near Knyszyn.