 So this is the remote-stellwerk experience in the training single tower of Hamburg. So this is the training single tower of a local museum club, which was originally owned and created by the Deutsche Bundesbahn, German Railway, and then moved to the museum. It was used to train dispatchers at Deutsche Bahn. So it contains all the safety devices and locks of an original signal tower. But of course we do not have a real train going here. Of this kind of mechanical signal towers, there are about 600 still in use at the network of Deutsche Bahn. The thing is trains in Germany just can't go as they want. They need to be secured and that's what the signal tower mechanisms are for. And here's Andreas. I'm Andreas. I don't have to tell you much. Next to me is Stefan, STB. We want to let you run virtual trains here. And the task is that someone of us tells us what to do now. We distributed a cheat sheet for you. There's a video you would have to look. And we are just not waiting until someone says the right thing, but we will give some help, some hints. Stefan has a camera on his head. So you are seeing what Stefan is seeing. And you are going to tell him what he's supposed to do. And let's see whether we can get a train moving. So that's what we do. So we explain how to do this right. And then we have the first candidate to take in my agency. I need some feedback whether you can see us. Can you see me? Can you hear me? Yeah, okay, great. So checking video quality, checking audio quality. So then let me explain what we have here. I hope everybody has had a look at the cheat sheet. So you recognize a couple of things. So this big green box here. So let's start here. What's all of this here? So we have a mechanical signal tower in the unified version. This technique is very, very old, very well established. All the principles are from the 1860s, 1870s. And all the individual components here, all these different devices here, were built at the beginning of the 20th century. Standardized at the beginning of the 70s, were used in the GDR until the 1960s. Today in Germany, there are still 600 of them in revenue use in all the areas where German engineers were walking around, Austria, several other countries. It's still very well-used. So this is in the kind of German area. The United Kingdom and the US has a very different system. So a signal tower, it's usually located next to a railway line. And the signal tower controls signals. And a point switches turnouts. So we have lots of blue levers here, which are the point levers. And similar devices. And this level, for example, point number one, there's a hand trap here. And if I pull this, I can pull the lever. I can turn the lever down. And I have changed the point at the track. This is very easy here, very simple, because we don't have any physical points here at this training signal tower. So in a railway reputation, this would be much more heavier. Usually people working on these kind of mechanical signal towers are much stronger than I am. So the wet levers, what they call the signal levers, they are for moving a signal arm from top to proceed. The kind of traffic light for railway traffic. This is also where the colors in the car traffic signal come from. So this was just a model train. I just wanted to let a train run. I could just put a button here. But at the railway, there are a lot of safety mechanisms to make sure that no bad things happen. For example, if the conductor falls asleep and similar things to prevent very bad accidents. So if you have some larger model railway, it's still possible that you can just push a button and the signal goes green. And the train proceeds and we can still do this here. So for example, we have the signal P4, which is the one we are looking at today. And this is the signal lever. And I can't even move the hand for. Because the signal power mechanism says it's not safe to let it run. So we still have to fulfill a couple of preconditions for it to be safe by night. So in the meantime, my colleague has got us a train. So this green box here is the modern echelon from the 1870s. And behind this cover, you find a lot of electromechanics. And a very simple electrical motor. And a mechanic moving via cox on the 1860s. You didn't even have electrical power from the plugs, not even batteries. But they found that electricity is a nice thing to transfer information. So you see this crank lever here. And so you have this hand crank magnet here. And please leave a note for now. We do this later. This inductor generates electricity. And then we can have one motor move it and change it. The other one is 800 meters away from us in reality. Here in this room, they're close by each other. They're giving an instruction with pressure technology. So here's a command recipient. And it's P4 from track 4. And when he activates the correct one on his side, then we see the field goes white. That is the precondition for us to do anything. We have a hierarchy. There's one guy who is responsible to decide these things. And he's the leader of the service. And he has just given permission. We have a command. In this A, B station. I don't know whether you heard any noise, but there was a noise. Well, it was good to hear. It was easy to hear. He hadn't called me. And I hear that noise. The rumbling noise. And then I look at my indicators. And I see on track 4, this one is white. And that is what I'm expected to do. Now they are communicating with... Is there something that we have to watch? We have to observe. Okay, so the video operator... I'm moving my head too much. I'm not an expert in having a camera on my head. I'll try to be... Hold it more still. Be more calm. The director says, if you're in the room and don't take active photos... So if you're all in this room and you don't use your camera, then please switch it off. Because that improves the quality for everybody else. I hope that works. And then maybe my mobile has more bitrate. And then my head shaking should be... Let's have a problem. I have received a command. I know what to do. There's a bar going through this field. And there's a grey hook. And it has jumped up. And it has released a safety. And that is linked to our signal lever. But now we can talk about the next steps. So what kind of journey are we looking at? Here's a map of the trucks. Normally we would be looking out the window. But here you can see there's a train sitting in front of signal 4. Here's a train in front of the signal. Now we have to change this lever to drive. At the moment we can't. There's a few things that are very important for safety. The first one is the train must move to the correct track. And the switch is in the correct direction. Is there any other switch that is important for our safety? So the answer is yes there's another one that's important. We built it so that that particular switch of tracks is switched wrong. That one is set in such a way that a wagon could be going onto our track if it were to get away. So we have to change to B. I'm holding the handhold and I'm pulling the lever. Now I've changed it and now that track switch is in the correct direction. Both pieces are now set to straight. And that means we're safe. I will explain the rest of it and then we'll let some candidates take over. I'll do it in another place so that more people can try. So we have put it in the correct position. Now we have to prevent that it gets changed during the train moving. So if I take the one next to it and I pull it while the train is going over it then it will get expensive. So here we have switches that lock the ones that are important for safety. The four is the signal and we want to be home and the one is the speed. And 2B needs to be switched. Okay, so I'm looking at a switched. And now I can move the lever for the driving track. I cannot move number one. And number two is 2B is also locked. 2A is free, I can change that one. Because it's not critical to our safety or it's not critical to the safety of ours. There's something coming in that would go through 2A but it doesn't really affect us. So the switching statement permits me to still operate that one. So now I can pull the hand lever. I can release the hand catch and pull the lever. So the law is obeyed for the safety. But at the moment the lever is out of its original setting so the other one is blocked. So safety is obeyed but if it's a busy train station with many trains I'm only allowed to put it back when the train has passed me and has gone over the last track switch. And if I do this too early, I put it back. Then my driving track lever is unlocked and I could do this. So the standard in Germany Okay so not only the route lever is locked. So we have another lever here, another button here. So we pull down the lever here, the indicator gets wide. And it's hold electromagnetic with a smaller nut locked here. And the electric circuit which activated this magnet goes via a small switch with this small triangle here which is the signalling to us that there is a track contact. So this makes sure that only if this contact is released again the train has passed this contact and the point. This solenoid releases and the indicator gets wide, gets wet again and I can release the lever, the route lever. So Andreas now simulates our train moving here. And you hear this sound? The indicator became wet again and I can move the route lever back to the original position. And all the two switches are released as well. I can move them as well. But we forgot something. I noticed I never put the signal to proceed. So our train has left the station illegally because I never moved the signal to green. So usually this wouldn't happen because the conductor isn't allowed to move that. So we need to now mechanically reset this because a normal signal tower is not possible because you need to remove a couple of seals for that. So all actual train dispatchers, please close your eyes while we are doing this in our training signal station. So let's do this again in fast forward. So we give the command again. Sorry for me shaking now while speeding up. So what I left out before. So I'm allowed to move the signal to proceed. I'm moving the lever to proceed. What you may have seen. So here's a little model railway signal, just a few centimeters. So in reality such a signal arm is longer than two meters, which would fit in here. So now Andreas, let's our simulator train go again this time for real. We see how the route commitment goes back to it. And not only so the cylinders here released, but also the solenoid which holds the signal arm into the procedure indication. And now we can do the last couple of steps. The two steps are missing for that. So let's switch this. Just a quick question, Stefan. Any questions? Should we answer them now? Okay, let's wait a bit. We finish this and then we have time for questions. So let's have a look at this. So there is a train on the tracks. It would be really bad if another train could just follow that one because they need to know that the tracks are free. So how does the signal tower now, whether a track is free or not? So this happens via this block apparatus, which is in the green box here and on all these little hooks and latches here. So when we move the signal level back, this wetsuit here falls down and it prevents us from moving the signal level again because one train has already left the station. So we need to get the information that the track is free from the next signal tower. And for this we first need to activate the start indicator and next to this is the end indicator because we have a two-way track here. And the other signal tower which originally would be a few kilometers away has the opposite of those. So I pull this button here, I operate the crank here generating electrical power and we see that by this operation the bow went all down here and we push down the blue wetsuit into the wetsuit trying to pull this up. And for this to release we need to get an electric impulse from the other signal tower behind which would then activate a small motor here and which would release this wetsuit here. This will be the last but one. So one more step here. So we got a command right in the beginning, an auto right in the beginning from the dispatcher to have one train leave the station and we have to confirm that we did this here. So we push this button here, operate this crank and by this we are still back in the, we are already back in all the default positions for everything. Everything is basically in default position here. Any questions? One question first. We always have the problem, two cameras are on, then the pictures are very small. So let's switch off one of the cameras so that we get the full screen view in the stream of one camera. Moment, now I think the camera is off. First question. How did they operate the lights here on this overview here when they didn't have any electricity? So it turns out that these lights here were installed when this training was training. Signing tower was erected in a real mechanical power. You have to look out of the window for that. But this is only simulation and we do not have any real outside here, any trains outside. So we simulated this here by this panel here. It looks like more modern technique, but it's only for training purposes here. Okay, thank you. So we back up full screen. Another question. Is it still coming? Someone would love to build a small IoT thingy with one of these big levers. So is there any way to buy these? Well, you don't get this from the Deutsche Bahn because they are not produced anymore. Deutsche Bahn collects all of them for themselves whenever an old signal tower gets torn down. They put all of the existing old levers into the warehouses as replacement parts. So you may have some more luck with some previous private railways. Also all the internal prices are very, very high. So we're talking about five digits in euros, as we must say. Okay, thank you. I'd like to press the vineyards. So how do the blockerappers come into it? We can use other by individual buyers. Is there any kind of serialization, desirialization? Okay. Andreas is preparing a very, very long text, but it's a thesis. We just have to work one buyer for the signal with a bit more technology to get the signal lines. When the train lines were electrified, you needed a couple of additional wires to compensate for any electricity that was inducted into those. So you need a few more wires there, but originally one wire was enough. So at Weiwei, the one wire solution at Deutsche Bahn is called two-wire and the two-wire is called four-wire, the three-wire is called six-wire and so on, because you always look into both directions. But all of these are details. This is only about all the details about electricity. Okay. Any more questions? Or should we start with the first candidate? The candidate is already in. But one more question. Okay, and we got some greetings to STB. Okay, so they remember the Chinookuli from the camp where some people bought a very small diesel engine here. And this is actually located here. And if the weather was any better, you could look out of the window and see it moving forward and back. Okay, so this small museum here, this museum has a 600-millimeter to feed a small wave of a line here. The other location of the museum has some larger railway cars and engines. And last question. Someone comments that someone switched the switches, sorry about that, to A and to B. So there is a mix up between point to A and to B in the cheat sheet. So maybe you see here that someone changed these numbers here in the plan and corrected them with a little bit of sticky tape. And so the original one was very misleading. So we changed the labels. We changed the names here. It's causing audio quality. Short repetition here. In these plans here, in the original plans, it is like in the cheat sheet. But in more modern plans, it's like shown here. And since currently trainees are using electrical plans, but this is kind of the exception. So when they built this one, they changed this to the modern kind of labeling, of naming for points. So thank you very much. The first person is Hamari. Hamari should be in the GC. Can you please make yourself heard? Hamari, is this your first time? This is my first time. I'm going to the initial position. And Andreas gives us a command. And then you... So, Hamari, please look at the cheat sheet. I'm your remote hand. We have received command B2B. On the pre-track level, which one? The second down. Doesn't the same P2B on that one? Ah, this is P2D. Okay, picture quality. This is P2B. And those are the ones that need to be moved from their initial setting out of their initial setting. That you need to set now. So, let's have a look. I do not see the labeling. Okay, I want number one. Then next thing, 2B. Thank you. And 3CD. Thank you. And now, please have a look whether we can actually move this thing down. Routing track level. No, it's not possible. Can we please look at the sign again? It was 2A, not P2B. So, put 2B back and get 2A. This is the origin of the term failsafe. If you do something wrong, then the train doesn't drive. You don't get an accident, but you just don't drive. You might not get the function that you wanted, but nothing happens. Now, the routing track level should be possible to be moved down. Okay, then we can look at the signal. Can you please show me again? P2B, was that right? Then you would know. So, let's level P2. Okay. I'm not permitted to do this. So, I expect... I took the wrong one. This is P2B. Okay, I can pull it. But I don't get any further than this. Okay, please release this again and give me the repeat lock, the third one from the right. I cannot move that one either. The routing track has been set, hasn't it? Yes, the lever for the routing track is down. P2B is the second one from the right. Oh, that works. Okay, now it's gone white. And now I should be able to pull the signal level. Okay, that worked. I'll allow the leader of the service through so he can take on the role as the train driver. Now I have to notify the train segment as occupied. Before we can do anything else, I mentioned it earlier. This system will not allow us to because the signal is still on driving. So that nobody follows them. Now we can operate this block. The second one from the left. Could it be the second one from the left, P2B? Yes, I'm able to do this. I will turn the handle. Now I believe from our side, it's okay. Now the train has passed. Now we have to take the routing track level to the middle setting. And operate the switches back to the initial setting. In modern systems, this happens after the train has passed and it is electronically done and it happens automatically. This is still the oldest kind of signal power that we have. Everything needs to be done by hand. More than one. The dispatcher doesn't have to do all this. Just initiate and supervise this. Two more questions. Can you please announce how to become a candidate here? But let's finish first. Because there's still something missing. Okay. So all the points are back in the default position. So we have to return the command. We have to confirm the command to the dispatcher that the train has left the station. So we push this button here. Great. So asking someone in the back office to write down your username. So we can give you the RC3 dispatcher badge. Thank you so much. I'm honored. I wrote down your username. Great. Okay. So you get the badge probably after the RC3 event. Thank you so much. The question was how can you apply to become a candidate for that? And the other question, could you please show the track plan again? Because it's not very good to see. So please log into RC3.world. And on the overview page you get there. There is a search field. And if you search for Stellwerk there, you see, for some reason, you see two times two events here. And there is a link labeled, candidate, please follow here. And under this link you have the plan to look at. They have a cheat sheet. You can download it as PDF. Very recommended here. And this all explains how you can participate here. So you just follow into our GC room. Remote. GC.RC3.world. Remote. Stellwerk.experience. But it's also on this page here. Okay. Do we have another candidate? Tell us again how to apply, please. That was also asked. So how to apply? Just come into our GC room here. As linked on the last page. And our assistant here will just select someone to join here. Then it's like this. Okay, we just draw someone randomly. Someone should be allowed to speak in GC. So could you please pick up? Hi, NoFox is here. Hi, NoFox. Can you hear me? Something's happening. Good evening. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. The classic question of our time. Can you hear me? Should someone be free now in the GC? Yes. Hello. Yes. Hi. I can hear you. I can hear you. NoFox. NoFox. Sorry if I didn't hear the name correctly. Yes, everything is fine. Yo. Okay. So I'm here and looking what our dispatcher has asked us to do. Something's happening. So can you please look down a bit? Okay. So we have a command. We have an order. Got the route A2 from Bheim to track 2, which is like a train arriving at our station. So I'm looking at the plan. So I'm going here so everyone can have a look. We can see this here. This is from the upper track here into the second from the bottom. So please have a look at the route lever. And we see we need A2. So there's the one left at the down. Please look down. So it's... Thank you. It's 2A, 2B, then 3CD, and Dweiler 2. And someone seems to be using the right terms here. So let's go to the lever. So please pull 2A and 2B. Then 3CD, and Dweiler 2. Okay. And then let's check whether we can move the route lever down. And yes, it locked in. Great. Then let's commit the route. So let's have a look. So it's A from Beheim. So let's push the fourth from the right. They push the button here. So please turn the crank here. So you need to turn the crank because it's AC. AC, otherwise it's... If it was DC, you would just have to push it here. So we have committed here. So pull A2. So pull the second from left. Please pull and just pull down. Okay. Okay, so our conductor is going to his virtual train engine. Okay. So train went in here. Nothing happened by itself. And so we're sitting here. We saw a train come in. We saw the last card of the train, the sign there. So the train has passed. So I'm allowed to move back the signal lever here. So can I pull back? No, that's not possible because... Any idea as a professional? Why I'm not allowed to do this here? So we need to... So in the other signal... So... Okay. So in reality, another signal tower for the same station here in the other signal tower of that one, someone, the corresponding operator has to release the route here. So let's see whether the other dispatcher, the operator releases the occupation lock on this route here. So the indicator got wet. Meaning we can move the lever to the virtual train. But what happened with the train? So we need to block back to the original signal tower that the train has arrived. So we go to the end indicator. So we pull the button. So which one here? Is it the leftmost? So the leftmost. Which is wet. And that's the right answer. So we pull this button here and we operate the crank. We need to inform the dispatcher that we pull this order here. So look at the right indicator here. We push the button here. We turn the crank. And clean up all the levels here. Move everything back to the default position. Okay. And in a real mechanical signal tower, I would need both hands for that. So it's a pleasure. Happy? Yes. It's morning. So congratulations. Thank you very, very much. And please also leave our name here so we can hand you a badge. Are you in the world also called Low Fox? No, I have a different name here, but I'm going to submit to you. Thank you. Okay, Andreas. Please move a... With a telephone in a weird way in front of your hat. And because I need to get something to drink. So let's switch here. Switch. So because you have another competent person in the GCT here. Yeah, I would. Why are you here? Okay. I have a look into the pad with the questions. Okay, I can't see anything, but I hope you can hear me. I can't hear anything. I can't hear anything. We can hear you. We can hear you. I can hear something. Yeah, we're still here. We're still here. We can hear you. I can hear you too. Can you see me? Yes, definitely. I can see your head. Great. One can see your head. One can see it. I have a few questions. I was saving them for now, but first question. From Raini. Do you have to lock your points? You have to make a difference between closing and locking. And the route is being interlocked in the signal box. I'm trying to get through here, Stefan. Can you turn the lever for point 2B and then pull the route into the lock lever? That's moving across a lock bar. Okay, perfect. This is the lock that you see here. This is what you see when I move the route into lock levers. So I can turn the switch for the point. This is not the latch. I don't have an example here. There's basically a motor that moves the part of the point that can be moved. And there's a second part on the point that has another bar and a disc that can be rotated in order to lock the mechanism under certain conditions. Distance are, for example, that it's being driven through with more than 65 kilometers per hour. Or that the train is 250 meters or more distance from the signal box. So this is about not opening the switch by going through it. This is only true for the old stuff, for the electrically driven switches. This is not true anymore. So we're not seeing your camera anymore, but we can still hear you. So I'm going to ask you another question. This is asking why isn't the lever straight? This is a tutorial signal box. This is about the track plan, the track diagram. Why is this in the Ace? Please make sure that you turn on the camera again so we can see something. Can I ask some more stuff in parallel? The lever is being reset after every train is passing through. Okay, now we can see it again. Something is popping up. Yeah, no problem. You can see standard now, yeah? Yeah, great. Yeah, we're sorry. It's not so easy in this live situation. Can you see something? Yes, you can see. Perfect. The lever is being reset after every train is passing through. If my drive is over, my run has ended. Basically the switches always go back to the ground state or the default position. It can stay in there under certain conditions, but for the electronically driven switches, they always go back to the ground state at the end. So those are all the questions that we had and we're done with those. I have a sketch of a latch here. So maybe you can see it here. There is a latch here. That's what it would look like. And here are two bars going towards the points. And you can see the interlock that goes into that and will lock it in place. And I can't see it myself right now. So we have another person. TWE is now in the GC as a candidate. Yes, we can hear you now. And then I would like to have Stefan here. Can we... can someone please... I have to talk to Stefan. Please mute me. Small secrets. Yes, I can mute you now. It doesn't work or maybe it does. I think it's silent now on purpose. So talking about needing a fourth monitor. Please unmute Andreas. Just a moment please. That was remote. Okay. Are you ready? Then please unmute. If you... Okay, just a moment please. How are working on it? And it'll soon go on. Or maybe you have to unmute him remotely. Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Hekler asked, can... Can that be visited this training in switching tower during the pandemic? Yes, definitely, definitely. Outside the pandemic it is open every Sunday from 11 to 5 p.m. Who wants to go there, you can schedule a date and request a date at the website. And if you say you want to visit the training in switching tower, then it's not always open. Someone must be there. Who knows his way around. But just... There's an email address and a phone number and you can make an appointment. And then after the pandemic, of course, we can look at this. Whenever there was a chaos... Whenever there's a chaos event at Hamburg, there will be a hacker tour through this training in switch tower. Of course, yes. A signal tower. And there's a request here or an order. And we see... Okay. Is the candidate there? Yes. Yeah. Okay, hello. And now? So where's the order? There's a train going from somewhere to somewhere else. And this is its P2 to D-Town on track 2 to D-Town. And as we have learned on the lever down there, it says where on the road... Road interlocks. And it says which points need to be changed and switched. That is to A to B, 3 C D and the latch 2. So what did you say? Two. So one for flank protection. Two straight. Which is where it is right now. No, I looked wrong. So one has to be moved. Points one have to be moved. Okay. Two A and B also, if I remember correctly. Okay. And three C D also. And latch number two. Latch number two. I remembered everything correctly. And now you should be able to interlock the route. So let's look at that. P2B. So I looked at the wrong lever. I looked at the one beside that. Oh, so this is P2B. So then we have to change everything back to the upward position. I'll start with a latch and then like this as I go along. And then we have to, maybe we can lock this directly. Okay, that looked good. And now the signal, the signal two. We have two of those. A bit downward please. So the first one goes to D town. So let's use that one now. Oh, we have to give the order first that we want to send our train. So what was that? We did request. We got an order. We have somehow somehow we have to announce. We have to make sure that the root interlock cannot be moved anymore. So we need the root interlock latch. And the lever up here has to be pushed down and turn the crank on the side. So P2, P2 to D town. Okay, pull that down. Do I have to crank? No, I don't think so. Okay, so you don't have to crank there. Okay. Yeah, there are DC and AC and AC are those with a black indicator where you have to crank. And for DC, they work by themselves and they don't have this black indicator. So there's just a brief pulse of current. And then and now pull the signal. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. So this is a bit naughty what I did because there's something to D town. It's a bit of a special case. You can see up there to beat. To be hum it is a single track and to D town it's two track. So we have opposing traffic. And that's why here we have the start indicator and the end indicator. And there we have the same thing to D town. And there we have a permission field here permission indicator. How we control the direction of travel and only D town may come in at the moment. And we didn't mention that because it seemed too complicated for us. We have to make a give a message to the other dispatcher to announce our trains and we didn't do that. And Stefan already ran to D town and gives us the permission and then we will see how it turns white. And at this place I would like to ask everyone in Jitzi to turn down the microphones because we have an echo. And all the candidates who have been there pleased to leave the Jitzi conference and go back to the stream. And now we received permission and I will pull the lever again. And now up there there's a green light now. And now Stefan needs to let the train go. And STB please. Was working on his phone. Bad memories. We don't do that. And we don't have substitute signals here. And so if the train has left the station then we can turn back the signal. And the dispatcher we have to tell our dispatcher that we did that. And we have to release the latch. And I can't do that. And that's the reason. And now I can hand back the order. And one thing is still missing. And we have to tell D-Town that we sent the train. Because we have the repetition lock. So we have to tell D-Town that now we are locking our signals with that. Okay, that was correct. If you're a signature or you handle with the respective producers. Okay, I'm going on mute now. So you can start working with the next guy. This is my tag that I had at the university close to Schoenberg. Yeah, the TWE is relatively known here. Because they had a lockdown earlier. It's close. Yeah, basically they crashed with a train onto the street. They were on the wrong track and they left the track and went onto the street. Everybody survived, but that's a good news. Okay, thank you for the experience. I'll see to it that I'll visit you and we can do it in real life. Okay, thank you to our participant. Okay, there are a lot of more questions now. There's a lot of positive feedback. There's a question about the boom. Does this light have a special function? Or the ZSB, ZSB, we inherited that. It was at the main station of Kiel up until a few years ago. It was replaced by something more modern. And through personal connections, we managed to get this piece of equipment and other stuff that is necessary for us to get it here. It's very interesting technology. Light conductors, for example. You could technically change it, remodel it. For example, it shows temp, it shows pretty kilometers per hour. When you go into the Kiel main station, it ends because it's not a through going station. And if we're looking at train back now that we just earlier talked about, it's a lot shorter than the other tracks. You would only enter with 20 kilometers per hour. And when it was remodeled, it was given to us. It hasn't been remodeled yet. There was a general discussion about monorailing and incoming traffic with this communication with the other signal box. Can you give us a little context of what the FTL does, what the point operator does? I was mentioning that. We usually leave that out. Usually those notifications happen over the phone from one dispatcher to the other. He calls him. And for a single track, lines, it's easy. They basically phone them and tell them, okay, they're leaving now. It's going to arrive at a certain time at your place. They both write it down. And then the dispatcher at the next station knows the order of the wagons if they would change. But sometimes you're notifying the dispatcher about a certain train, for example, 4711. And you're saying, okay, estimated time of departure. And the other guy says no stuff. And it's sometimes important. You can't just move in. In newer signal boxes, this is all automated. There's a very small device that looks like a calculator from the 80s. You type in a few things. For example, in electronics signal boxes, this is integrated as well. And it's always printed out when you type it in. It's amazing how much old technology there's still around. Can you please tell us how many of these mechanical signal boxes are still in use? For example, two years ago, we know that there were still 600 of these that are being used. There's a few hundred electromechanical ones also. So I'm moving over here to show you what it looked like. What you see here, it has knobs that you can turn. There's a lot of electromechanical equipment in there. I'm sorry, I don't know the jargon. It was a purely solenoid signal. It's complicated with electronic signal boxes. So there are substations there and the changes. It's different what you call exactly what. If we asked how many turnouts are on one signal box with electronics, electronic signal boxes, you have many more turnouts that you can switch and that you can change. And we have some smaller pictures here from the signal box at Zildov in Hamburg. And it's built in 1927. It's still operating. It's been modernized a little bit. And back here we have in D-Town in Blankenese. Also in Hamburg it's from 1925. It's now 95 years old. It's still operating, has been extended. One track has been shortened and there was an elevator for disabled access. And then you can only go with 20 or 30 kilometers per hour and this signal box had to be changed. But it's still operating. A bit of context. The changing and the restoration and renovation is still working and we are still changing signal boxes if there are tracks with lots of traffic between Hanover and Hamburg. For example over Zelle, Wilson, etc. Many of the signal towers have been changed. But a parallel track, a single track, the Heidebahn via Soltau in the north. There are lots of local signal boxes where you can really see where the dispatcher really changes the points and then you know that now they will change the signal and then the train will come in. And there are still investments going on in Haneler, just around about 10 years ago the tracks have been changed and the station has got new new tensioning devices for the steel cables because they change their length in winter and summer and they need tensioners and a new one has been built there. And you can't simply change. In short, notice this infrastructure. There's a lot of dependencies and all the safety is approved and there's the federal agency of railway and plans have to be checked and approved and it's a huge investment always when you want to change something and that's why it takes so long for the rollout of new and electronic signal boxes. A signal angel was here just now. Hello. Oh, we have a new person in the queue. So Mr. STB, please you are now the points operator or you are the dispatcher now. And here's the correct outfit. He's the dispatcher from Ellington. And maybe another question in this training signal tower, can you give written orders? Yeah, that's possible. It is used by the Deutsche Bahn and this is not really a demonstration. There's an actual logbook here and an actual phonebook and there are cards here, warning signs and there are dispatch logs and we have order sheets and here are some things we don't actually use. Some switches and this is for the train driver and you can create errors in the system and there's one reason why we don't use these electromechanical signal boxes because it's all the special cases for the case when we cannot change points. For example, all the signal doesn't work and we can recreate these problems here. Another question maybe before the next candidate enters. Sorry, your track diagram doesn't show occupied tracks? Oh, yes it does. There's something red. Yes, now we can see it. It was hardly visible in the camera before. It's very dim lights. It's 1960s technology and our predecessors worked a bit on it and put the colored caps on the signal lamps and they all were little glow, little bulbs and they were yellow with a slight rosé touch or a slight green touch. It is extensible. It could be made better but I think our next candidate is there. A cool lady. Oh yes, that's me. Okay, sorry, there were some questions now and sure, no problem. I find it very interesting. My husband turns down the sound of the stream so we don't have an echo. Great, thank you. Yes, wonderful. Hello, thank you. This is totally interesting. This is really exciting. Yeah, we enjoy it too. Yeah, you can tell. So D-Town, the train hasn't arrived yet but well, it shouldn't concern us now. Let's see if I can really see everything. We are waiting for an order from the dispatcher. In GC, you can click onto the camera picture and then it becomes big and there's now P4 from track 4 to B1. And there's something changed. Then we look down for the routes and there's P4 1, P4 1B. It should be the one, the second from the right or on the top. The way it is written is the route has the same name as the signal so it's P4 the same. 1 is fast and 2 is slow and there's an index and that's the direction and B is to B1. Okay, okay. That means we have to now we have to first the route or we have to go over and we have to block the route. No, what's the right order? I'm embarrassing myself. Yeah, gloriously. The normal education takes three years so you don't have to learn that in one evening. There's a delay in operations. So what do we have to do first? First, change the points to B. These points to B change to B. Yes, I was confused. Not in my brain. Alright, and after that please go back to the routes and block the route, the second lever from the right up. Yes, that's the route interlock. And now I cannot change the points switch anymore. Alright, yes. Yes, so the interlock is that it locks the lever. Yes, that's what we could see on the backside. Before we can change the signal lever we have to engage the route interlock latch and which one is that? Was the second from the right? That was P41. Okay, that looks good. It was DC, so I only pushed it down and now we could... the signal P4, we could pull that now. P4, let's try this one and pull that. Yes. Our train driver goes to work and we see the train leaving the station. The signal and signal goes with some delay. So now we can change the signal lever back. Move it up. And then we have to tell the people in Bihem that the train has left. So where is... can we put it back? So we already put it back? Yeah, alright, alright. I'm thinking so first the route or first signal to Bihem were both possible to answer the question. But first we do the route interlock because if we... if we haven't finished it here and if it arrives at the next station and we haven't blocked it, then it's just... there's just a question mark at the other dispatcher. So why hasn't it been pre-blocked? So now we do that first. So the route, release the route. Release the route lever, you say? Yes, release the route lever. I did that. And then change the points back. Yes. And then send... send the message that we have done everything so hand back the order. And I don't see anything. Okay, so... sorry, I have to go closer in that case. So under the dispatcher in Bihem gets nervous. P4 runs the second from the left and I've looked at it before and there's the route repetition interlock and it has been released, but it hasn't been latched. And I do the pre-block. Yes, everything's done. That was correct. With some delay, but... tomorrow 4.30 show up for work. That's old off. Could we do it in Mars? Perhaps. Will you give us your nickname? So it's the same. Okay, sure, I can do that. So you can get your badge. Have I noted? Thank you. Thanks a lot. Okay, Andreas. Can you still do it? Can you continue? Or should I take over? Yeah, I can tell you. The thing is as uncomfortable as it looks. Yeah, you have to imagine that how two dispatchers are wearing an iPhone with a rubber band around their head, which is rather heavy and uncomfortable for an extended stretch of time. With swapping the operators. Yes. Very good. And you can see my picture. A little small. And I gave the order to the control room to enlarge the image. A little complicated with the audio routing, but there's a question now. What's the situation regarding replacement pieces or spare parts for these signal boxes? Are they still being manufactured? How long will the current storage of spare parts last? None of this will be produced in the future other than by some enthusiasts who have their own thing at home. I don't work for the railway, so this is just a hobby for me and I don't really have access or insights, but I'm pretty sure that the railway doesn't want to talk about it as much. So there's this signal construction company in Bopetal, which is basically the company or the daughter of the TV that makes sure that all of these old parts, whenever there's something being dismantled, are being collected, refurbished and then put into place another signal boxes where it's needed. I suspect that because these parts are so sturdy that there is no shortage of spare parts for the next decades, it's really sturdy, it's very hard to break it. I don't see any problem coming up anytime soon. The remodeling of a train station is comparatively... it's a lot of work and one of the... over the course of one of the next chaos events, once a real subject matter expert can give a talk about it because it's really interesting. The few things I know are the modern... the modern... the big structures that are very widely spread, that they like to be reused... The electromechanical ones are... if they're being dismantled there, they put them in place somewhere else because they actually work quite well and the computerized electronic signal boxes are really hard to remodel, not intrinsically because it's just a software change. It's rather a question of the regulations that make this really difficult. People who know more about this will now turn around in horror, but things like taking a set of points out of a signal box costs a million because this individually written piece of software needs to be modified and the certification and all the processes around it are really, really hard and take a lot of money. The connection is really bad. I apologize. I'll come a little closer and now just speak into my mic. I just want to add that with both signal boxes. That's good. Okay, there's... basically they weld it back together. If something is broken, they try to repair everything by welding whereas with modern signal boxes this is not really possible. In Hamburg-Altenauer I've seen... basically they want to move the train station if you don't know. And it has a bit of a... notoriety not really working well and they've taken it out of order over time. Then they took out the tracks that is not a problem at all. You can... basically they're being signal as blocked and unusable but you can't take the signals out because then the signal box gets confused and the low level red blinking light signals basically so many of them lit up that the whole signal box turned red and it was cheaper than writing a new software and taking out those signals so they just left them in. Very interesting. So from my personal experience anything involving planning certification it's very complicated very expensive. This makes for a very secure railway operation but over time costs are among us and it's very hard to imagine for an outstanding... I don't know if you can say anything about it but there's some hope that with the digital signal boxes the situation will improve because it's modularized a lot more and you don't have to certify the whole of it but rather can look at the individual module so you can just switch them back together and that should make it cheaper. So basically this is the semen so you have to imagine that a signal box you have to imagine it like a modularized system where you use the cable and you combine them which has two ends one in the one end and one that moves on to the next component that was a rather sophisticated technology when it came out so let's continue We plan to close up in 15 minutes and we have one more candidate in Jitzi There was one more question They want to have an example or a track where you have traffic that comes in the opposite direction but this particular signal box doesn't support this technically it's possible but it's only allowed on written command or order and it's rather unusual This is partly due to the fact that these mechanized or completely mechanical signal boxes are not used in places where there's a lot of heavy traffic It's not You can just change the track on this The track that comes from the opposite direction has to allow for the traffic to pass by The signal angel tells us to please take the next candidate or we're not going to get through it Good evening Can you hear me? Very well Another question Can we still do more candidates or is that the last one? I have to get up early for another shift but that's at 11 We can take a look at 11 if we still feel like it For now let's just see My video had a lot of compression artifacts Have we gotten an order yet? The dispatcher just passed by me and I hope that he's going to give us an order Can you see the fields? Or indicators? It's a little blurry and a lot of artifacts I'll try There's feedback from the control room No, it's getting better I can now see it Can you see a field that is white now on the left Yes A from B from Bham to Jack 3 I'm looking at the cheat sheet now A3 from B from Bham to Jack 3 Okay Okay Let's take a look at the color for the route interlock level I think it's the one on the very left It's a little too much compression So on the top it's A3 and on the bottom there's A2 So we probably need to go up because we want to go A3 So just as a reminder it says to B and Roman numeral 1 So let's start with the set of points to B I'll just walk over there and turn it It's turned Okay and the latch one Roman 1 Done Okay So now we should do the track interlock If I can pull it up, yes it works fine, great Okay I don't know the name for this but on the top we need to set the the route interlock Which one do you want to pull? There's more than one We are coming from Behem, it should be on A Do you see there are black nodes there So you have to use the crank magneto here Now it's white Should I go to the signal levers? Yes please I don't know which signal I'm gonna go closer maybe you can see it now Okay so we gotta go to track 3, so the one on the very left Is that the same signal that this lever is controlling? Yeah you can see it here There's also a wire here and there are these small wheels down there They're called double levers They're turning the same signal but according to the wire you turn in the one or in the other direction and in the ground state it's basically in the middle but there are two levers now and so that it's not so easy to mix them up because it also controls how fast the chain can pass a set of points It depends on the direction if you just go straight ahead you can go faster if you have to turn then you have to be slower and the signal also controls the speed You can't hear Andreas We'll explain it later let's just finish up here and then maybe he can get another mic and he can explain it Let's just use that So now we have changed the signal and now we can see the train is arriving as lit here and it's going past the signal and there it is indicated there near the platform so the train went through I turn on the light again so we can see something and what do we do now we have to switch back the signal lever and did you pay attention what do I have to look where do I have to pay attention I have to look out the window and we have seen the end of train at the end of train signal indication and then we can do that and we looked at the track display, the track diagram up there so something from the control room and we have to be sure that all the carriages have arrived safely and this is an end of train indication and we have to see that this has been seen especially in freight trains which are not completely electrified or if there is dangerous goods maybe you don't want to have electricity on the train then we still use these mechanical these mechanical indicators and they must only be affixed by the last carriage and if we have seen then this one and then you know that all other carriages have also passed through and if you don't see that then maybe the train has lost the carriage because a coupling broke and if that has happened then you have a big problem here and so now we turn back the signal and now at some point we have to and give back the order ok let's look at this the field is now white can you press that? no you can't now we have to don't know the proper name but on the left we have to do something with the levers somewhere here you think yes and where where a from Biham the end indicator we have to do something with it and so that we tell the previous signal box tell them that the road is clear and the signal is set to stop and so I thought about where the train was going but not where it was coming from but ok yeah so now we have so we have a maintenance task here but it has moved often enough but there's some technical problem here but you don't have to solve that tonight maybe we want to have some some work next year but now we can, I don't know the correct order so we have to the order and release the route and in the end then change the points back so I'll try to hand back the order it's here, I still can't press it and then we have to release the route first ok I turn back the route interlock doesn't work, doesn't work either so what else then the spectrum has to see if the train is there and release and fix the route so and then release the route and now I can turn the lever back and if that has been switched back and now I can return the order but it is mutually exclusive because there may be another reason why the route has been locked and then you cannot give that order because that would be contradictory and would end up in an illegal state and so that means if we have made a route and then the dispatcher cannot give an order well, not for the same there are some situations and we didn't talk about that today you can have train movements for assembling trains or so so that you don't by accident release a route for another train and therefore it's important that the order cannot be given if you're in doubt so the dispatcher knows wait a moment something, the points operator is doing something because he has to is responsible for train train assembly and he shows us something so there's this red auxiliary lock that doesn't fit exactly but there you can see it so that's the information that this order cannot be given at this moment because I know there's a train in the track and so that I don't give the order by accident by pressing the wrong lever so you put in the auxiliary lock and so you don't forget that there's a train somewhere and this is really one of the most frequent causes of accidents that the dispatchers haven't looked out of the window and didn't fix the auxiliary lock because they know the track is always in track 3 except when it is in track 2 and then if they allow a train to come into track 2 then there's a big bang and so this is the so this is what modern signal boxes they have an automatic message that the track is free so the signal box knows if there's a train in a track or not and prohibits that and prevents that and now we turn the switches back, the turnouts back and then we have released the route and we are done with this train exactly right, very nice congratulations for your badge yes thank you very much and you well we'll try that another time in RC3 world your nickname is the same yes, thank you and you will receive our badge here and thank you very much and I have no idea what time it is but maybe we can handle another candidate one reminder Hekler is there already but I'll ask anyway the double lever this one, it should be mentioned again this and Andreas wanted to say something about the double action lever I don't know the right word but yes, so we have and first I'll talk about the simple lever for P4 for example it has only two positions only stop or proceed and on this lever there is a pulley and outside I have another pulley and there is a groove where the wheel is moving in and if I think about the two cables out of it then they move just in one direction and back again and that's all they do for this double lever if I put one of them to proceed then the other one moves in the other direction so I can it bring into the one position or can put them into the other position two different proceed positions with there are signals which have three signal aspects and there were signals with two arms which had four different aspects and there you would have another pair of double wires double cables and so to connect the second and the third lever and this hasn't been used since 1984 1948 I think and in the beginning quite exactly sure we didn't have speed signal but we have route signaling and in Great Britain there were signal bridges with a huge amount of signal arms and if I arrive at a signal and want to enter the station then you have a signal for every position where you can go and you had to know if it's the fifth wing you had to know which track you were going and it's not very efficient and cost accidents but they changed it in the meantime and the signal in the basic position in the default position it says stop and the arms up and it's full speed and if both arms are in the up position it's slow speed and then if you have three arms and it means slow speed into another direction so what do we do do we signal routes or speeds or what and in the 30s Germany decided that we only have a speed signaling and the route has been locked and the train driver has to know how fast he has to go and if there's a position that we the direction then we can display letters and it looks like this three which indicates the speed and if you see a letter there then it is a direction in Hamburg there are some situations for example in Altenau there's for example B for Blankenese and D for Damto for example because by the signal alone you cannot see where you're going so you have to be sure and sometimes you have go in one direction proceed in one direction and stop or slow speed into the other and if there's a nonsense then you just don't go and there were some news that the train went into the wrong way but then the train driver and the dispatcher have to must have been sleeping so yeah that can happen another question to STB because we extend the time so how is it locked do I have to how is it recorded so if we don't make longer by more than 15 minutes it will still be recorded but if it's only 15 minutes of a time then I would say we continue so Akkale is in the Jitzi can we hear you can we hear me yes we can hear you good morning good morning so then we have to see what we have to do there is what did the dispatcher come up with for us this time something is making a noise yeah it's ringing something turned white so what is it so I see here for now this indicator is black black means I can hold that button it's called a button lock so whatever happens here I cannot change this date so this is white and it gives me a buzzing sound so the dispatcher wants me to manipulate this system so this is white here now we can send a train to D-Town but apparently D-Town wants to send a train to us and needs the permission so I'm gonna pull this down and I'm turning the crank and the permission was given and here it is this is our order from D-Town to track 2 let's get this back so you can do his necessary work so this is D-Town to track 2 so let's look at the panel down there the route interlock so D-Town to track 2 look at the cheat sheet there are all the descriptions on it well those markings is this the second one from the right you turn it down do you mean this one? yeah so this is P2 to B is that our order? okay I can't move it but it says 1, 2, A and 3, CD so let's go to the right and here you pull the lever 1 and 2, A 3, CD okay okay looks good okay I'm gonna take a look I don't know if you can see this well but I cannot pull it all the way down it's sort of in the middle position maybe this is the wrong one yeah that's possible which one do you think is the right one then? I don't know I don't know can I ask again? I'll take another look at the order so this is B1 from B-Town to track 2 the important thing is what's on the top can you recognize it? yeah so it's B1 B is the signal that our where the train is waiting right now so which one is the right route in the lock here so this is B1 so like one on the left up so I'm gonna reset this one and I'm trying it out if I can't move it up and you cannot because we have to undo what we just did we need to undo the 3CD the 2A and the 1 okay so let's try it again yes this looks better it's all the way up now very nice okay so now we can manipulate the signal well no we cannot move the signal yet what else do we have to do we have to look at the top the route interlock latch is on which one we're looking for so this is B1 B1 to P2 it doesn't have an indicator so it's a DC okay yeah sticks it's white it's great okay now we can use the signal which one should I operate there's a lot of them so B1 the third one from the left so okay the signal indicates go it's green now I hope you can see it and the train is already moving nice okay it's passed good so the dispatcher is moving over to the other side so the next thing we have to do is reset the signal okay yes and then we can just we can't go out again and do the route interlock so I'll try yeah please yeah please yes you're right I cannot put it into the before position so we have to change the clock go to the left yeah sure and then on B1 please press the third lever from B1 to DC town something's happening that looks good that turned white that's good and now we can put the route interlock entity but no it's still not working is there something here that you can see why the reason why it wouldn't work yeah we still have the route interlock latch on so this is something we cannot do ourselves this is something that dispatcher has to do looking out of the window it is at its normal resting point and he's now undoing the route interlock latch now we can reset the route interlock lever and now we still have to confirm to the dispatcher that we've done this so I'm pressing the confirmation button here and that's it congratulations well can someone tell me what the time is so it's 12 parts 11 it's hackily also your name in the world sorry I didn't even get a ticket for the world sorry that's poor but thank you for your participation and you're going to get a badge if you ever show up here in Aumühle thank you very much well so Andreas wanted to say something we were talking about this earlier if you can operate the signal box here in real life when corona is over just come by maybe get together as a group maybe Stefan can take a look at this here and there's also behem that we have here and not so fast so this is a transmission switch and this is the river which is the relay signal at the very end we have the relay signal box the valley and it's if you're a group of up to four people just band together come here and then we can operate all of them at once and you can do a complete yeah complete switching operation here very nice tour you're now in Viva the closest to me right now okay now use your head camera your camera is not on my camera is not on? i can i have a headset i had i heard it so now we have this so i i will stand back to stand back unfortunately there is no audio again there is nothing so we started with a big car we started with a big car we can hear you i learned a lot today i found it very interesting i think it's the same for you all the feedbacks that we got were great and also us we've been helping out here i'm looking forward i'm going to come back in summer and actually press all the buttons myself in order to really learn it i've been talking to Andreas earlier and he said there are still people who are being trained here yes the railway was actually asking us or the DB was asking if it would be possible to actually do training here again in summer and there was actually 16 people here who certified the single box totally certified for training it has everything that you need that was my clip here that was my clip here so you are now so you are now a little bit battered and i'm really surprised that this all worked out so well super i think we are going to close the session here and we are all going to drink martin now bye bye thanks for listening subscribe