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In terms of running railways, signals are mechanical and electrical devices erected beside a railway to pass information relating to the state of the line ahead of the engine. Signalmen use these to direct an engine's crew to make certain movements or to stop from their signal boxes.

History[]

One winter, Henry was pulling The Flying Kipper when he collided with a goods train because snow and ice forced the signal down, making it appear that the line was clear by displaying the wrong aspic lunar for "Diverging" instead of red for "Danger".

On Sodor, most signals are lower-quadrant, meaning they point downward to indicate "go". Gordon and James once played a trick on Percy with nonexistent "backing signals", so that when Percy came to an upper-quadrant signal which went up instead of down to indicate that he could go, he thought it was a "backing signal".

Trivia[]

  • Since the thirteenth series, signals have a different sound when changing.
  • Throughout the television series, some of the signals are incorrectly shown with the coloured side pointing to the right and the black and white side pointing to the left. Additionally, the yellow arm distant signals all have a red light on them, but in real life, they only have a yellow/amber light.
  • Occasionally in the CGI series, the signals face the wrong way, as the glass that the light shines through are on the side the engines are not facing.

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