A large and imposing signal gantry spans the railway tracks at the western end of Ballarat station adjacent to the Lydiard Street gates. The signal gantry had 4 posts, 26 to 29, which had signals facing east and west. The posts include both home and calling on signals. Operated by levers in Ballarat B Box, the signals controlled movements through Ballarat Station.
The gantry was built some time ago, but has sat unfinished awaiting the signal arms, lens, lamps and ladders to be added.
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| Signal gantry and Lydiard Street gates. Note the burnt out clocktower in the background. |
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| W266 runs under the signal gantry with a pilot working. |
The gantry has been made out of styrene strip and brass wire, with offcuts of rail used for the main posts. The ladders are from old Ratio signals, and the larger ladder to the platform is from Central Valley. The lamps are offcuts of styrene rod.
The signal arms are photos scaled to the appropriate size and printed onto adhesive film and then stuck onto 20thou white styrene sheet. The lens are produced the same way but are stuck to clear styrene, with a hobby knife used to carefully out the kidney shape. A black sharpee pen is used to touch up the edges of the lens frame. I use this method for the lens as when the light is from the right direction it reflects through the lens.
I have made a couple of arms able to be manually moved, the others including all the calling on arms are fixed in position. The gantry has been weathered with powders, but I still need to do the signal posts and ladders. The build has been bit of a learning process, which hopefully I can apply to all the other signals I still need to build for Ballarat yard and Ballarat East.
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