One single track. Two signal boxes. You can only see your own — so say it out loud.
Two signal boxes. About six minutes a shift — the line's clock runs fast.
Talk however you like — same room, a phone call, or the message box in the game.
On your own you work both boxes — you see both halves, so it is practice. The real game is two people.
No app, no account, no name required.
Type the four letters the other signaller gave you.
Your code. Send it to whoever is working the other box.
One single track between the boxes. Only one train may be in it at a time, so nothing moves unless the far box says it can.
Your own roads — platform, loop, yard, shed — and the trains standing at them. Your neighbour's line is a lamp and nothing else. You cannot see their roads, their trains or their book.
Working orders and notices for your neighbour's trains and premises — never your own. Theirs has yours. Your board prints what was booked; their book says what has changed since. That is the whole game: read a card, say it out loud, and ask for what you cannot see.
Some cards change nothing. Read them out anyway — the Notice counts every card you kept to yourself. Some arrive mid-shift.
ASK LINE CLEAR — offer a train to the far box, naming where it is going.
GIVE LINE CLEAR — accept it, if you can take it. HOLD THE LINE if you cannot.
SEND INTO SECTION — once it has been given.
TAKE WATER / TAKE COAL — some trains want them first, at a box that has them.
TO THE PLATFORM / LOOP / YARD / SHED — put an arrived train where its book says.
If that road will not take it, SHUNT costs minutes and DETACH breaks it up.
A train goes where it is booked or it is shunted. It blocks the section until it is dealt with, so a road you were not told about is expensive.
One strike — somebody is asking you for the road.
Two strikes — a train is entering the section.
Two, pause, one — the section is cleared.
Telegraph chatter — a new notice has reached your book.
A wooden knock — that was refused.
You will not have to remember these — the line above the board always says what just happened.
When every working — every train on tonight's card — is away, you get a Notice of Delay: what was booked against what happened, and every card that was never read out.