Hi Mike,

I believe that the yellow triangles represent temporary speed restrictions.

Carim

My completely uneducated guess here is that the yellow A (for Anfang = start) signs, and thier associated triangles represent the speed beginning there representing 3=30kph, 4=40kph, etc. as others have mentioned. So I went an looked it up in the German signal book PDF....

Lf signs (Langsamfahrt = slow driving):
Temporary slow drive areas are in general indicated via the A and E signals Lf 2 (A on orange) and Lf 3 (E on white) (A: anfang=start, E:ende=end). The signals Lf1, Lf2, Lf3 are not permanently installed and are only placed at the request of the authority controlling that segment of the railroad.


Signal Lf 1 : Slow Speed Sign: "It follows a temporary slow-speed area, where the indicated speed is not to be exceeded."

The starting slow speed signage is confirmed in the DB signal book (www.bahnstatistik.de/Signale/SB-DB.pdf pg18 of 68 )


The A (orange, Lf2) and E (white, Lf 3) signs are apparently always placed back to back (so when heading into the restricted speed area, you see the A, and when exiting it in the other direction at that spot you see the E.

In contrast, the permanently installed speed restrictions...

Signal Lf 4 : Speed sign : "It follows a standing slow-speed area, where the indicated speed is not to be exceeded."
These speed signs are not always posted, and has some conditional descriptions of when it should be used.

This is also from the signal book, pg 19 of 68.


I am puzzled by the sample, with 2 digit values - as those as an Lf 4 would be super high speeds: eg 40 => 400km/h ?!
So I found, much further down in the signal book (pg 55 of 68), the 3 digit Lf 104 sign, under the deprecated signals section that starts on pg 53, and indicates these signals are no longer to be used with the start of the ESO 1959). So my guess is that before 1959, the 2 digit speeds were used of Lf 104, and after 1959 you should be using the 1 digit speeds of Lf 4. So maybe, depending on the era you are modeling one form or the other is correct. Though the deprecated (to be removed ) signs in that section all have dates for when they were "cancelled", bu this Lf 104 sign doesn't have a date... so that may mean ifs still allowed today?


There is a white A (Lf 5), that goes with the starting speeds indicated by the Lf 4 (white) speed triangles, and indicates that at THIS point the speed indicated by the triangular Lf 4 sign must have been attained (ie not that you start slowing by here, but you must already be at that speed at this point)

Yep... as I was walking to lunch and back I thought about what I'd written and was worried it was misleading. You got it right.
The temporary nature is not that the 'speed is temporarily reduced' but that there is a 'temporary adjustment' to the speed. That is, its used only for a limited time because something is going on, such as track or grounds work.

The white triangles with the wide black edge did look odd.. the DDR Reichsbahn may have used that... didn't look that up.

The only downsides with the PDF (other than technical german writing which is dense for anyone), is there is no image search, so when looking for a particular sign/signal you need to have an idea about the category its in and use the table of contents to look there first, or scroll down the document slowly and just watch the pictures fly by and hope to spot what your looking for.

I'm not familiar with the French signage and what the usage of the"stop absolute" is... but in the German document there are
form signals (and lights) for absolute stop (block aka do not enter, do not proceed) that are a white circle with a horizontal black line (or two red ) that can be used to close/shut down a track (see PDF pg 20):



As well as other safety-stop signals that are available.


The platforms typically have an H sign that indicates to the locomotive operator where he is to stop the locomotive so that the cars are positioned properly along the platform. (pg 46)



I would think there is a sign that is intended for similar usage to the French one, but not knowing details of the sign... this is my best guesses.