Pen & Sword Transport – ISBN: 9781526714732
https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Britains-Last-Mechanical-Signalling-Hardback/p/16355
Almost a century after the first colour light signals appeared on Britain’s railways in the early 1920s there are still a considerable number of places where the passage of trains is controlled by the Victorian technology of a signaller in a signal box pulling a mechanical lever that will tug up to ¾ mile of wire that then moves a signal arm up or down.
Replacement of mechanical signalling has been going on in earnest since the 1960s and continues apace, with losses over the past couple of years at Blackpool, North Wales, Humberside, and at a number of locations in Scotland. Next to go will be the delightful Wherry Lines between Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. Continue reading “Gareth’s next book – out now!”
Having been to the same school as one of the two engineers who designed it (Sir Benjamin Baker), I have always had a special affection for what, three years ago, was voted Scotland’s greatest man-made wonder, the truly remarkable and iconic Forth Bridge.
After recent visits to Britain’s most south-westerly semaphores (St. Erth) and our most easterly (Lowestoft), another bargain-price Scotrail Club 50 £17.00 flat fare offer gave me the chance to pay a welcome return visit to our most northerly outposts of mechanical signalling.
Grandest of the seven surviving signal boxes along the Wherry Lines from Norwich to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft must surely be Yarmouth Vauxhall, a Great Eastern Railway type 4 Design that dates from 1884 and boasts a 63-lever Saxby & Farmer frame.
After what seemed like an interminable wait, users of the North London orbital rail service linking Gospel Oak with Barking finally have the train-set and services they have been waiting for, and a good service it seems too.
Two remarkable outposts of mechanical signalling are the neighbouring West Sussex resorts of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, which have somehow outlived a re-signalling of the Mid-Sussex Line south of Horsham.
Co-acting signals were once a fairly common feature of our railways, but are now an endangered species. There are only three remaining examples on the national network, of which one will disappear early next year and another is threatened by potential electrification and re-signalling.
Paying a return visit to the Wherry Lines, principally to photograph Cantley’s famous co-acting signal, it was good to see more evidence of the new Class 755 units than on my visit to Lowestoft at the beginning of the month.