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!”
After my return last month to Britain’s most southerly semaphores at St Erth in Cornwall, it was time for what will probably be my final visit to our most easterly semaphores, namely those at Lowestoft Central.
Class 37-haulage may finally be at an end on the Wherry Lines, but there are still a few months left to appreciate another charming aspect of these routes from Norwich to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.
Imagine an attractive and rural corner of Central Europe where you can travel on your own steam-hauled narrow gauge train just as the sun is rising, and then spend all day riding a vast narrow gauge network for around £13 a day.
Built and opened in 1978 for a bargain price of just £50,000, Lelant Saltings Park & Ride was an instant success, and for more than four decades it was the place where thousands of visitors to St Ives left their cars and took a scenic four-mile train ride to the bustling artistic capital of Cornwall.
Closure of the former Park & Ride site at nearby Lelant Saltings, and development of a large new car park south of the station, has seen some significant changes at St. Erth station, that delightful junction in South West Cornwall for the branch line to St. Ives. 
Just three miles from the National Railway Museum is the start of one of Britain’s finest remaining outposts of mechanical signalling, the 17½ miles of railway route between Harrogate and Poppleton, a growing village north-west of York city centre.
