Droitwich Spa is the northern end of an oasis of semaphore signalling in the Worcester area, where there are a total of eight boxes with at least some mechanical signalling, as far south as Norton Junction and south west as far as Ledbury on the route to Hereford.
Like Shrewsbury and also Worcester Shrub Hill, Droitwich Spa has its celebrity signals – in this case it is the pair of down starting signals (DS8) which are of the centre pivot type (pictured above) similar to those on platform 7 at Shrewsbury.
The Great Western box, dating from 1907 and sadly without a name plate on its front side, stands 300 yards north of the station between the Kidderminster route diverging to the left and the single line to Bromsgrove to the right. Continue reading “Favourite photo-spots: Droitwich Spa”
During the long hot summer of 1976 I arrived at Newhaven Marine on a boat train from London Victoria on my first teenage visit to Paris, boarding a Sealink ferry to Dieppe, where a connecting train whisked me off to Gare St. Lazare in the French capital.
Paying a return visit to Newhaven 41 years later it is sad to see that Newhaven Marine station appears to have just been demolished, albeit more than a decade after it saw its last passengers. It effectively closed in 2006, due to safety concerns, and would be passengers were re-directed to the nearby Harbour station. 
Anyone with an interest in our signalling heritage simply must pay a visit to Shrewsbury, home to the world’s largest working mechanical signal box, Severn Bridge Junction. This is one of three boxes that can be seen from the station platforms, along with more than two dozen working mechanical signals.
Amongst these, the real gem is SBJ11, a pair of extremely rare lower quadrant centre pivot signals controlling the southern end of platform 7. Severn Bridge Junction is one of two listed boxes at Shrewsbury, the other being the almost equally impressive Crewe Junction box at the north end of the station, where the route to Crewe diverges from the line to Chester. 
RailwayWorld.net 
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