Month: January 2018

Re-signalling in the Barnetby area at the end of 2015 may have removed some of the finest remaining semaphore signals on the national network, but it did not completely spell the end of mechanical signalling in North Lincolnshire.

Besides the three recently-renewed semaphores at Gainsborough Central (featured in my previous post: Back to Brigg), and one semaphore protecting the Brigg Line at nearby Gainsborough Trent Junction, another surviving outpost is on the fascinating Barton-on-Humber branch line. Continue reading “Wooden gates and semaphores in North East Lincolnshire”

Monday, 1 October 2018 will mark a significant and unwelcome anniversary in the history of the 21-mile long rail link from Trent Junction near Gainsborough to Barnetby via Brigg in Lincolnshire. It will be a quarter of a century to the day since the axing of daily passenger trains on this direct route from Sheffield to Grimsby and Cleethorpes in 1993, and their replacement with a token “Parliamentary” Saturdays-only service.

Paying a long overdue return visit to a route I had not travelled since withdrawal of daily services, I was keen to see at first hand the Brigg Line Group’s success at building passenger numbers along the line. So, after an early morning bus ride from Barton-on-Humber to Brigg town centre, I made my way to the station for a trip on the first departure of the day, the 09.26 service to Cleethorpes. Continue reading “Back to Brigg”

Greenford East Signal Box in north-west London is a remarkable survivor. This 1904-vintage Great Western Railway box is the last of its kind in Greater London, and the only place in the capital where the line is controlled by lower quadrant semaphore signals.

Not only this, but if one counts the daily Chiltern Railways “Parliamentary” train to and from London Paddington as a genuine service (see my earlier post: “Ghost train to Paddington”), then these are also the last semaphore signals in the London area controlling passenger services. Continue reading “London’s last lower quadrant semaphore signals”

Henwick Signal Box is probably best known as the place where trains were famously delayed one day almost five years ago (in February 2013), when a luckless signaller got trapped in the toilet! Happily it now has another distinction.

Work is nearing completion near the box on reinstating a turnback siding, to allow services terminating at nearby Worcester Foregate Street to clear the station before returning towards Birmingham or London, with exit from the siding being controlled by new signal HK9. Continue reading “Britain’s newest semaphore set for service”