Day trip to Dorrington

There are a remarkable five signal boxes dating from the 1870s that control main line train services on the Marches route between Shrewsbury and Newport, with the honour of being oldest of all shared between Marsh Brook to the north of Craven Arms and the box immediately to its north, Dorrington, both of which date from 1872.

Dorrington is a small village on the A49, six miles south of Shrewsbury and roughly mid-way between Shrewsbury and Church Stretton, with the railway and signal box to the east of the village and the former station here having closed as long ago as June 1958.

Getting there today, for those without a car, is relatively simple and involves a 25-minute ride on the Minsterley Motors 435 bus (Shrewsbury to Ludlow) from Shrewsbury Bus Station, an easy three-minute walk from the railway station, and alighting in Dorrington opposite the Horseshoes Inn.

What had caught my eye on my only previous visit to Dorrington (May 2018) was the unusual sight of up (northbound) trains passing an upper quadrant home (DR3) and then a lower quadrant (LQ) section signal, something which I understand would not be permitted under current signalling practice, but occurred when the home signal was renewed.

From its 33-lever frame the box at Dorrington controls just four semaphores, three of which can be seen looking north from the road over-bridge and include a down LQ home signal on a bracket near the box, while the fourth is a down section signal (DR30) that can be seen looking south from the bridge.

Unfortunately a large tree on the west side of the line has grown considerably in the past six years, so from the Station Road over-bridge the up section signal has now almost completely vanished behind the tree’s foliage.

For a closer view of signal DR30 I had noticed on my OS map a footpath running south from the over-bridge on the west side of the line, which brings you to a couple of foot crossings of the line, the first close to this fourth semaphore and the second giving a good vantage point to photograph trains passing the signal.

Picking a day (21 August 2024) when a number of freight services were being diverted via the Marches Line, my aim was to photograph them passing the semaphores, along with the normal passenger workings, that comprise mainly Class 197s, with the occasional Class 150/153 working on the Heart of Wales Line and a few Class 67-powered Cardiff-Manchester services.

Sadly the only Heart of Wales Line Class 153 service due to pass during my three hours at Dorrington was cancelled, but I was lucky enough to see a trio of Class 67-worked Cardiff-Manchester services, as well as two southbound freight workings diverted via the Marches Line – the Tesco container service (4V44) from Daventry to Wentloog and then, an hour later, 6V84 from Clitheroe Castle Cement to Avonmouth.

The one frustration with photographing the TfW Class 67-powered services is not knowing which end the loco will be on. While at Crewe I had seen 67025 propelling 1V37 from Manchester to Cardiff, but then all three of the subsequent locos I saw while at Dorrington (67022/010/013) were at the south (Cardiff) end of their trains.

For those who may have been left wondering, the other three 1870s signal boxes on the Marches Line are Bromfield, just north of Ludlow (1873), and the adjacent boxes at Woofferton Junction and Leominster, both dating from 1875.