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”
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. 
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.
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.
2017 was supposed to have been the year that re-signalling of the Leicester to Peterborough line saw its last mechanical signalling swept away, with closure of the nine remaining signal boxes along this important cross-country route.
Ten years ago today (18 December 2007) Grand Central Railway Company (GC) finally got onto the national railway network, when its first scheduled passenger service left Sunderland for London Kings Cross.
Gold Card (annual season ticket) holders in what is now the South Western Railway (SWR) franchise area have, without warning, lost a great perk of their long-term loyalty to the railway.
My round trip once again took me from Stansted to Plovdiv, for a night in the splendid Alliance Hotel, a five-minute stroll from the railway station, before a 30-minute trip the following day to Septemvri. From here there are four round trips a day on the narrow gauge line, the earliest of which leaves at the unearthly hour of 02.05, with the most civilised departure being my chosen service, the Mesta, at 13.10 (all services on this route are named). 
A bright red aspect still shines out from signal DR205, more than 30 years after the last scheduled train passed it in order to make its way towards Weymouth Quay station, by travelling along what must surely be the finest and most wasted section of railway line in Dorset – the 1.2 mile long Weymouth Harbour Tramway.
For a route last used when a charter train passed over it in May 1999, the Harbour Tramway remains remarkably intact, still signalled at its junction north of Weymouth’s Town station and surprisingly free of obstructions, such as the parked cars that were once literally bounced out of the way when the Channel Isles Boat Express made its sedate progress along Commercial Road and Custom House Quay. 
Comments made by Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and widely reported today suggest the he, at least, may finally have seen the light and realised that re-opening closed rail links to fast-growing towns and areas that have developed significantly over the past 50 years is far better value than committing infinite sums to HS2.
RailwayWorld.net 
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