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. Continue reading “Weymouth’s wasted asset”
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.
Tourists are pretty thin on the ground during November in the West Highlands so, ever anxious to avoid crowds, and taking the opportunity offered by ScotRail’s seasonal Club 50 £17.00 flat fare (remarkable value for a 514-mile round trip from Edinburgh) it seemed a good time to make a long overdue return to Kyle of Lochalsh.
At 01.04 on Saturday 11 November 2017, the 23.30 hrs Northern Rail service from Manchester Airport will draw into Platform 6 at Blackpool North station and go down in railway history as the last train to be signalled into the station by Blackpool North No. 2 Signal Box and its splendid semaphore signals.
Once the empty stock has left the station, it will be closed for complete re-building, the signals and box demolished, and the 17.5-mile line from Preston shut to until next spring, as work begins in earnest on the route’s modernisation, electrification and re-signalling. This diagram inside the signal box shows the final truncated layout, with just four remaining platforms. 
My nationwide quest to visit every possible location in England, Scotland and Wales that still has semaphore signalling comes to a glorious end at a remarkable outpost of mechanical signalling, and one that for much of the year controls the daily movement of steam-hauled trains.
Parbold was a really delightful discovery in West Lancashire, a small town just over ten minutes travel time on a Southport-bound train from Wigan Wallgate, itself almost alongside the main Station, Wigan North Western, on the West Coast Main Line.
Paying a brief return to Humberside’s fine semaphore signals (see my earlier post “Humberside’s semaphore swansong”) it is heartening – and not surprising – to hear that the timescale for completion of the resignalling project has slipped several months from the planned date of spring 2018.
Veteran signaller Alan Hayward has put up a commemorative sign reading 1896-2017 in one window and is already counting down the handful of shifts he still has to work in Poulton No 3 Signal Box before its final closure – and his early retirement – in less than two months’ time, on Saturday, 11 November.
Like four other remaining signal boxes on the 17.5-mile route from Preston to Blackpool North, the last of what were once five signal boxes at Poulton-le-Fylde will be swept away as the route is closed for its long-awaited electrification and re-signalling, a transformation set to take until at least next May to be completed. 
Work is expected to begin early next year on an ambitious £1 million eight-month long project to restore the historic Rewley Road Swing Bridge at Oxford, more than 30 years after the last freight train trundled across it in May 1984. Despite having long since lost its rail services, the bridge remains owned by Network Rail and stands close to the main railway line just north of Oxford station.
Looking at the massive success of London Overground in reinvigorating rail corridors around the capital, such as the North London, East London and South London Lines, it is perhaps remarkable that there is one short stretch of line in North London where time has seemingly stood still, with control by semaphore signals and a sparse traffic comprising the occasional slow-moving freight train and empty stock movements between the capital’s termini.
RailwayWorld.net 
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