Category: Photo-Spots

There are numerous photogenic locations on the Cumbrian Coast route from Lancaster to Barrow and on to Workington and Carlisle, but one which I found particularly attractive was Ulverston, birthplace of comedian Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame, and home to an attractive Grade II-listed station. This opened in 1874, replacing an earlier Furness Railway terminus station on completion of the route to Barrow.

It has an unusual layout similar to that at Yeovil Pen Mill in having an island platform and a main down platform with platform 2 not in regular use (and not numbered) so all up trains serve platform 3, while in the down (westbound) direction train doors are only opened on platform 1. Continue reading “Favourite photo-spots: Ulverston”

Despite having been scheduled for replacement during 2016, Yeovil Pen Mill signal box remains an isolated outpost of semaphore signalling in the south of England, where the nearest surviving manual signals are those at Liskeard in Cornwall and at Marchwood on the freight-only Fawley branch near Southampton.

Pen Mill is a delightful station, standing on the eastern side of the town alongside the Pittards leather goods factory, with relatively easy opportunities to photograph signalling at either ends of the station and two excellent pubs close by (the Great Western and the Pen Mill Hotel) to pass the time between trains. Continue reading “Favourite photo-spots: Yeovil Pen Mill”

Controlling an important junction south of Shrewsbury between the Marches Line to Newport and the Heart of Wales line to Llanelli is Craven Arms Crossing, which was once one of two signal boxes here, along with one at the station itself, some 300 yards to the south.

While the box itself looks more like an East German border post than a traditional signal box, and the station has long been reduced to basic “bus shelters” on each platform, the station footbridge and platform ends offer a splendid vantage point from which to appreciate the collection of lower quadrant semaphore signals that are  a feature of the Marches Line. Continue reading “Favourite photo-spots: Craven Arms”