Less than two months from now and the Wherry Lines transformation will reach its final stage, with a three-week shutdown to complete and commission long-delayed re-signalling of the lines from Norwich to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft.
Already this year we have seen the end of loco-hauled Class 37 services and, more recently, the rather less-lamented exit of the single car Class 153 “Scuds”, as the new Class 755 units make their delayed appearance.
Having written many articles about the line’s signalling attractions over the past three years, I was delighted to be invited by Network Rail to pay visits on Tuesday, 3 December to the five splendid signal boxes that will close early next year.
On my first ever visit to Poland 30 years ago (October 1989) I paid a visit to the country’s last steam-worked narrow gauge railway, a charmingly rural line that ran 14 kms westwards from a town called Sroda to the south of Poznan.
Transport and the railways was never going to take centre stage in an election that is dominated by Brexit and the NHS, but with all the manifestos now published there are a pretty wide range of promises being made to improve and expand our rail services.
Daily steam working will now continue from Wolsztyn in western Poland into 2020, at least until the famous May Day Parade event, and there is even the prospect of extended weekday operations from the world-famous depot.
Having been to the same school as one of the two engineers who designed it (Sir Benjamin Baker), I have always had a special affection for what, three years ago, was voted Scotland’s greatest man-made wonder, the truly remarkable and iconic Forth Bridge.
After recent visits to Britain’s most south-westerly semaphores (St. Erth) and our most easterly (Lowestoft), another bargain-price Scotrail Club 50 £17.00 flat fare offer gave me the chance to pay a welcome return visit to our most northerly outposts of mechanical signalling.
Grandest of the seven surviving signal boxes along the Wherry Lines from Norwich to Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft must surely be Yarmouth Vauxhall, a Great Eastern Railway type 4 Design that dates from 1884 and boasts a 63-lever Saxby & Farmer frame.
After what seemed like an interminable wait, users of the North London orbital rail service linking Gospel Oak with Barking finally have the train-set and services they have been waiting for, and a good service it seems too.
Two remarkable outposts of mechanical signalling are the neighbouring West Sussex resorts of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, which have somehow outlived a re-signalling of the Mid-Sussex Line south of Horsham.
Co-acting signals were once a fairly common feature of our railways, but are now an endangered species. There are only three remaining examples on the national network, of which one will disappear early next year and another is threatened by potential electrification and re-signalling.
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