Tim Dunn presents his top ten signal boxes

Let’s be honest: most of us national network users and steam railway visitors look at signal boxes with an envious eye. In fact, I refuse to believe that any SR reader has never coveted a look inside one.

For these structures are some of the most hallowed of hallowed turfs of the railway: they’re special places, and don’t we know it. Because down here on the ground we know that up there – up those steps, usually – are the brains of the operation. These cabins are the lookouts; the hides; the eyes and ears of the railway. If you want to know the precise workings of a railway, don’t go asking a general manager or a hassled stationmaster. For if you want to know how a railway – be it the national network or a 7¼in gauge club line – is really running, you ask a signaller, because it is they who really have control and, from their glassed-in observation posts, see it all.

In compiling this, my second round-up of buildings in this series for Steam Railway, I thought that choosing signal boxes would be a doddle. Easy, I thought, listing out my own personal favourites in under a minute. But then I remembered another dozen rather interesting little signal cabins and boxes. And… and then another dozen. Those self-appointed rules I set myself for these lists (e.g. “it counts if it’s on the national network and sometimes has main line steam specials running past it”) are now already causing me more problems than they solve. Hmmmm. Let’s see how rigid my rules are as this feature series progresses.

So, with this piece I bring both good and bad news. The good news is that there are scores of fabulous signal boxes surviving happily all over the British Isles representing a wide range of eras, operating practices, styles and locations. There’s also a healthy and imaginative variety of preservation tactics in evidence, as well as guidance for would-be preservationists who wish to save their local decommissioned Network Rail example.

The bad news is that I can choose only ten [Lucky it’s only ten, Tim, else your copy would have been filed even later past the deadline, etc. Ed.] so your favourite mightn’t be here. But, as ever, these are ten of the best, not the ten best, and

I’d welcome your own favourites via SR’s Facebook and Twitter.

Leek Brook Junction

First up is probably a surprise: it’s not even much of a looker. But it’s one of Britain’s oldest; it is the oldest North Staffs box, and it’s an unusual design by manufacturers McKenzie & Holland of the late 1860s. Earlier signal boxes are few; they were often built of wood around the lever frames and were simply demolished and replaced as the track layouts got more complex and the lever frames were extended. But this brick version survived: and it’s before that period of decoration and frilly bits with which we often associate the late Victorian railway. Its importance was noted officially by Historic England in 2008, thanks to valiant work by Churnet Valley Railway volunteers; I’m pleased we’re including it too in The Architecture the Railways Built on Yesterday channel, on Monday November 1.

Princes Risborough North

Rescued and under restoration by the ever-determined Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway volunteers, being on a former major junction they have in their care the largest box in preservation. It’s also the largest GWR-design box. It’s interesting to compare this to Leek Brook Junction; by 1904 many of the railway companies had their own house styles rather than off-the-shelf designs by McKenzie & Holland or that other great signalling manufacturer, Saxby & Farmer. You know a GWR box when you see one, just as you know a Midland box, by its styling. But they still follow that form of an elevated observation and operations room – not just for visibility, but to sit above all that interlocking equipment below, mandated for safety purposes. The box is open on selected days and although there are relatively few tracks now, with live feeds from Network Rail and plans to restore more of the interior, you can still get a feel for the great days of the country railway junction.

Hebden Bridge

Next is a main line example. I often say this, but our national network is not a museum: it is infrastructure. That we retain so much that is old was often due to cost of replacement rather than an honest desire to cherish it; at least in some quarters. But today, historically important or interesting parts are usually looked after well; while there are more than 160 listed signal boxes on the network (i.e. they are regarded as being buildings of national importance), like Hebden Bridge not all have a use as a signal box. Hebden Bridge box is now in the custodianship of a local community trust: it has found ways to obtain Grant Aid from the Railway Heritage Trust, National Lottery Heritage Fund and more to restore the interior, create simulations and turn the ground floor into quirky overnight accommodation. This is a shining example of what can be done.

St Albans South

“A white wooden wreck that sagged in one corner” is perhaps the best way of describing the 1892 Midland Railway box at St Albans South as it was in dereliction circa 2002. Often that is where buildings’ stories end, as people look on, nod sadly at each other and say “somebody should do something”, but then nobody ever does, because nodding, sadly, is easy, and doing is hard. But some local folk didn’t just nod, they did. And they formed a trust, and a plan, and a proposal. And they worked with Network Rail and they got things done. Today the box is restored and it is splendid: it is a reason to visit St Albans and it makes an awful lot of people very happy indeed. It is ace; it rightly keeps winning awards and they should all be very proud.

Williton

I like Williton because it’s a little bit odd. It was built by the Bristol & Exeter Railway who clearly thought it knew better than the experts (i.e. the major signal box manufacturers) so here they’ve used wide brick corner pillars and a wide central pillar between windows: not great for visibility. But it’s also one of those enjoyable locations where the signaller has control of the level crossing too; it reminds us that railway signallers can be not just in control of the coming and goings of trains – but can control the entire vehicular access to a town.

Horsted Keynes South

Described by some at the Bluebell Railway as “one of the brightest jewels in our crown” it is Grade II-listed, along with the rest of the station buildings group. It’s also a unique LBSCR-designed box, with a cottage-style feel to the exterior and a snug, well-fitted interior. It’s an unlikely survivor owing to a quirk of operations in Southern days, but in reality has been completely refitted with appropriatelooking equipment to enable it to control – via an extremely complex mix of mechanical and electrical interlocking – what is now a very busy station indeed.

Staverton North

It really is barely more than a box, this little cabin. Punching above its weight in the fame stakes perhaps because it has been the subject of a staple ‘OO’ gauge model railway kit for years, it is a neat structure that essentially provides cover for the small station’s ground lever frame. It is, however, fully operational and contains all the necessary block signalling equipment. What isn’t that well known, perhaps, is that while this is the original box of 1912, by the time the railway preservationists bought the line, a local vicar had already acquired the building and was using it in his garden as a greenhouse. A replacement was soon found for him and the box was swiftly returned to the trackside.

Settle

If you can’t save a building where it is, you either move it, or you get rid of it. Sometimes it’s easy to move a signal box, or at least the top storey, if it’s made of wood. Sometimes you can take advantage of a track possession to get a crane plus lorry into the right place. But the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Railway couldn’t get a lorry in to transport Settle Station Signal Box 150 yards to the north (to enable site redevelopment) but over one night in 1997 the box was craned on to six rail trolleys straddling both main lines and, incredibly, volunteers pushed the entire structure up the gradient whereupon it was craned off again to its new location at the top. This classic Midland Railway box of 1891 has since been restored, refitted and turned into an extremely engaging demonstration of signalling heritage.