Signal box in my bedroom?.

[Mickey]

Leading on from another topic on this page reminds me of the time between the years 1967/68-75 or there abouts when i turned my bedroom into a signal box!. The idea came in part from a picture of HADDISCO JUNCTION that was a 'mock up' of a signal box in the Science museum in London. I had a x3 lever frame 'full size wooden levers' from the frame up. No1 lever WHITE spare. No2 lever BLACK points. No3 lever RED with a white band (line clear release). Above the lever frame a 'block shelf' and x2 block instruments one a MIDLAND RAILWAY block with a pegging handle from COLLECTOR'S CORNER in Evershott street, Euston in 1970 and the other a bock bell from FERME PARK SOUTH DOWN and a 'Closing switch' also from FERME PARK SOUTH DOWN s/box in 1971. The track diagram changed at different times whatever s/box took my fancy which meant that i had loads of track diagrams of s/boxes usually between GOODS & MINERAL JUNCTION to HOLME. Also sometimes i would fancy changing the 's/box' to a Midland Railway s/box which meant places like DENT HEAD, st ALBANS SOUTH & NORTH as well as several other M.R. s/boxes. To top it off i had an upper quadrant semaphore Home signal (a home made & painted arm) on a 3ft wooden post also in my bedroom that was worked by No3 lever.
Take a child at seven (in my case ten) and i will show you the man at (?) as the saying goes?, well i spent most of my working life in signal boxes accept for several years in the mid/late '70s after the s/boxes on the G.N. had closed. With a copy of the Ian Alan book of BRITISH RAILWAYS SIGNALLING that i bought in 1968 i was well away with all the different bell codes and lever colours as well as all the 'emergency regulations' i.e Examination of the line, Train passed without tail lamp, Obstruction Danger, Working in wrong direction etc etc all very useful in my railway life.

[hq1hitchin]

Leading on from another topic on this page reminds me of the time between the years 1967/68-75 or there abouts when i turned my bedroom into a signal box!. The idea came in part from a picture of HADDISCO JUNCTION that was a 'mock up' of a signal box in the Science museum in London. I had a x3 lever frame 'full size wooden levers' from the frame up. No1 lever WHITE spare. No2 lever BLACK points. No3 lever RED with a white band (line clear release). Above the lever frame a 'block shelf' and x2 block instruments one a MIDLAND RAILWAY block with a pegging handle from COLLECTOR'S CORNER in Evershott street, Euston in 1970 and the other a bock bell from FERME PARK SOUTH DOWN and a 'Closing switch' also from FERME PARK SOUTH DOWN s/box in 1971. The track diagram changed at different times whatever s/box took my fancy which meant that i had loads of track diagrams of s/boxes usually between GOODS & MINERAL JUNCTION to HOLME. Also sometimes i would fancy changing the 's/box' to a Midland Railway s/box which meant places like DENT HEAD, st ALBANS SOUTH & NORTH as well as several other M.R. s/boxes. To top it off i had an upper quadrant semaphore Home signal (a home made & painted arm) on a 3ft wooden post also in my bedroom that was worked by No3 lever.
Take a child at seven (in my case ten) and i will show you the man at (?) as the saying goes?, well i spent most of my working life in signal boxes accept for several years in the mid/late '70s after the s/boxes on the G.N. had closed. With a copy of the Ian Alan book of BRITISH RAILWAYS SIGNALLING that i bought in 1968 i was well away with all the different bell codes and lever colours as well as all the 'emergency regulations' i.e Examination of the line, Train passed without tail lamp, Obstruction Danger, Working in wrong direction etc etc all very useful in my railway life.

and Noggy Nye will be in your dreams soon to pass you out, young Michael

[Mickey]

Hello hq1hitchin, i guess it was abit strange turning my bedroom into a signal box but it was almost like a modern day simulator!. I was only a youngster at the time but it was pretty good practice for what came later on!. I had a few other things as well like a couple of block shelf signal indicators of the B.R. London Midland region type which showed the signal arm and not like the signal indicators on the Eastern region. I had a couple of London Midand lever badges on my levers which looked overall pretty much like a 'real lever frame' in a box and believe it or not i could actually reverse these levers and put them back normal. Finally to top it off i had a desk with a train register book which was easy to get hold of at that time from COLLECTOR'S CORNER in Evershott street near Euston station they were selling them for 50p each also like i said they were also 'flogging off' Midland Railway block instruments for a few quid as well. I could have also bought either SKINNER STREET JUNCTION, NEW INN YARD or MAIDEN LANE's complete redundent track diagrams for a £10 each and put one on my bedroom wall but i use to like changing the s/box diagrams around every few weeks. By the way when i said that i had the track diagrams for all the s/boxes between GOODS & MINERAL JUNCTION and HOLME i meant that i had 'home made drawings' and NOT the original track diagrams.
All in all i enjoyed it thats what i meant a few months ago i use to eat drink & sleep railways 24/7 back in those days!.

[kudu]

Did you reach your bedroom by ascending an outside ladder?

Hope so.

Kudu

[Mickey]

Unfortunetly kudu i got into the 'signal box' via the bedroom stairs but if i could have got in via an outside staircase that would have been great but i don't reckon my old ma would have been very keen on that idea somehow!.

[strang steel]

Micky, you are my hero.

I wish that I could have had that set-up in my bedroom, but my parents would have said a big NO right from the start.

I was always fascinated by signalboxes as a child, but my mother was far too middle class (oh dear - euphemism for a snob) to allow me to have anything to do with that career. I managed to 'talk' my way into a few boxes including Essendine, but on trips to London I looked at Goods & Mineral Junction and just wished I could have been there in the last years of steam.

John

[R. pike]

Discovering Collectors Corner was a big landmark in my interest in railway signalling.. I was probably 11 or 12 the first time i found my way there. I remember seeing a pile of block instruments in the middle of the floor. I convinced the parents that a birthday present from there would be just about the most fantastic thing a young lad could ever have. I chose an LNER style lamp repeater unit, that i still have in use in my Ely North Junction. I already had a lamp case with pyrometer and a nice LNER lamp to go in it. I scrounged some drop wire from the skip at the telephone exchange and within a few days i had it all lashed together with an old car battery under a bucket in the garden with the lamp indicator unit on a shelf in my bedroom... All went well unit my meagre supply of paraffin ran out after about two days... I remember the hour most distinctly. It was 03:10 by my bedside clock. I was rather unpopular.

[Mickey]

John (strang steel) thanks for the vote of appreciation and it looks like Richard P. was into signalling at an early age as well. A few months ago i posted some other signalling projects that i was doing at the sametime chaz harrison on this forum noted it. At the far end of our garden i had on a 3 or 4ft 'home made' signal post that carried a upper quadrant Home & Distant signal. I managed to copy the 'slotting arrangement' which was quite simple (believe it or not) from the Ian Alan book on BRITISH RAILWAYS SIGNALLING published in 1968 and run the 'signal wire' from the signal post about 20 yds to my lever frame and connected it all up. When i pulled the Home signal off the Home came off!. When i pulled the Distant signal off below the Home signal the Distant came off!. When i replaced the Home signal lever BOTH Home & Distant signals went back 'ON' with the Distant signal lever still reversed in the lever frame JUST LIKE THE REAL THING!. Those two signals looked really good at night because i had them ILLUMINATED they looked really GOOD.
Now for the 'big one' once i had those two upper quadrant signals up and working i decided to make a G.N.R. somersault Home signal which actually turned out 'very good' even to the point of when i pulled it to the 'off position' the signal arm always came off at the angle of like a real somersault signal did several degrees short of the 'true off' indication.
I wish i had took some pictures but i was only about 11, 12, 13 & 14 at the time. Yes you was right there Richard that old COLLECTOR'S CORNER in Evershott street near Euston station in 1970 was a great place for picking up stuff, you was right they had about 8 or 9 Midland & L.N.W.R. block instuments set up in a line that anybody could 'mess about on' if they wanted to.

[R. pike]

My first visit to a box was at the age of five or six. I remember not being able to turn the gatewheel let alone pull any levers... A later visit to the same box revealed the gates had been replaced by barriers but i couldn't hold the button in long enough to get the barriers down.

[Mickey]

TEMPSFORD i liked that box theres a nice picture of that box on John's website. I presume that you knew that there was an earlier box that was replaced by the box that we remember Richard. That later box was a fair size box but when i knew the layout in the early 70s it was just 'four straight roads' i think with the level crossing with the barriers. EVERTON s/box to the south and st NEOTS (south) s/box to the north. Access to BARFORD power station was via st NEOTS s/box i believe although i see by the TEMPSFORD track diagram it was shown.

[R. pike]

And my first signal arm came from Everton... much to the astonishment of my Father. We watched the S&T change the blade on one of the up road signals and as they walked back to their van i ran over and asked if i could have it. Dad had no idea i was going to do that. Again i must have been around five or six at the time.

[52D]

Is that the Tempsford up Bedford way where Glenn Miller made his last flight from.(Note to youngsters on the forum google Glen Miller).

[R. pike]

Tempsford is not far from Bedford (though i wouldn't be wanting a leak there and having to take in Bedford)..

I thought Mr. Miller made his last flight from Twinwoods, even nearer to Bedford?

[Mickey]

Anyway there was several things on the telly in the late 1960s that featured Signalmen. The first that i remember was a 'one off play' of this old fella who may have been a onetime Signalman who was now retired and he use to sit by the window all day that over looked the railway watching the passing trains. In his frontroom he had rigged up x2 semaphore stop signals mounted above the doorway, the first signal (when cleared) gave his daughter and son-in-law access to the kitchin and the other signal (when cleared) gave access to the passage way and to the front door which i thought was pretty interesting but the son-in-law was none to pleased with this 'bull' and one day 'passed at danger' the signal leading to the kitchin much to the 'old mans' remonstrations!.
The other play featured a Signalman and a booking boy (an older man) in a Southern Railway s/box somewhere in a south London goods yard, the play centers on the personalities of the two men one the Signalman who dominates the booking boy but in the end pays for it when the booking boy ends up 'killing the Signalman' in the box!. This play did show (in the studio) a 'mock up' of the interior of a signal box complete with a 'fair size' lever frame and a block shelf with a track diagram which all looked pretty authentic to me. Both these two tv plays appeared on the telly around 1969/70.

[Mickey]

A third play on the telly may have been shown as a BBC TV 'Play for the day' which again featured a couple of Signalmen one a younger man and the other an older man. I don't remember to much about this play other than there appears to have had been a 'trade union' dimension to it but again there was a 'mock up' of an interior of a signal box (in the tv studio). In one of the memorable later scenes i recall that the older Signalman is responsible for an accident which involved (what looked like to me) a 'real' Britannia locomotive which would have dated this play at sometime before early 1968 i think possibly 1967?. The older Signalman realized to late that there was going to be an accident and was waving a 'red handlamp' out of the s/box window but it was all to late and this Britannia loco went into the back of another goods train injuring the driver and maybe the fireman?.
There was some pretty interesting railway telly back in that era.