British Railway Signalling

Newton Abbot North's down inner home gantry prior to resignalling

I have been interested in railway signals for almost as long as I can remember. As a small boy I was often taken out on the Malvern commons, adjacent to the former GWR line from Worcester to Hereford, and I would watch the trains as they went by - steam, of course, in those days - and the signals being cleared for each train and put back afterwards. My grandfather had been a stationmaster in Malvern and our whole family understood trains and signals. When I got a bit older, he explained how the signalling system works, and what actually happens inside those mysterious signal boxes - and I was hooked!

In my early teens I started travelling around on the railways, and in the summer I would get a week-long rover ticket covering the whole of the Midlands. I already had a camera by then, so I started to photograph as many interesting signals as I could find. Most of the other rail fans I knew were mainly interested in locomotives, so it struck me that somebody ought to be pointing a camera at these signals, as the traditional semaphore variety were rapidly disappearing by then. Apart from being very colourful, there was a wonderful variety of unique configurations and many different styles of former railway companies.

I won't labour you with detailed explanations of signalling here. Though its basic principles are simple, the details are complex and technical, so aren't everyone's cup of tea. But, in any case, John Hinson's superb Home Signal page already contains far more comprehensive a knowledge base than I could ever muster, brilliantly presented too. I have also listed a few links to other key sites below. If you do want to know more, these are the places to start looking. So I'll leave the technical details to these experts, and concentrate here on sharing some highlights from my photo collection, as well as my reasons for finding a passion for signals!

As an aperitif, therefore, the signal above used to control the northern entrance to Newton Abbot station in Devon, on the ex-GWR West of England main line. Sadly, it was replaced by colour-light signals when the Exeter area was resignalled. It has four 'dolls' because there were four possible lines a passing train could be routed onto. The higher the doll, the more important the route - the second line from the left was the main running line here. This is a lower-quadrant signal, as was standard on the GWR and the former Western Region of BR as it became - this means the arms move to point roughly 45° downwards to give a clear indication to the trains. In doing so, this also brings the green spectacle lens in front of the corresponding oil lamp to give a visible indication at nighttime. But if you look more closely you will start to see the unique variations that can sometimes be found even on one signal gantry. The home (top, red) arms on the two middle dolls are a standard Great Western design made from wood, while the one on the right is a later BR pattern in metal. Each has its own style of spectacle glass casing too, and see how the rightmost doll is missing its finial! The distant (lower, yellow) arms on the second and fourth dolls are of an unusual pattern that was only found at Newton Abbot - these are operated by motors (the black boxes) mounted immediately behind the arms themselves, a very rare arrangment, and again have a distinctive spectacle glass holder design. There is a lot of history on this gantry! The shorter home arm on the very left leads to a lower-grade goods line, and the distant arm on the 3rd doll is fixed to indicate that trains must always proceed with caution when travelling by that route.

My photo galleries

Over the years I accumulated a collection of about 2000 railway photos, almost all on 35mm transparencies, though I had more or less stopped taking signal photos in the late 1990s. Now I have the Coolscan V film scanner, I am gradually beginning to scan these in and include some of these classic shots on this site (see West Midlands, Shrewsbury and Worcester pages).

But getting the EOS 20D camera made it a lot easier to display new photos here, and as a result has rekindled my interest in taking signal photos. Indeed almost the first subjects I pointed the EOS 20D at were signals at Worcester and Ledbury.

This site now includes photo pages of signals at:

Abercynon	Charming Welsh valleys junction with lower-quadrant semaphores.
Abergavenny	Good North and West semaphore collection south of Hereford.
Abergele	Pleasant North Wales station between Rhyl and Llandudno.
Aberthaw	Wonderful collection of lower-quadrants on the Vale of Glamorgan line.
Banbury	Eclectic mixture of lower- and upper-quadrant semaphores and colour lights.
Bargoed	Topmost box on the Rhymney valley line.
Barry	Junction for Barry Island on the Vale of Glamorgan line.
Brereton Sidings	Nice set of semaphores at Rugeley on the Chase line.
Craven Arms	Junction for the Heart of Wales line on the North & West.
Droitwich Spa	Worcestershire junction with centre-pivot bracket.
Gobowen	Junction of the former line to Oswestry, where the GWR met the Cambrian.
Greenford	The last surviving WR lower-quadrants in London.
Harringay Park Jct	The only other remaining semaphore location on Greater London passenger lines.
Helsby	Scenic Cheshire junction sporting an upper-quadrant co-acting signal.
High Wycombe	A good collection of lower-quadrant semaphores before the Marylebone resignalling.
Kew East Jct	Northern corner of the triangle between the North London line and the ex-LSWR Hounslow loop.
Kidderminster	Covering both the NR and the Severn Valley Railway semaphores here.
Ledbury	Still colourful and interesting even since the Hereford line was singled.
Llandudno	A short branch to the town leaves the main Holyhead line at Llandudno Jct, with signals at every station.
Lincoln	Vintage photos from an organised signal box visit in 1983, before St Marks station was closed, with separate pages for Boultham Junction, High Street, Pelham St Junction, St Marks Station, and West Holmes.
London	A collection of mainly historical photos from around Greater London. I have organised this selection into separate pages for the former Great Western and Great Central joint line, Marylebone - Neasden (South) Jct, Acton - Cricklewood, Upper Holloway - Junction Road Jct, various North London Line locations, Camden Jct - Watford on the 'DC lines', and Kings Cross - Finsbury Park.
Malvern Wells	Where I regularly watched the signalling and trains as a kid.
Moreton-in-Marsh	Attractive, well-signalled Cotswold line station.
New Cumnock	Good collection of signals on the former Glasgow & South Western line.
Park Junction	Double junction at the foot of the Ebbw Vale line in Newport.
Pontrilas	Block post south of Hereford and the former junction for the Golden Valley branch.
Rhyl	Another major station on the North Wales coast.
Shrewsbury	The Mecca of mechanical signalling on Network Rail. As I've, naturally, taken a lot of photos here, including number of vintage shots scanned in from slides, I have now created separate galleries for each of its six signal boxes: Severn Bridge Junction, Abbey Foregate, Crewe Junction, Sutton Bridge Junction, Crewe Bank and Harlescott Crossing. I've also added a diagram, on the main page, to help you understand things if you're not already familiar with the layout there.
Tondu	Charming Welsh junction still having a fine collection of semaphores.
Woofferton Jct	Former junction on the North & West line.
Worcester	Another wonderful place for lower-quadrant semaphores, with separate pages for Shrub Hill station, Henwick and Foregate Street station area, Tunnel Junction, and Norton Junction. Again, I've added a diagram, on the main page, to help you understand things if you're not already familiar with the layout. I've also put topgether a Google Earth signal locations dataset.
Wrexham	Today's view plus shots from 1982 when the Brymbo branch was still open.
Yeovil	The lower-quadrant semaphores at Pen Mill station.
Ystrad Mynach	Superb collection of signals on the Rhymney valley line.
Various West Midlands locations	Interesting shots from various West Midlands locations including Sutton Coldfield and Stratford-upon-Avon.

When photographing railway locations I try to record as much of the track layout and signals as possible without trespassing.

These unusual centrally pivoted signals are just one of the treasures still at Shrewsbury

Other signalling sites

As mentioned above, The Home Signal Page is a comprehensive site and by far the best starting point for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of signalling principles and its history among the British railway companies. The associated Blower email list has now been transformed into the Signal Box Forum, a lively web forum for signalling fans, and there is also a comprehensive directory of links to other signalling sites. I don't attempt, therefore, to list everything else here, but the following is a brief digest of some other key signalling and related railway sites.

The principal signalling enthusiasts' group is the Signalling Record Society, which exists to study signalling and accumulate an archive of historical records. In addition,

the Exeter West Group have preserved their box, now at Crewe and used some of the time for training, including of mainline signallers,
Peter Nichols has an excellent Signalling photo gallery site,
John Tilly's site is great, with lots of signaling photos, and
Railsigns tells you all about those lineside signs used on the railway.
Railways of North Wales is a great gallery run by Dave Plimmer. Though not specifically signalling-related, signals do appear in a lot of his photos.

Finally, I heartily recommend SimSig for anyone who wants to get a feel for what operating a modern signalbox (strictly speaking, I should say Signalling Control Centre) is really like. SimSig is a PC simulator which offers real-time emulations of a number of locations, ranging from the areas controlled by major power boxes such as Swindon, Westbury and Exeter, to fictional signalling centres such as for the North London Lines. You signal the trains; the simulator keeps up their positions and speeds based on the signal aspects, line speeds and timetable. Its screen display is in the same format as actual IECC workstations, actual NR track layouts are used, and actual working timetables are provided (there is generally more than one timetable available for each location). You even get phone calls from drivers held at red signals and can give back special instructions. SimSig also simulates random train delays and can emulate signal, point or track circuit failures. The public version is free to download, though its bigger brother is now used in Network Rail training centres. Though I'm normally someone who gives computer games a wide berth, this one really has got me hooked, even though it emulates colour-light rather than mechanical signalling!