GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1772

Photograph of the interior of Birmingham North Signal Box in 1957, which is worth comparing with the earlier interior photograph gwrsh1750. Although the Siemens power frame looks largely unchanged, with the exception of the addition of colour light indicators, the instruments on the shelf have significantly multiplied. One other change was the introduction of track circuits, which removed the necessity of the fireman to walk to the Signal Box to remind the signalman of the presence of his train. The power frame at Birmingham North had 224 levers, but a number of these were spare levers, which were initially distributed strategically along the frame to be available for future track layout changes or extensions. Spare levers were conventionally painted white and this makes them easy to spot in photographs of signal box interiors. As development occurred the number of spare levers decreased, but then as track arrangements were subsequently rationalised the number of spare levers increased. Below, are the numbers of spare levers at Birmingham North Signal Box:

Robert Ferris

back