Illustration of the variety of the oil lamps employed along
the route between Castle Bromwich and Stockingford. John Griffiths writes 'As
lampman I was responsible for all signal lamps in an area. There was a small
lamp hut with a 45 gallon drum of paraffin at each location.
Monday |
Whitacre |
Tuesday |
Kingsbury |
Wednesday |
Water Orton Station |
Thursday |
Water Orton West Junction, Water Orton Sidings and Park
Lane Junction |
Friday |
Coleshill and Arley & Fillongley |
Saturday |
Castle Bromwich and Stockingford |
For each lamp I had to clean the glasses, trim their wicks
and fill them with two pints of Paraffin. Then I would climb up to the top of
each signal post or gantry (I could manage two in each hand, not easy climbing
a moving swaying ladder clinging on only by your wrists as two fingers were
required for each lamp.) When you were at the top you could lean back into the
hoop at the ladder top and balance the lamp(s) on top of the ladder while you
took out the old lamp and cleaned the bulls-eye glass and the small rear
tell tale glass. The tell tale glass got covered by a small arm that
worked with the main arm so that when it went "out" the signalman knew the
signal was off. This was not of course necessary if the signal was facing the
box. You then put the new lamp in. Two pints of paraffin lasted one week so
they had to be attended to every seven days and no longer. If any went out the
signalman would called me out to relight them.