LMS Route: Trent Valley Line

LMS Route: Nuneaton to Leamington

Nuneaton Station: lnwrns3793

Looking south towards Leicester Road bridge with an unidentified ex-LNWR 2-4-2T 5ft 6in tank engine stabled on the engine release road in 1933. This was one of two photographs taken by EHC Shorto, who was a railwaymen based at Saltley at the time, the other can be seen in image 'lnwrns3794'.

Peter Lee writes on 'Nuneaton Steam Club' Facebook page, 'As you can see an ex-LNWR 2-4-2T 5'6" tank is ready to nip on the back of an incoming passenger train and make a quick get away. All these intricate movements in the station were controlled by Nuneaton No 2 Signal Cabin. It is hard to imagine today how labour intensive mechanical signalling was on the railway with no less than 5 signal cabins controlling the complex layout through Nuneaton Trent Valley station. Nuneaton No 1 Signal Cabin on the up side at the south end, Nuneaton No 2 Signal Cabin controlled movements in the station, Nuneaton No 3 Signal Cabin at the north end just before the rocker bridge, and the up and down sidings cabins releasing access to the down goods and up marshalling yards. All this was scrapped when modernisation and dieselisation started and the old Coventry line steamers were replaced with bright new diesel units. (A retrograde step in my view because 5 coach trains were replaced by 2 or 3 car DMU's, with the subsequent overcrowding on morning and evening commuting trains not factored in, so factory workers in Coventry stopped using the railway and went by road as they were fed up with the scrum on the new fangled diesel trains). With these engine release roads no longer needed, Nuneaton No 2 Signal Cabin's days were over and this lovely double bayed but otherwise LNWR bog standard Type 5 pattern cabin was demolished. Someone told me that this was a unique cabin on the LNWR, there was only one in this configuration on the entire system, but I cannot vouch for the certainty of that information'.

back