Birmingham New Street Station: lnwrbns_str421

View of one of New Street station's colour lights controlling departures from the West end of the station installed after the removal of the roof and seen on 29th July 1954. Richard Foster describes in the third volume of his series of books on the station that colour lights were introduced when Signal Cabin No 3 over the footbridge was decommissioned when the roof was removed. This was because it was open on the sides and roofless. The removal of the crossovers between the central through lines and the installation of track circuiting combined with colour lights and electrical controls made it possible to work the station from the adjacent signal boxes of (Nos 1 and 3).

The principal stages of the work was conducted on Sunday 13th October 1946 when the track circuits were introduced and Signal Cabin No 3 was taken out of service. The semaphore signals at the centre of platforms 3,4, 5 and 6 (new numbers) were replaced by two-colour aspect signal lights of red and yellow and these were controlled by Signal Cabins Nos 1 and 5. The central signals were provided with subsidiary aspects to allow the entry of a second train to enter an occupied platform, whilst control levers were provided in both cabins for bidirectional working on the up and down Platform 4 line. At the same Richard states that further colour light signals were installed on the approaches to the station through the tunnel on the down LNWR line at New Street No 1 Signal Cabin, and near New Street No 5 Signal Cabin on the up Wolverhampton line.

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