GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

GWR Route: North Warwickshire Line

Birmingham Snow Hill Station: gwrbsh1771

Signalman carries out operations to set the route of an up train on the electric power frame at Birmingham North Signal Box in 1957. The lever numbers, names and associated lead numbers were inscribed on the sloping brass plate in front of each lever. To assist the signalman, the levers were also colour coded in a conventional manner:
        Red - Home Signal
        Yellow - Distant Signal
        Black - Point Switch
        Blue and Black - Facing Point Switch (i.e. includes locking bolt)
        White - Spare

On the instrument shelf are a series of instruments which provided information to the signalman. From left to right these are:
a) Tyers ‘Signal Arm Repeater’ for a signal on platform 11 controlled by lever 109. This signal was not visible from the Signal Box and the repeater mimicked the signal arm’s actual position.
b) Tyers ‘Train Describer’ with its sloping top provided the signalman with a description of the approaching up train. This information was sent by the signalman in the preceding Signal Box at Hockley South and allowed the signalman at Birmingham North to prepare an appropriate route for each train.
c) Unique Great Western Railway Blocking instrument, designed specifically for working trains between Birmingham North and South Signal Boxes. This is the receiving instrument, which indicates ‘Line Clear’ or ‘Train on Line’ when set by pegs in the South Box. There are additional apertures below the main indicator to monitor the number of trains or light engines occupying each line. All the platform lines except Platform line Nos. 1 and 2 were worked on the permissive principle allowing a maximum of six successive trains, after which the line was recorded as ‘Blocked Back’.
d) Standard ‘Block Bell’ instrument for making and receiving bell codes from an adjacent Signal Box.
e) Another ‘Train Describer’. In 1910 the Great Western Railway installed sixty sets of this equipment at the Signal Boxes between Tyseley and Handsworth. The system covered both the main and relief lines along the route and at Birmingham Snow Hill, between the north and South Signal Boxes, included; the up and down main lines, up and down platform lines and the up and down avoiding lines. There were at least five of these instruments in the Birmingham North Signal Box. Two were associated with the northern approaches indicating the destinations of trains on the up main and up relief lines.

See GWR Service Time Table – Instructions for more operational details.

Robert Ferris

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