GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Leamington South Junction: gwrls3936

Close up of the aerial photograph showing the link line between the Great Western Railway and the L&NWR line in 1937. This link line was opened on 10th July 1908 and ‘Leamington South Junction Signal Box‘ was built to control the junction to the link line from the Great Western Railway's main line. It was also a block signal box for the main line and controlled access to the locomotive depot and carriage sidings.

The signal box was a standard Great Western Railway design (type 7D), which had a brick built lock room on the ground floor with three windows on each side and a hipped slate roof with torpedo vents on the ridge and a stovepipe chimney. Above the lock room, the operating floor was 29 feet long by 12 feet wide and was 11 feet above rail level. It was accessed by an external wooden staircase and had the characteristic three up-two down window pane arrangement to give the signalman a good view. The signal box housed thirty-four levers at four inch centres in a horizontal tappet, three bar locking frame and there was also a separate two lever frame for remotely placing warning detonators on the main line tracks.

Robert Ferris

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