GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Olton Station: gwro4022

Near milepost 121¼ just south of the plate girder bridge over Hillfield Road between Solihull and Widney Manor. The four Great Western Railway 2-6-2T prairie tank locomotives, each pair with a Great Western Railway 4-6-0 60XX (King) class locomotive sandwiched bettween them, have just tested the Main line spans of the bridge.

The Down Distant Signals seen here could be operated by lever 74 (Down Main) and lever 66 (Down Relief) in Solihull Signal Box. These signals were 1406 yards south of Solihull Signal Box, which was too far to control by signal wires, so instead each signal had an electric motor. Unusually the signal motors were mounted at high level and were directly attached to each semaphore arm. A battery and control cabinet can be seen adjacent to the Down Relief Distant signal-post.

During the quadrupling work, semi-automatic signalling was installed between Acocks Green and Solihull to allow the Signal Box at Olton to be removed. As part of this, Intermediate Block Signalling (IBS) was commissioned on the Down Main and Relief lines on 25th June 1933. It utilised trickle-charged dc resistance-fed track circuits to detect if a section of track in advance of an electrically powered Stop Signal was occupied. If the Stop Signal had been manually operated to ‘Clear’, when the track circuit detected it was occupied, the signal would be automatically returned to ‘Danger’. The Stop Signal would subsequently be automatically operated to ‘Clear’ again once the relevant track circuit was no longer detecting occupation. In addition the associated electrically powered Distant Signal was controlled automatically by position detectors located on the semaphore arm of the Stop Signal. The various track circuits were also shown on the Signal Box Diagrams, where they were illuminated with spot lights to indicate when they were occupied. For detail of operation of the Track Circuits see 'misc_equipYYY'.

The Stop Signals associated with these two particular Distant Signals were situated beyond Streetsbrook Road overbridge, 890 yards north of Solihull Signal Box. These Stop Signals were operated by lever 70 (Down Main) and lever 62 (Down Relief) on the frame in Solihull Signal Box and relied on the semi-automatic signalling, initiated by occupation of one of two track circuits. These track circuits, which extended through Olton Station were referenced as 70T (Down Main) and 62T (Down Relief).

This photograph is Solihull Central Library record reference No 1797, courtesy R Waring.

Robert Ferris

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