GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Solihull Station: gwrs2621a

Close up of image 'gwrs2621' showing Solihull signal box alongside the down relief line opened on 9th July 1932 replacing a GWR type 5 box that had been located at the back of the up platform since August 1880. The new GW type 10 signal box was forty foot, nine inches long by thirteen foot wide with an additional basement floor to bring the locking room floor up to the level of the track. It was brick built with a distinctive steep pitched hip slate roof. There were three torpedo vents on the ridge and a stove pipe chimney. The staircase to the operating floor was internal and an inside toilet was also provided on the first floor. The door and window lintels and lock room cills were functional straight concrete beams with the five locking room windows being noticeably narrower than previous designs - see image 'gwrs269' for a front view of this signal box.

The signal box housed a seventy-four lever vertical tappet frame at four inch centres, with eight of the levers as spares. The down main trailing switch to the goods yard (lever 18) was worked by a hand generated electric motor. As a result of the quadrupling the signal boxes here and at Acocks Green controlled the entire section between these two signal boxes with semi-automatic signalling allowing the Olton signal box to be completely removed. Extensive track circuit indication was provided using trickle-charged D.C. resistance-fed track circuits and these controlled motor driven semaphore signals of the two aspect conventional type through lever locks and circuit controllers attached to the levers in the mechanical locking frames. The signalling cables were provided by Callender Cables and Construction Co Ltd and can be seen on raised supports parallel to the conventional point rodding.

Robert Ferris

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