GWR Route: The North Warwickshire Line

GWR Route: Stratford Upon Avon to Hatton

Stratford on Avon Station: gwrsa1338

Ex-GWR 4-6-0 No 7808 Cookham Manor in British Rail livery with the Tyseley Breakdown Train waiting at Stratford on Avon East Box on 8th January 1961. No 7808 was built at Swindon in March 1938 as one of a batch of twenty engines (lot 316) built as a replacements for the Churchward 2-6-0 43XX class engines. They incorporated the wheels and motions of the displaced engines, but had a lighter boiler (designated Standard No 14) which made them suitable for blue routes. This locomotive was preserved at the Didcot Railway Centre, where it arrived in company with GWR 0-6-2 No 6697 in August 1970

A new Stratford on Avon East Signal Box with 55 levers was positioned at this location on 13th August 1933, when it assumed the duties of both the previous original East Signal Box, which was nearer the station and the Goods Junction Signal Box, which was positioned on the opposite side of the lines to the water tank in the background. This replacement box had previously been at Acton West and is of the pre grouping type 27c, with horizontal timber boarding and a gabled roof with a stovepipe chimney and two rocket ridge vents. The three up two down window panes on the operating floor were typical of Great Western Railway construction (the fewer window glazing bars improving the signalman's view). Similar Signal Boxes were built post grouping, but these can be distinguished by the lack of eaves brackets and were designated type 31.

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