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GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton
Small Heath and Sparkbrook Station: gwrsh3154
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Small Heath North Signal Box viewed from beside the up main
line under Golden Hillock Road bridge on 18th July 1963. This Signal Box was
opened on 24th July 1910 (see 'Signal Alteration Notice
No 393'). The signal box was originally a Great Western Railway type 27c
design of timber construction with a hipped slate tile roof. Approximately 200
of this 27c signal box type were constructed between 1905 and 1921. There were
four torpedo vents on the roof ridge and a single stove pipe. The signal box
was forty-nine feet, eight inches long by twelve feet wide and the operating
floor was eleven feet above rail level. An internal staircase was provided. The
operating floor windows were the three up - two down pane arrangement that is
typically associated with the Great Western Railway and these surrounded the
operating floor on all sides except for a short section on the side facing the
relief lines where the stove was located. The Signal Box contained a three bar
GW horizontal tappet frame with 92 levers at 4 inch centres.
The BSA ordnance factory at Small Heath and the adjacent
railway infrastructure was specifically targeted by the German Luftwaffe during
World War 2, resulting in disruption from repeated bomb damage at Tyseley,
Small Heath and Bordesley during the air raids in 1940/41. To provide some
protection against blast the ground floor lock room was rebuilt with
substantial red brick walls and without any windows. Concrete lintels were
provided over the entrance door and switch rodding openings, but the original
upper operating floor was retained.
Robert Ferris
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