GWR Route: Banbury to Wolverhampton

Warwick Station: gwrw1591

View of Warwick Signal Box seen on 17th August 1969 which replaced the North and South boxes in 1909. The photograph was taken one month before the signal box was made redundant in September 1969 when Saltley Power box was opened.

Warwick Signal Box is a standard Great Western type 7D design, which was opened on Sunday 27th June 1909 (the name plate was ordered on 5th May 1909). Slightly encroaching on to the rear of the up platform, the main structure was 29 feet long by 12 feet wide, brick built with a hipped roof. Blue bricks were used on the quoins, plinth and surrounds to doors and windows and here the lock room windows also had two rows of bevelled blue bricks to replace the heavy cast iron cills used on earlier designs of type 7 Signal Boxes. The roof employed hip hooks on the sloping ridges and there were two torpedo vents on the main ridge. The stove pipe chimney can just be seen in the photograph. The operating floor was 8 feet above rail height and had the typical Great Western three up / two down window panes. When built the Signal Box had a horizontal tappet 3 bar frame with 52 levers at four inch centres, but this was later converted to a vertical tappet frame.

Taking advantage of the extra space between the tracks left by the removal of the original Board Gauge track, this was used for the point rodding. By the time this photograph was taken the points were all driven by electric motors with the cabling in the trunking next to the track at the platform edge. The point rodding supports can still however be seen between the tracks.

back