Signalling in all its variety:
An apparently much appreciated occasional feature in Backtrack/s the 'Signalling Spotlight', presenting historic colour photographs of signals, signal boxes and related equipment, accompanied by detailed captions. This month's guest editorial shows how efforts are being made to record the present signalling scene, a rapidly changing aspect of railway operation. In our youth, how many of us wanted to get into, or got into, the local signal box? Now you have the chance to get into hundreds of them. For five years, FARSAP, the Film Archive of Railway Signalling and People, has been recording signalling as we knew it before the signalling revolution sweeps it away. With the support of Network Rail, volunteers from the Signalling Record Society and Friends of the National Railway Museum have been filming the buildings, equipment, practices and people signalling UK railways. Over one hundred films are already available to view free of charge on the FARSAP website - just search 'farsap'. Variety might be the spice of life - and it also applies to signalling. FARSAP has tried to capture the unique, the unusual, the traditional and the more modern installations at work. We go from the nineteenth century up to ERTMS testing in the present day. Take the former Caledonian Railway 1891 box at Greenloaning as an example. It still has the original Stevens lever frame although the box is now only occasionally opened to cater for additional traffic such as the Ryder Cup golf. Also, in Scotland the 1901 28-lever box on a busy triangle at Carmuirs East Junction near Falkirk was filmed before its closure in 2017.

There are nine videos covering the history and present-day working of the remote Blea Moor box on the Settle and Carlisle route. The block shelf still supports the original Midland Railway instruments while the signalman's lever cloth maintains the shine on the original levers. Across the Pennines, Michael Rising, a lifelong signaller, describes the working of over twenty signal boxes across the Tyneside area in five videos. These include the working of the Pontop flat crossing where two main lines crossed on the level, as they still do at Newark on the East Coast Main Line.
York's new Rail Operating Centre (ROC) recently took over the semaphore signalling on the Selby to Hull route and two FARSAP videos capture eighteen box locations. Working of the North Eastern Railway swing bridges at Selby and Goole is covered and the film includes aerial drone footage. One of the locations is Oxmardyke where at one time eight hand-operated gates were used for the level crossing over four tracks.

One-time box lad and signalman, then Member of Parliament and finally ennobled, Baron Snape of Wednesbury was delighted to be taken back to his old signal box at Stockport Edgeley No.2. This busy box controlled the traffic into and out of Stockport Edgeley MPD (9B) and still operates in a busy traffic area where steam has given way to 'Pendolinos'. The FARSAP film shows Peter Snape back at his old job, working the instruments and levers and explaining how the job used to be. Old and new in Kent is reflected in the films of the girder bridge box at Canterbury West with its South Eastern & Chatham Railway frame. Nearby Canterbury East box, now closed but a Grade II listed building, is also covered. Then at Maidstone East the box contains a Westinghouse miniature lever frame originally built during World War II "in case of necessity" which first saw service at London Cannon Street before removal to its current location.The listed 1899 box at Maidstone West is also featured and shows a fascinating demonstration of a strain gauge to measure the 'pull' needed to get long rods and wires to work correctly in varying weather conditions. (The writer well remembers at age fourteen learning on hot and cold days about the coefficient of linear expansion and tensioning on the wire of a faraway distant signal with no motor assistance.) Finally, in Kent one of the few manually-operated gated crossings left in the county at Cuxton is shown in operation with its small frame and tappet locking.

Power signalling is certainly not excluded. At Liverpool Lime Street, the last Westinghouse lever frame in use on Network Rail's North West route is shown signalling this busy terminus. The 95 miniature levers made in 1948 make for an easy pull but a lot of walking up and down the length of the frame. In its rocky setting we learn that the box roof is twelve-inch thick concrete! The roof of the power signal box at King's Cross may be thinner, but the box controls the East Coast Main Line the 44 miles to Sandy in Bedfordshire. Here we can see the 1977 NX (entrance-exit) panel in full and busy use with a glimpse of the testing of ERTMS (European Rail Traffic Management System) on the Hertford Loop. Over at Manchester Piccadilly the 1988 panel signal box, actually housed in an office block, is shown hard at work in two films signalling fourteen well-used platforms.
Many of the principles underlying signalling practices and equipment are explained simply in a set of'primers' dealing with specific topics. Block and single line working, the telegraph and interlocking are shown and demonstrated by practitioners. Finally, a range of railway people have their say in films where they reminisce about their service. The FARSAP collection is still building and will serve as an important record for decades to come.