The Blisworth Station main signal box

These memories of Blisworth Station signal box in the late 1950s are aimed at the general reader rather than the rail enthusiast.

I never worked officially on the railway although several of my uncles did but I was one of numerous enthusiasts who were privileged to enter signal boxes throughout Britain and allowed to work under the strict supervision of the signalman. My time in the Blisworth box was mainly with Jack Morrisroe who is referred to elsewhere in the railways pages.

Blisworth Station box was a Class 1 box, the highest grade. It had 75 levers and was one of the largest on the LMS system to be manned by only one signalman plus a booking clerk. The levers most used were the ones at each end, numbers 1,2,3,4 and 5 for up (towards London) main line trains and 73,74 and 75 for down (from London) trains. The main line to and from London Euston was one of the busiest in Britain and still is as although the network’s been curtailed, train frequencies have increased. In the 1950s you might have about six trains a day from Euston to Birmingham – now there’s one about every 20 minutes.

Destinations then as now included Birmingham and Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales, the Lake District and Scotland. Many trains had names, the most well known being the ‘Royal Scot’ (10 a.m. from Euston and also from Glasgow Central). But there was also ‘The Midlander’ (Birmingham and Wolverhampton), ‘The Irish Mail’ (twice a day to Holyhead), ‘The Welshman’ (Llandudno, Bangor, Portmadoc and Pwllheli), ‘The Manxman’ and ‘The Merseyside Express’ (Liverpool Lime Street), ‘The Comet’ and ‘The Mancunian (Manchester London Road), ‘The Ulster Express’ (Heysham for the Belfast Ferry), ‘The Northern Irishman’ (Stranraer for the Larne Ferry) ‘The Mid-Day Scot’ (Glasgow) and ‘The Royal Highlander’ (7.15 p.m. Euston to Inverness). Most of these names are no more.

There were also boat trains for Liverpool Riverside and party specials known as ‘parspecs’, particularly from destinations such as Alsager, Congleton or Kidsgrove in North Staffordshire and Cheshire and also from Lancashire towns such as Accrington, Burnley, Haslingden and Littleborough. On Cup Final days, especially if both teams came from within the LMS region, it was not unusual to have 15 or so specials heading for Wembley. On their return it was also not unusual to receive the occasional beer-bottle thrown from a train window.

Weekly supplements to the working timetable were issued to drivers, signalmen and other key rail staff and gave details of all specials, temporary speed restrictions and other information that key staff needed to know.

Few people had cars in the 1950s and most went on holiday by train. So rail traffic was very busy, especially on Christmas Eve, Maundy Thursday and on summer weekends when most trains were ‘divided’, that is they ran in two or even three parts. Over 100 trains during an eight-hour shift was commonplace and beyond Roade where the tracks doubled to four with the Northampton line there were, of course, far more. There were also parcel, freight, fish, milk and newspaper trains. Several parcel trains remarshalled at Blisworth during the night shift prior to continuing to destinations elsewhere. A notorious freight train was the up fish train from Fleetwood to London, passing Blisworth about 8 p.m. and nicknamed the ‘Ocean Roamers’. This train was fully fitted with automatic braking and ran at express speed. The aroma in its wake gave an indication of its cargo.

My knowledge of railway geography was enhanced by my time at Blisworth. I already knew of Bushbury, the engine sheds for Wolverhampton and of Bescot, the huge freight marshalling yard near there, of Edge Hill and Longsight, the engine sheds for Liverpool and Manchester respectively and of Polmadie, the engine sheds for Glasgow. But I soon became aware of places like Adswood, the Stockport marshalling yard from where a parcels train to London remarshalled at Blisworth on the night shift, of Kensington Olympia and of Addison Road which were parcel trains destinations and of Etruria to where a daily train load of ironstone left Blisworth at the ungodly hour of 2.08 a.m. and where I thought must be somewhere in Italy and wondered why it travelled north, until I discovered it was in Stoke-on-Trent! Shelton iron works have long been demolished and the site was landscaped into a Garden Festival site some years ago.

It was necessary for signalmen at key locations to know the whereabouts of approaching trains, thus enabling them to determine if a freight or parcels train needed to be shunted into a loop, allowing a passenger or faster train to overtake it. There were loops adjacent to both main lines between Blisworth and Gayton and the start of the down loop can be seen in the foreground of photos 27-08 and 27-08a. Booking clerks at Tring and Bletchley telephoned us with passing times of down line trains and those at Nuneaton and Rugby did similarly for up line trains. One of the Blisworth booking clerk’s tasks was to record this information in a register and telephone his counterparts with information on trains passing Blisworth. The times of all trains entering and leaving the Blisworth section and passing the box were also recorded.

All trains had numbers called reporting numbers; odd numbers were for down trains, evens for up. Although we knew all the regular numbers by heart, in busy times when trains might run out of normal sequence and also for ‘specials’ the numbers were boldly displayed on the engine boiler and were prefixed with a ‘W’ denoting ‘Western Division’ to distinguish them from ‘M’ for ‘Midland Division’ – the Midland main line to and from St. Pancras. This distinction was important at locations like Carlisle where the divisions merged. The down Royal Scot was number W65 and the up Royal Scot W96. The clerks would merely say ‘sixty-five, thirty-seven, Tring’ and this information was sufficient.

Few passenger trains stopped at Blisworth in the 1950s. The ones I recall were the 8.45 a.m. Euston to Wolverhampton (stopping just before 10 a.m.), a 1.20 p.m. local from Bletchley to Rugby (around 2 p.m.), the 8.30 a.m. Carlisle to Euston (just before 3 p.m.) and the 6.57 p.m. local from Rugby to Bletchley (around 7.30 p.m. and the return working from the 1.20 p.m. down train). The two-coach ‘Blisworth Motor’, referred to elsewhere, connected with each of these, from and to Northampton.

In addition to the ‘Blisworth Motor’, a similar motor train made a daily weekday trip from Leamington (via Daventry, not originating at Daventry as the nickname for the loco, "Little Dav", seems to suggest) to Northampton via Weedon. On arrival at Blisworth, just before 4 pm, it would proceed to the up main line just past the platform, stop, the signalman would adjust the points for the Northampton branch and the train would reverse, coach first to Northampton. The return journey left Northampton around 6.15 p.m., engine first, and at Blisworth, provided the main lines were clear, it would again proceed to the up main line just beyond the platform, stop, the signalman would change the points to allow a crossover to the down main line and the train would continue, coach first, to Leamington. The crossover from the up to the down main line is shown in the centre of photo 27-04.

The 8.30 a.m. Carlisle train had reporting number W74 and was very popular with Blisworth and Northampton travellers, especially railway staff returning from holidays. It called at all major stations to Crewe and then only Blisworth and Bletchley before arriving at Euston around 4.20 p.m. and was usually hauled by one of the Coronation Class Pacifics, similar to the locomotive shown in photo 27-08a. There were 38 locomotives in this class, all based at Camden, Crewe, Carlisle or Polmadie (Glasgow) and they easily handled 16-coach trains or heavier on the climbs over Shap and Beattock summits. Given a clear road and a keen train crew, arrival at Blisworth could be up to 15 minutes early and having to wait for time no doubt annoyed travellers on the 12.40 p.m. express from Manchester which normally preceded the Carlisle train but would, in this situation, be held back by signals at Gayton.

Inside the Blisworth box, like all boxes, levers serving different purposes had different colours. Stop signal levers were painted red, distant signals were yellow, points were brown, point locks were black, unused levers were white. Levers for semaphore signals had long well-polished tops, essential if you needed to tug hard with perhaps half a mile of coiled wire to be pulled, but those controlling colour lights, the up Middleton intermediate block signal for example, had shorter tops to remind one not to over-pull. On a long shelf above the levers were the four ‘block instruments’ allowing telegraphic communication with adjacent boxes at Roade, Gayton (two instruments – one for the main line, one for the loops) and Rothersthorpe Crossing on the Northampton branch. Each instrument comprised two electronic needle indicators, the bottom one controlled by the Blisworth signalman, the top one controlled by the signalman in the other box. The device incorporated a gong and tapper used to communicate coded messages. Each gong had a different tone.

Having worked at the Gayton, Heyford and Banbury Lane boxes I was already familiar with the various bell codes. Express passenger trains were four consecutive beats; local passenger trains were 3 beats, pause, 1 beat (3:1); parcel trains were one beat, pause, three beats, pause, one beat (1:3:1); fully fitted freight trains were three beats, pause, one beat, pause, one beat (3:1:1) and so on. The philosophy was that a line was considered closed until proved to be open and the normal position of the needle indicator was vertical (line closed). When a train was offered and accepted, the receiving signalman would repeat the code and set his needle to ‘line clear’ which showed in the other box and allowed the signalman there to clear his signals. On entering your section, the other signalman sent a two beat signal (train entering section) and the receiving signalman changed his indicator to ‘train on line’. As trains passed, you sent a ‘train entering section’ code to the box in advance and when the train had passed complete with tail lamp you sent a ‘train out of section’ code to the box in the rear and returned your indicator to the original line closed position. A further train could then be ‘offered’.

On the up line towards London, all trains were offered by the Gayton signalman on the main line instrument. If the train needed diverting into the loop, the Blisworth signalman would accept on the loop instrument, thus authorising the Gayton man to set the points for the loop. The loop signal, set to danger, can be seen on the right of the cleared signals in photo 27-27. The Gayton signal box on the up side is behind the locomotive tender.

Wherever possible, boxes were situated on alternate sides of the line. Thus Blisworth and Banbury Lane boxes were positioned on the down side and Heyford and Gayton on the up. Rules required signalmen to observe passing trains for any irregularities and if, for example, a carriage door was seen to be open the train had to be stopped and the sections of line searched. Door interlocking on modern trains minimises this eventuality.

A word about the ‘block’ system may be useful. In the early days of railways when signalling was primitive, time was considered an appropriate medium and if a train had passed, say, 15 minutes earlier it was deemed safe to send another one. After several major accidents it was realised that space, not time, was a better interval and so lines were divided into sections, controlled by signal boxes or, on long sections, by intermediate signals (known as IBs). Normally there could only be one train in a section at a time and this was known as the ‘absolute’ block system. However, in order to facilitate freight movements, a variation known as ‘permissive’ block existed whereby a freight train could be accepted on a goods line and into a section already occupied by another non-passenger train, provided the driver of the subsequent train was cautioned before entering and told of a train or trains in front. The block instruments controlling the loops at Blisworth and Gayton allowed this and incorporated an indicator showing a number and which allowed for occupation by up to seven trains although I never experienced more than two.

Several trains a day carrying chalk from the Dunstable area to the cement works at Southam on the Leamington branch passed through Blisworth. These and their return empties were regular occupants of the goods loops. The down trains were signalled as ordinary freight trains as far as Blisworth where the bell code was changed to ‘branch freight’, an indication to the Weedon signalman to divert the train to the Leamington branch.

Steam locomotives need water and troughs located at Castlethorpe and elsewhere on the system allowed for water to be picked up at high speed and using a scoop. In peak times when trains were running with tight headways it was common for the troughs not to have refilled sufficiently to allow the engine of a subsequent train to obtain water in this way and consequently the train would make an unscheduled stop at Blisworth to take on water. The water tower can be seen to the left of the signal box in photo 27-45 and it was an impressive sight to see one of the major expresses, perhaps hauled by a Coronation, Princess, Royal Scot or Jubilee class engine, stopping at Blisworth for this purpose. The task took 10 minutes or more to complete and a sea of heads invariably appeared from compartment windows along the train, no doubt wondering what was happening. As a result, a number of following trains were often delayed and all this had to be reported to the booking clerks down the line and to the train controller at Rugby.

I hope these few reminiscences are of interest.

John Whitehead         March 2009