Signals


The line north of Alveley was closed by BR in 1963 and the Severn Valley Railway Company was formed on 25 March 1967.
Although trains had been run for 'day members' on open weekends in 1968, the first Light Railway Order was granted in November 1969.


The Alveley-Bridgnorth section was purchased and a second LRO granted on 20 May 1970 when passenger services to Hampton Loade commenced.


The signal box was built on the base of the 1923 box and incorporated a GW 3-bar VT frame ex Windmill End Junction. In 1970 pointwork at the north end of the station was connected and erection of signals commenced. In 1971 the down home signal was brought into use and the down yard ground frame commissioned.


Installation of mechanical locking proceeded in 1972 and by then all pointwork (excluding the slip at the south end of the yard) was connected. On 2 June 1973 token working to Hampton Loade was introduced, working prior to this being by one engine in steam between Bridgnorth and Alveley. In 1974 the Down Inner Home bracket signal was commissioned.


Track alterations were carried out in 1976 including extensive resignalling, alteration to the yard connections and track circuiting of the platform roads. The box was closed on 25 September 1977 and the token instruments moved into the SMO. The box was recommissioned on 6 August 1978.


The platform 2 starting signal was erected on 17 February 1980 such that all passenger movements were then under fixed signals. A new platform 1 starting signal was erected in 1980 following the platform extension, and resignalling was completed in 1982 with the commissioning of numbers 21 and 24 signals, by which time the bypass bridge had been constructed.


A 'right away' indicator was added in 1986 and the Up Advanced Starting signal was repositioned in 1992.


Remember..?


"It started in a small way on 17th June 2007 when we were working on Bridgnorth's Down Home Signal which had been giving some trouble - a minor job - and we noticed that a small slip had occurred in the ground at the south end of Oldbury viaduct. A crack about an eighth of an inch wide and a few feet long had opened up alongside the cable troughing. This was a taste of things to come and the later events were to make the term 'tension cracks', along with its symptoms, much more familiar - at that time however, it was (to us) an unknown phenomenon.


After working Bewdley North on 19th June I noticed that the rain on my journey home to Bristol had been heavier than normal and when the dust had settled the next day, we realised that the Bridgnorth Down Home Signal had been left perched high and dry as the surrounding ballast had been washed away. Something major had happened at Highley where a lot of our equipment simply fell into a new hole, including the Up Starting Signal. The damage that we gradually uncovered was to take us the next nine months to get to a stage where trains could resume running - once the engineering contractors had provided some ground into which we could place our equipment.


At Bridgnorth the Down Home Signal had to be removed to allow repairs and the cable from there to the Down Distant was severed and damaged by the work to repair the embankment where it passed behind the industrial estate at Knowlesands. This alone would be a major task for the Department - replacing the signal, signal post telephone, reinstaing the location cupboard, laying troughing to the berth track location and removing and replacing an underground signalling cable from there to the Down Distant, some thousand yards or so. We also took the opportunity to refurbish and repaint the Down Distant.


An underground armoured signalling cable extends for the whole length of the railway, apart from a short length at Bridgnorth where the original pole route remains in use. This cable carries the token circuits as well as local circuits for such things as signal lamps and signal post telephones. It also carries the omnibus telephone circuit and a few selected automatic extensions and lineside emergency telephones. Replacement of this cable has therefore been the single item that has taken up most of our time over the last nine months.


The main telephone circuits between Stations are now provided externally and as such calls are, in many cases, a charge to the railway. The service between Bridgnorth and Hampton Loade was reinstated on 9 February 2008."


New volunteers are welcomed to the S&T - email mailbox@bridgnorthstation.co.uk for details.

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