In 'Visiting Signalboxes' I described how, in the late '50s and early '60s, I managed to visit (and unofficially operate) a number of mechanical signal boxes in the West Midlands. Most of the notes I made at the time are mislaid, so I'm a bit hazy on chronology.
Geography
Back in the '50s,the Stour Valley Line from Birmingham to Wolverhampton ran through Tipton, where there was a triangular junction with the double-track Princes End Line. The boxes controlling the triangle were Tipton and Bloomfield Junction (both on the Stour Valley Line) and Tipton Curve Junction (on the Princes End Line). Beyond Princes End, the line continued to Wednesbury, where it joined the South Stafford Line. The London and North Western Railway originally provided a passenger service but it can't have been very popular because the passenger service was withdrawn in the 1930s. Although the Princes End - Wednesbury section was built as double-track, it had been singled by the time I knew it but a healthy freight traffic remained.
Traffic
A lot of trains originated at the marshalling yard at Bescot, routed via the South Stafford Line to Wednesbury, then via Princes End to Tipton Curve Junction. Here, the left-hand branch led to Tipton and the South Stour, serving goods depots at Tipton, Albion and Oldbury. The right-hand branch led to Bloomfield Junction and the North Stour, serving the goods depot at Bloomfield Junction, the steelworks at Spring Vale and the steel terminal at Monmore Green. There was occasional traffic to private sidings, like the scrap yard at Deepfields or Mond Gas Sidings near Dudleyport. Princes End signal box still controlled private sidings, like Austin's, but I saw very little traffic to and from there. Tipton Curve had one siding - the 'Tip Siding'. This made a trailing connection with the Down Branch from Tipton to Tipton Curve just short of Tipton Curve box.
The majority of the traffic was probably to and from the steelworks at Spring Vale. The blast furnace required supplying continuously with iron ore, coke and limestone in substantial tonnages. Various minerals were used by the electric arc furnaces to produce special grades of steel. Steel, in various forms, was taken away for use elsewhere. Most of this freight was rail-bourne.
Opening hours
Tipton Curve Junction Signal Box was only open as required. When the box closed, the road was set to and from Tipton and the signals cleared so that trains could run on and off the branch at Tipton. But every train to or from Bloomfield Junction direction required the Porter-Signalman to walk from Tipton to Tipton Curve to open the box. As the name implies, most of the Porter-Signalman's shift was taken up with porter's duties at Tipton Owen Street station, where there was still a substantial parcels sundries traffic. There was often a lady on this duty. Political Correctness had not yet overtaken us and the lady Porter-Signalman was just referred to as the 'Porter-Signalman' or, more often, by the railway slang term 'Porter-Bobby'.
Construction
Tipton Curve Signal Box had been a typical, neat London and North Western all-wooden construction, with a 'Webb' Tumbler Interlocking frame. There was no mains electricity or gas laid-on, so lighting was provided by 'Tilley' paraffin lamps. Some years earlier, there had been a serious fire, which I believe was caused by a 'Tilley' lamp. The operating floor of the box had been completely destroyed. To get the box back in operation, minimum repairs were made to the signalling equipment and an unpainted wooden shed with a sloping roof and a few small windows was stuck over the lever frame. It was the ugliest box I ever worked, and it remained like that until it was abolished when Wolverhampton Power Signal Box was commissioned!
Block Signalling
Absolute Block Signalling was in operation between the signal boxes at Tipton Curve Junction and Tipton Station Box, Bloomfield Junction and Princes End. L&NWR block signalling instruments were used at all these boxes. Tipton Curve also had a Block Switch, to inter-connect the block circuits from Tipton Station and Princes End when Tipton Curve was 'Switched-Out'.
Signals
Signals were upper-quadrant tubular post types. The home signal protecting the facing junction had two dolls - the left stop signal read towards Tipton with a fixed distant for Tipton underneath, the right stop signal read towards Bloomfield Junction with a fixed distant for Bloomfield Junction underneath. This signal was always called the 'four-armer'. There were two home signals reading 'from Bloomfield Junction' and 'from Tipton'. There was also a ground signal controlling movements out of the Tip Siding. Movements into the Tip Siding were controlled by handsignal. There was also a starting signal on the down, towards Princes End. A fixed distant for Princes End was carried underneath the starting signal.
Recollections
Tipton Curve wasn't very busy - there were lots of pauses waiting for anticipated freight trains from Spring Vale which had become delayed awaiting a 'margin' - so I spent lots of time clambering over the frame in the locking room and trying to teach myself about the 'Webb' Tumbler Interlocking frame. For all its perceived defects, it's still my favourite frame.
The Tip Siding was used by the Engineers to dispose of the tons of white sludge produced by the water softening plant at various locations in the area. Water treatment of locomotive boiler water supplies had been introduced extensively by the L.M.S. to reduce maintenance costs. A series of elderly L&NWR locomotive tenders had been converted as sludge tankers. Periodically, the Tipton shunt would arrive dragging a nondescript selection of these vehicles to propel into the siding. All these tenders were loose-coupled, so a rough stop would result in a flood of white liquid sludge being thrown from the filler lids on the tanks - it was advisable to stand well clear! Volunteers on overtime from Tipton would empty the tanks by opening the bottom valves and allowing the sludge to discharge. The siding stood on embankment so, slowly, the 'no-man's land' within the triangle was being filled up. The sludge was a mixture of solid and liquid, so there was a lot of unpleasant, physical work using shovels to clear blockages and remove dried-out sludge.
The 'four-armer' was on an embankment in a fairly bleak spot, close by an abandoned quarry called locally 'The Cracker'. It was not uncommon to open the box for the first time on a winter morning, place the levers back in the frame and discover that the Tipton direction home was frozen 'off'. This meant walking to the 'four-armer', climbing the signal and breaking the ice which had formed overnight.
Near the 'four-armer' there was an underground fire which burned for years. I can remember in winter, with snow on the ground, a clear patch of track near the signal with steam rising!
I had another mishap with the 'four-armer'. The 'Stop' position of an upper-quadrant signal arm is, of course, 'nine o'clock' and the 'Off' position 'ten-thirty'. One day, I pulled off for an approaching freight and was surprised to see the arm go 'over the top' to the 'one o'clock' position because the arm stop had broken!
Oh, and there was the 'Animals on the Line' incident. Princes End Box had received a report of horses wandering about on the line between him and Tipton Curve, which he passed on by telephone. I was working the box unofficially and the signalman had disappeared on an errand somewhere. Bloomfield put a train of empties on the block so I got the road from Princes End but decided I'd have to stop the train and get the driver to examine the line. The curve from Bloomfield to Tipton Curve was vicious, so we always tried to give trains a 'run at it'. I kept my home signal 'On' as the train slowly wound towards me. When he stopped, it was clear that the driver was not best pleased, but there was no help for that. Grudgingly agreeing to proceed with caution, the driver painfully got the train away again. By the time the driver got to the field with the broken fence, the horses had decided that the permanent way offered poor foraging and they'd gone back to their paddock. When the signalman returned, he was amused by my embarrassment at the driver's displeasure. Once we'd confirmed that a temporary repair had been made to the fence, trains could run normally again.
When I first took an interest, most of the freights were steam-hauled by Stanier 'Eight Freights' or 'Fives'. I remember a night-time trip on the footplate of a Stanier Class 8 down the bank to Wednesbury with a raft of empties from Spring Vale. This must have been over twenty years before I started working on the footplate myself in preservation and I found the noise, the heat and the contrast between the blackness outside and the blinding whiteness of the fire fairly terrifying. On another night, I had a similar freight trip, this time on a Brush type 4 (now class 47). I remember the deafening noise from the Sulzer engine behind the cab and being impressed by the four or five thousand amps that the main generator was supplying to the traction motors. The 'Tipton Shunt' engine would occasionally go to Wednesbury with a 'trip' working. This was usually an '03' or an '08' diesel shunter. I had one brake van trip behind an '08' to Wednesbury to pick up a train. But as dieselisation increased and manual signal boxes decreased, I lost interest.
When the electrification of the Stour Valley was in progress, the Princes End Line was often used as a diversionary route for passenger trains at weekends but I can't remember details. I think I only once travelled on a passenger train over the route, on a DMU (this is described in 'A Sunday Stroll to Stafford'). I worked Tipton Curve Box a few times when passenger trains used the line. Because of the fairly sharp curvature between Tipton Curve Junction and Tipton, there was a Local Instruction prohibiting passenger trains from passing on this section and a second passenger train could not be put 'on the block' until the first train was clear.
One 'claim to fame' I remember was when the "largest single load ever carried by British Railways" passed over the Princes End Line en route from John Thompson. This is described here.
I was very lucky to have these experiences which link me to a time so different from the present.
