Track Diagrams: Wednesfield Midland

(Click on image to enlarge)

T - Tubular post signal
D - Doll (reduced-size shunting arm)

Although the Midland Railway fascinated me, it always seemed a bit 'foreign' compared with the London and North Western where I grew up in Wolverhampton.

The Midland had thrown out a branch from Castle Bromwich, on the main line from Birmingham to Derby, which reached right into Wolverhampton (also making a triangular junction with the London and North Western at Walsall). In between Wolverhampton No. 1 signal box (a no-nonsense L&NW design) and Portobello Junction (an 'A.R.P.' box by the time I knew it) lay Heath Town Junction box, controlling the junction between the Midland Branch and the Wolverhampton to Bescot line. And this box, right in 'Nor-Wessie' territory was an exotic-looking Midland box!

I'm sorry that I never had a chance to visit Heath Town Junction box, and that I didn't pay more attention to the sporadic freight working on the Midland branch.

In fact, it was June 1967 before I visited Wednesfield Midland station and recorded what I could see. Back home, I produced a 'fair copy' (oddly, using a blue fountain pen). By that time, the signal box was no longer a Block Post and just served as a Shunting Frame.

Of particular interest was the elderly Midland lower-quadrant 'gallows' signal, with the arm offset to the right and placed as low as possible, to improve sighting (presumably because of the road overbridge which would tend to obscure an approaching driver's view).

Track Diagrams: Dudley

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By 1967, the Dudley station I grew up with had been swept away and the area was being prepared for a new life as a Container Terminal for 'Freightliner' trains. In March of that year, I recorded what I could see and produced a 'fair copy' at home (oddly, using a blue fountain pen).

The station and platforms had gone, although the signal box which used to stand on the platform was still in use. The new signal box, a British Rail standard design, was under construction.

The line towards Blower's Green and the tunnel was little changed, but the Great Western main line towards Wolverhampton had been singled and truncated at Princes End (GW). This was presumably to serve the South Staffs Wagon Co. (visible from Bloomfield Junction box).

As far as I remember, most of the signals were Western Region tubular pattern, apart from the Up Home. This was the LMS-style steel bracket signal originally the Up Home for Dudley East, now shorn of all arms but one. I think the doll reading out of the LNW Yard was the original upper quadrant retained.

I found the whole business very depressing. Dudley had always been a 'Mecca' for me with Midland Region and Western Region joining up and locomotives from two of the 'Big Four' on view side-by-side (and whilst the Zoo didn't particularly appeal, it did have a rather nice miniature railway). I don't think I ever went back after making this survey.