Next time you’re on a train passing Kirkham North Junction signal box, just look up and wish it a Happy Birthday.  The old girl is one hundred years old this year, and still going strong.  Long may it continue !

The ‘box, which opened on 1903, had 75 levers which was split into two halves, each worked by two signalmen and a train recorder. Certainly, in the 1930’s the amount of traffic generated by Blackpool, was enormous.  To illustrate this, on July the 18^th, 1936 the signal box handled 656 train movements within a twenty four hour period.  It seems strange that the railways in the 21^st century consider themselves to be running at maximum capacity, now the only way to handle that, is to withdraw services, rather than increase them.  Perhaps train operating companies (Virgin in particular) should look back and reflect on how the railways used to cope with all that traffic

Copyright ©1999/2005 B.A.F.R.U.A.    All rights reserved.
Revised: 14, January 2005