Carnforth F&M.
The Signalman's Story.

Your first signalbox leaves an everlasting impression on you. Whereas in the years and boxes that follow you remember the odd route you set, you remember everything about your first box. This is true of my memories of Carnforth F&M.

I became a Signalman because of an incident during my first job on the railway. I was a Railman at Morecambe Promenade Station, during the summer of 1986. All I had to do was look after passengers, see the trains out safely, and (the best bit) fill the water tanks that supply the toilets aboard the 1545 to Leeds. Heady stuff. On one particular day, I was over-carried to Bare Lane Station - that is, due to me helping an elderly passenger, I was stuck on the train as the Chargeman (literally, the man in charge) let the train depart with me still on it. After a moment's panic, I settled down to the idea that I was getting a half hour off duty. To kill the time at Bare Lane before my return, I sat in with the Signalman at Bare Lane Signalbox. From that moment, I wanted to be a Signalman. Within 3 months I had been selected to fill the vacant post at Carnforth Furness and Midland Junction ( F&M ) Signalbox. I won't talk about Signalling School - I hated every single moment, found it incredibly difficult, hated the pompous instructor, got the flu, had my appendix out, visited Kirkham and Preston Signalboxes as well as Carnforth F+M Signalbox. , and by a miracle, passed out.

Training in Carnforth F&M was easy - the trainer Signalman was exceptionally knowledgeable about his box, and is still in boxes today. He was a good man to learn from, and before knew it, I was on my own. Me, an outside toilet, a coal fire, a sink that wasn't fastened down and a small two ring Baby Belling cooker. On my own - now that was a novelty to get used to. I always said I was a loner, but I never realised how alone I was going to be! To be completely responsible for the safety of everything that moved was a new one on me, and very heady stuff for a young lad. I was 18, and very immature with it, but working in the F&M signalbox had a way of making you grow up pretty quickly. During its history, F&M had been a major signalbox, but slowly the workload had dropped off. Years before it serviced a junction, two goods lines, 3 sets of sidings, and lots of trains. Those days had long gone by the time of my arrival.

I had to deal with an hourly service between Barrow and Lancaster and the ballast workings, and that was my lot. Mind you, that could be enough. Saturday nights, for instance, were heaven to me. To fully explain the details of a Saturday night, I have to explain a little bit about the layout. F&M was a junction signalbox, with the engineers siding ("the Midland Bottom End" sidings) where the trains were prepared during the week for the weekend engineering work around the whole of the Preston area (Carlisle down to Wigan, across to Manchester, and all points between) . There were the carriage sidings, which hadn't seen carriages in living memory, and the "Warehouse", a siding that was split between the Carriage and Wagon fitters, who repaired the vehicles, and the Tampers. Tampers were the short yellow trains that look like they have come off a sci-fi film set, but in actual fact make the track sit correctly on the ballast amongst other things.

 On the Thursday, you would receive the notices for the following Saturday, and know what you were in for on the Saturday night, when the Signalman would see the preparatory work of the previous 5 days actually finished

Generally, you were expecting in the region of 5 to 10 light locomotives coming down from Station Junction Signalbox to pick up trains from the Bottom End, and perhaps 3 to 5 tampers to depart independently for worksites around the region. On paper, everything was timed 15 minutes apart, but on the night, it would be controlled chaos for a couple of hours.

"Ding"! That's how everything started. Station Junction would call my attention to him. When I responded by returning the single bell tone, he would then tap out the bell code 2-3, that is, ding - ding, ding - ding - ding. 2-3 means is the line clear for a light engine. I would return the bell signal if it was safe to do so, then I would release Station Junction 's Section Signal by turning a needle from "Normal" to "Line Clear". This unlocked his signal, so Station Junction could clear his signal and let the engine proceed towards me at F&M. When he had cleared the signal, he would let me know that the engine was on its way, by sending another bell signal, two dings. When I had acknowledged that signal, I would turn the needle from "line clear" to "Train on Line". This both informed both of us that there was a train in section, and locked Station Junction's signal to danger, so a second train couldn’t follow the engine. The engine would slowly pass the box, the driver and I would exchange a wave, and then he was passed, looking for the crossover to take him from the down Furness onto one of the Midland roads.

On my diagram in the box, lights would show me where exactly the engine is at any moment. When he has gone sufficiently far, I can then reset the lay of the points to direct him in a different direction. In this instance, we are looking for the engine being clear of number 14 crossover. A crossover was a short length of track between two running lines. The idea was that, when necessary, the Signalman "reversed" the crossover to allow the trains to proceed in a completely different direction, that is, from one line to another. The Signalman, by pulling the lever in the box, literally repositioned 30 feet of steel.

The engine was now clear of number 14 points. Whilst the driver moved from one end of his engine to another, I reset the route. I reversed the crossover, and changed more points to take the engine onto the up Midland line.

The lever numbers I pulled / pushed were 20, 19, 18 and 30 in, 20 back out, then 14, the crossover. Then I pulled of the signal, number 10. When the driver was ready, and the signal was "off", he then moved. This time, he was looking for a small signal, a small disc sitting on the floor. When the engine cleared the main line, I started to reset the route, both for his next move and also for the next train's move. When that was done, I told Station junction that the train has passed safely, complete with a red light on the rear, proving that he was complete, and hasn't lost any vehicles during its journey. This was done with another bell signal, this time 2-1. Station Junction would immediately keep my attention with another ding. Yep, another engine. And so the cycle began again. After giving Station Junction his line clear, I reset the route to put the first engine into the Bottom End if the Shunter was ready for him. As the night proceeded, though, the engines begin to stack up, so you had to scatter them into different sidings, waiting a road into the Bottom End, whilst retaining a clear route through, towards Barrow, for the last passenger service. And also, we needed to keep a route clear for the departure of the engineers trains out of the Bottom End. This could be a real challenge, one I still enjoy today in my current employment. You ended up with engines in the carriage sidings, up Midland, down Midland, the Bottom End, the down Furness, and signal 63, my first signal from Station Junction. All waiting for the departure of whichever train was in the Bottom End. Getting the train out was the longest route we had.

If the train was going to Carlisle the train would also be propelling, that is, the engine was on the wrong end, pushing, rather than on the front, pulling.

First, I would set up the route, which meant that levers 18, 19, 20, 21, 30, 32, 35, 36, 42 needed to be pulled out of the frame of levers. Then, after Station has acknowledged my 4-3-2 bell signal, I could pull levers 41 and 26, the signals to let the driver go. This ballet could continue for 3 hours on some nights, all in darkness outside.

The drivers, the Shunter and the signalmen all working together to get the trains in, through and out safely.

Seven years after I had left, a few years ago, Carnforth F&M junction signalbox was closed and the area redesigned. I'm not a nostalgic person, but a few days after the box was removed, I found myself driving passed where the box had been. The shock at seeing it "gone", or rather not seeing it at all, took my breath away. All they had left behind was the outside toilet!

I learned a lot because of the way the F&M junction was worked. Towards the end of my tenure, there were a lot of operating problems, and it enabled my bosses to see what kind of Signalman I was under pressure. I must also confess to having been surrounded by some exceptionally talented signalmen, who in my early days guided me. Some who are still in the Carnforth area to this day. I must have done quite well, as I have since left F&M signalbox, and worked in signalboxes at Blackpool, Northampton and Preston, but only Carnforth F&M box remains engrained on my memory. It was always cold and harsh, but I grew up in that box, and it transformed me from a raw recruit into a responsible person, as well as a half decent Signalman.

The Signalman

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