How did station staff and signalmen keep themselves occupied in between trains on quiet branch lines?

[32475]

On a number of the quieter branch lines the signal boxes were manned by 'porter/signalmen' who only went to the box when trains were expected. The rest of the time they did general portering work round the station. There was one box, I think on the station platform, where the signalman also sold tickets to passengers, but the location escapes me.

That was certainly the case at Milborne Port which became a halt in the early’60s until the station closed in ‘66. On becoming a halt, tickets were obtained from the signal box on the down platform.

 

[Gloster]

If a station had Ladies and Gents toilets they would have to be kept clean, likewise the staff toilet. Would the lowest-ranking station employee have to see to them?

It would be part of the job description of somebody, who would normally be the lowest-ranked person on duty at the time: probably something like the late-turn porter. It wouldn’t normally be the signalman, as they wouldn’t usually be the only member of staff on duty at a station with unlocked toilets. Anyway, we signalman would generally have told them where to insert their toilets.

 

[Arglwydd Golau]

I'm always keen on finding out what my father was up to in his early railway employment, about which he never talked much...I know that he was a signalman during the war years at - as far as I can remember without checking - Hathern, Gamlingay and lastly Wellingborough. I'm sure that the latter must have been the busiest of the three, so presumably, according to previous posters, there would have been a pay differential and he would have had to apply for the post. Alternatively, would anyone know whether during the war years some railway employees were sent where they might be needed?

 

[Scouse77]

I spent lot of time in Kensington Olympia signal box in the early 90s and judging by the stacks of "gentleman's interest" magazines on the shelves...... probably indulging in some self love.

 

[Gloster]

I'm always keen on finding out what my father was up to in his early railway employment, about which he never talked much...I know that he was a signalman during the war years at - as far as I can remember without checking - Hathern, Gamlingay and lastly Wellingborough. I'm sure that the latter must have been the busiest of the three, so presumably, according to previous posters, there would have been a pay differential and he would have had to apply for the post. Alternatively, would anyone know whether during the war years some railway employees were sent where they might be needed?

I would have thought that Hathern was more mportant than Gamlingay, although he might have only been a porter-signalman at the former. I don’t think that, even in wartime, they could forcibly transfer you from one place to another once you were confirmed in a job, but I believe they could loan you to other locations with minimal notice: when no longer required you would go back to original location. But there weren’t that many places where there were staff who were surplus due to wartime conditions (as opposed to peacetime ones): a few primarily holiday stations and some passenger port stations. The main problem was the loss of staff to the forces and increased traffic.

 

[Bald Rick]

There’s boxes out there now with little action. Park Lane crossing box near Cheshunt was renknowned for having nothing to do for weeks at a time. That‘s gone now thankfully (for the two Grade 1 residents!) although Trinity
lane is still going strong with its occasional visitor to the allotments.

 

[Rescars]

Betchworth, too, I believe.

Beddington Lane as well. IIRC you went up the box steps to reach the ticket window.

The porter/signalman at Betchworth was kept occupied. The B2032 is a busy road and the crossing gates were opened and closed by hand - no operating wheel mechanism.

 

[wellhouse]

Some staff had green fingers. IIRC the Isle of Wight had an annual best kept station garden competition. Plenty of time to care for a plot within sound of the block bells!

Most, if not all, Railway Companies had best kept garden competitions that were keenly contested. A browse of Company magazines in the NRM Library produces lists of winners year after year. I recall plaques on the platform at Horsham in the 1960s, commemorating successes in Southern Railway/Region First Aid Competitions, so when they weren't gardening, staff may well have occupied quieter interludes wrapping each other in bandages.

 

[Ashley Hill]

I spent lot of time in Kensington Olympia signal box in the early 90s and judging by the stacks of "gentleman's interest" magazines on the shelves...... probably indulging in some self love.

I believe Viz’s Roger Mellie covered this in his Profanisaurus book - As stiff as a signalman’s cloth!

 

[weepingwillowb]

I believe Viz’s Roger Mellie covered this in his Profanisaurus book - As stiff as a signalman’s cloth!

The founder of Viz is a member of the Disused Stations' Facebook group.

 

[AVK17]

I believe Viz’s Roger Mellie covered this in his Profanisaurus book - As stiff as a signalman’s cloth!

Believe it or not it was me who submitted that one (along with a few others) to the Profanisaurus and one of my proudest moments in life so far was a couple of years ago when it was included in the Christmas issue word search. I’ve had quite a few letters and a couple of Top Tips published too.

 

[Rockhopper]

There is a crossing near me on a road that serves just a handful of houses (four i think). The gates are left close to the road when trains are running and only opened when a car wants to drive across which is hardly ever as there is a much better route away from the houses into town. The portacabin is manned 27/7 365 days a year. Trains stop at 22.30 and don't start running again till 05.30 but because the day shift starts at 06.00 someone has to be there right through the night to cover that first half hour.

 

[Gloster]

There is a crossing near me on a road that serves just a handful of houses (four i think). The gates are left close to the road when trains are running and only opened when a car wants to drive across which is hardly ever as there is a much better route away from the houses into town. The portacabin is manned 27/7 365 days a year. Trains stop at 22.30 and don't start running again till 05.30 but because the day shift starts at 06.00 someone has to be there right through the night to cover that first half hour.

In BR days that would either have been covered by an 05.30-13.30 shift and a 13.30-21.30 one doing an hour’s regular overtime or by having ten hour shifts: three men working four days a week, but no need for rest day cover. Network Rail’s belief, so I gather, is now to keep boxes, including crossings, open continuously so as to avoid having problems finding staff when they need to keep the box open all night for engineering works or the like. Whether this reflects on modern day staff attitudes, Network Rail’s attitude to money or staff wages, I know not. In my day signalmen would always have been willing to help find a way to get it done: the overtime was always welcome.

 

[Halifaxlad]

Radios were completely forbidden until about 2009 when the Network Rail chief executive of the day, Ian Coucher, visited a signalbox and asked the signaller what the cricket test match score was. The signaller was unable to tell him because he wasn’t allowed to listen to the match and Coucher asserted that the situation with radios was ridiculous. He instructed the chief signalling inspector to lift the ban and so, subject to certain conditions, radios are now allowed in signalboxes. One of the conditions is that the box is Grade 3 or under and deals with no more than 2 trains per hour. So in reality there aren’t too many places that actually benefit from the relaxation.

In 1967 during the course of a brakevan trip over the Settle&Carlisle the train was looped at Blea Moor where the loco crew was booked to change over with a southbound working. As the southbound train was an hour late the crew took us over to the signal box where the signalman demonstrated the art of making fishing flies. He apparently had a flourishing mail order business!

Some cracking stories here, thanks to everyone for taking the time to write them.

The above two are my favorites.

 

[pitdiver]

I can't answer from a signallers point of view, I used to be Booking Clerk on the north end of the Met. This was of course pre " Company Plan", There was nothing worse than the late shift on a Sunday during winter. You would be lucky to see no more than a dozen passengers. Most of those would be between 1800-1900. The "Holy Hour" this would be mostly people renewing their weekly season ticket whilst walking the dog. Another grim time would be Christmas Eve late shift. One year i took about £12 on the window.

 

[Dave W]

My favourite tome on this matter is Jack Warland's "Light Relief", of which I am pleased to have a copy. It's a most agreeable read, mostly of anecdotes some of which I'm sure found themselves "improved" over the years! This seemed to relay the idea that pre-Beeching, West of England Southern practice (both the Railway and the Region) was the signalmen got stuck in on everything, especially relief men as Warland was. I would be surprised if this wasn't the case in many of the bucolic settings described in above posts, regardless of company/region.

 

[Llanigraham]

Radios in Boxes:
Whilst Coucher should be praised for allowing us Gr 2 & 3 signallers to have them I don't think the limit was 2 trains an hour, since my Gr 2 Box had more than that. What was certainly true was that before the official ruling radios hidden in cupboards/lockers were quite common. The cupboard door could be quickly closed when the gate at the botton of the stairs rattled! And I know atleast one signaller who had a small portable TV when he was on nights. My locker even had a hole drilled in the back to fit the radio's mains lead through.

Other things:
There were two signallers in my area that used "downtime" to research and write books, one quite prollifically on railway subjects. One of them was also an excellent railway modeller and often brought models in to complete.
I seem to remember being told that there was once a Signal Box in South Wales that actually had a small model railway on a shelf that the residents had built.
There was a signaller in a very quiet Box in South Wales that ran a car sales business.
There were signallers on the (pre-ERTMS) Cambrian outside of Machy, one that painted for a living and another who clay modelled.

Certainly I used to read lots of books and magasines (Motoring generally!), do a little bit of railway modelling, and once we were allowed to use the internet used to set questions for our local pub quiz nights.

 

[Gloster]

I have done odd bits of railway modelling on nights and at other quiet times domestic stuff such as repairing clothes or household bits and pieces. I once spent most of a Sunday dismantling and reassembling a cabinet, put it in the car when I went home and dropped it getting it out so that the top was all scratched: girlfriend not amused.

Mostly I read: at first I took The Times in, but when Murdoch took over I switched to The Grauniad. There were also plenty of railway magazines and, for a while, Punch. I also had plenty of railway histories and also books on those areas of general history and geography that interest me, and there were plenty of novels, both low-brow and high-brow. I spent a series of nights reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, something that was a bit much for light reading at home, but fitted well if you were stuck in one place for several hours.

We only had one train in the middle of the night and, although most signalmen tended to get their head down early on, I didn’t until after it had passed as once I am woken it is difficult to get back to sleep. We shouldn’t have slept, but just about everyone had acquired the knack of waking at the slightest railway sound: stories of signalmen being half-way out of the chair before the bell rings or their eyes are open are true.

 

[Bevan Price]

Some signalmen could have short (unofficial) visits from relatives delivering their "lunch", and who might stay for a "short chat". This seemed to be tolerated by local management provided it did not interfere with duties. My late uncle was a signalman at a box controlling the entrance to a loco shed, and typically with a few trains per hour. After an illness, he moved to a much quieter box until he retired.

 

[Tio Terry]

It wasn't just signal boxes and signallers, the same applied to many level crossings and level crossing keepers. Some of the crossings on the East Suffolk wouldn't see more than half a dozen road vehicles all day other than at harvest time. Some had vegetable gardens if there was enough space for them, helped to feed the family. One had a chicken run and it wasn't unusual to find the keeper plucking a chicken when we visited. One signaller - from memory at Saxmundham - used to repair clocks and watches, it wasn't so much a business as a hobby really but regular travellers would often use his abilities.

 

[Lloyds siding]

There is a crossing near me on a road that serves just a handful of houses (four i think). The gates are left close to the road when trains are running and only opened when a car wants to drive across which is hardly ever as there is a much better route away from the houses into town. The portacabin is manned 27/7 365 days a year. Trains stop at 22.30 and don't start running again till 05.30 but because the day shift starts at 06.00 someone has to be there right through the night to cover that first half hour.

You have 27 hours in a day in your part of the world? Or are you living on a different planet...where the days may have 27 hours...

 

[Ken H]

You have 27 hours in a day in your part of the world? Or are you living on a different planet...where the days may have 27 hours...

He comes from an area where they worked 27 hours a day at t'mill.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I recall one terminus station which saw just four trains per day each way where the signalwoman would go home between trains - the longest gap between trains was over four hours. Of course no mobile phones in those days, I would guess the signalman/woman at the next box had her home phone number in case something unexpected cropped up.

 

[Rockhopper]

I applied for a crossing keeper job at the crossing i mentioned about (that’s open 27 hours a day…). As part of my prep I went and chatted to the people who already worked there.
The reason for the vacancy was that one of the keepers had been sacked as he nipped off to the pub and got caught out!

 

[John Luxton]

I am sure my memory isn't playing tricks but when the Welshpool and Llanfair Railway first reopened to Welshpool Raven Square the signal box had a ticket window.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

I am sure my memory isn't playing tricks but when the Welshpool and Llanfair Railway first reopened to Welshpool Raven Square the signal box had a ticket window.

In the late 70's and into the 80's at most stations on the West Highland and on the lines North of Inverness the duties of signalmen/women included selling tickets, I suppose it gave them a bit more to do and they would also have had station cleaning duties. In an earlier era many stations would have had Station Master and perhaps even then the signalling staff would sell tickets outwith the Station Master's hours of duty.

On the West Highland most 'signal boxes' were in essence a just lever frame in a small building towards one end of the island platform with the block instruments (Key Token/Tablet/Tokenless Block) and train register housed in the station building close to the ticket window. By the late 70's only Helensburgh Upper (early shift only), Crianlarich, Oban, Fort William and Mallaig had ticket issuing staff who did not also have signalling duties - at Corpach the 'ticket seller' was nominally the crossing keeper, and even the ticket office at Mallaig went onto a single day shift in the early 80's. RETB of course removed the signallers and most stations became unstaffed.

Referring back to the era of Station Masters, one of the late 1970's Ops Supervisors in Fort William was the former Station Master at Roy Bridge.

 

[AVK17]

In the late 70's and into the 80's at most stations on the West Highland and on the lines North of Inverness the duties of signalmen/women included selling tickets, I suppose it gave them a bit more to do and they would also have had station cleaning duties. In an earlier era many stations would have had Station Master and perhaps even then the signalling staff would sell tickets outwith the Station Master's hours of duty.

On the West Highland most 'signal boxes' were in essence a just lever frame in a small building towards one end of the island platform with the block instruments (Key Token/Tablet/Tokenless Block) and train register housed in the station building close to the ticket window. By the late 70's only Helensburgh Upper (early shift only), Crianlarich, Oban, Fort William and Mallaig had ticket issuing staff who did not also have signalling duties - at Corpach the 'ticket seller' was nominally the crossing keeper, and even the ticket office at Mallaig went onto a single day shift in the early 80's. RETB of course removed the signallers and most stations became unstaffed.

Referring back to the era of Station Masters, one of the late 1970's Ops Supervisors in Fort William was the former Station Master at Roy Bridge.

The signalman at Rannoch also had to run the post office, in addition to selling tickets. This meant that the relief signalmen and supervisors were passed out in running the post office too. It wasn’t too onerous but the accounting side of it was a pain.

 

[Cheshire Scot]

The signalman at Rannoch also had to run the post office, in addition to selling tickets. This meant that the relief signalmen and supervisors were passed out in running the post office too. It wasn’t too onerous but the accounting side of it was a pain.

Likewise at Bridge of Orchy.

EDIT: I was going to message you but find your profile does not permit this. I just wondered if I knew you - when relieving at Rannoch I never had to do the accounting side on the Post Office!

 

[MadMac]

I may have mentioned this one before.....

When what is now known as the "Argyle Line" through Glasgow Central Low Level closed in the 60s, there was already talk of it becoming of a wider "transit system". As such, someone (usually from Operations) was sent out periodically to check on the condition of equipment etc. While doing so some nine months after closure, he was surprised to see the lights on in Stobcross Junction signal box. On investigating, he found one of the resident signalmen there! Apparently, this fellow had somehow slipped through the BR Promotion, Transfer and Redundancy (PT&R) "net": he hadn't been offered another position or redundancy, so in the absence of any instructions to the contrary, he had continued to show up, submit timesheets and get paid despite there being no trains! There was, apparently, some talk among Management of disciplinary action until someone pointed out that they would look like complete idiots.....

 

[Cheshire Scot]

The signalman at Rannoch also had to run the post office, in addition to selling tickets. This meant that the relief signalmen and supervisors were passed out in running the post office too.

The Post Office, or the Incumbent on behalf of the Post Office, rented from BR the space in the Station Offices used for payment of Pensions, sale of stamps etc, and sorting of outbound mail, and the room at the end of the building used for sorting inbound mail.

Some sample 'Rannoch Station' mailbag labels are attached (previously shown on other thread(s).