Beasts boards

[beast66606]

C.K is after some details of LMS/BR nameboards, so I ventured up to the loft and snapped off some pics, I thought I might as well share them with everyone. All my nameboards are in ex box condition and all were acquired legally - I still have the receipt.

 

Moreton - an early LMS rounded end board, with Tango man and a lever plate from Rock Ferry

 

Bromborough - an LMS square end

 

West Kirby - another round end board

Rock Ferry - a BR (LMR) enamel board

 

Birkenhead Central - Cabin E, yes this actually was the name board in it's latter years !

 

Another interesting local name board, this replaced a nice board, a certain flyingsignalman witnessing the end of the old board.

 

Some details from Bromborough

[Jamie]

Very useful reference for what the LMS typeface looked like in detail. Thanks.

[beast66606]

A few more

 

New Brighton

 

Birkenhead Head North No.1 - the brother of the one above.

 

hth

[Captain Kernow]

Dave, thanks very much for posting those - I think that it was the LMS style one that I was thinking was Midland Railway - I may well go for a square-end wooden board style with metal lettering....

[Mattmaz]

Tango man ? I thought it was Morph!

[beast66606]

Tango man ? I thought it was Morph!

 

 

Afraid not, he's pure orange all the way through B)

[Michael Delamar]

very nice collection, I really like the rock ferry one.

 

dont you have one from Canning street North?

 

Mike

[beast66606]

Hi Mike,

 

Canning Street North fell to pieces, accelerated by someones attempts to steal it

 

I also own Leasowe, Bidston Dee, Bidston East, Green Lane Junction and Ledsham B)

[Michael Delamar]

dont think Ive ever seen any pics of green lane box

 

Mike

[beast66606]

dont think Ive ever seen any pics of green lane box

 

Mike

 

LMS standard, provided temporarily after an incendiary raid destroyed it's predecessor, it lasted about 50 years ! 60 levers, all working when opened, few working when closed. It controlled the entrance/exit for Birkenhead Mollington Street and also the junction where the 4 tracks (from Ledsham Junction) became 2 passenger, to Woodside and 2 goods, to Brook Street (Birkenhead Docks) along with various sidings and other connections. A very busy box in it's heyday.

 

I have lots of photos, somewhere I used to visit it often as my mate was a signalman there.

 

The nameboard was acquired via a strange route, a guy up in Darlington bought it from collectors corner believing it to be the North Eastern Green Lane Junction, boy was he disappointed when he got it home to discover it was an LMS nameboard ! It was advertised and I contacted him, one Saturday morning I travelled up and bought it, and was back home by dinner time ! (early start, I was keen !)

 

hth

[Roman]

HI Dave,

have (hopefully) attached a photo of green lane box. Courtesy/permission of GN.

 

seasons greetings

 

Andy

[coachmann]

My collection of totems, cast signs and seats were sold in the 1980s. I normally collected everything from the goods shed at Llandudno Junction but on one occasion my pal Clew and I collected an LNWR seat off Abergele station with a car and trailer. We strolled onto the platform, asked some waiting passengers to stand up and carted it off . Pure Monty Python! B)

[Rugd1022]

That's a great collection you've got there Beast, nice to see them in 'ex box' condition, rather than restored. I love this kind of stuff, if my numbers ever come I'd fill the house with it given half a chance.

 

As I type this, leaning up against a bookshelf is a slightly careworn WR totem from Maidenhead..... bought from a nice chap from Somerset (a steam driver on the WSR funnily enough) who saved it from a pile of scrap outside Maidenhead station in 1970, it lived in his shed until a couple of years ago making the edges a tad crusty but there's no way I'd have it restored, especially as there's a fair chance my other half's Dad stood beneath it many times while waiting for 61xx'ers to take him into Paddington back in the day. A couple of months back we were going to bid on one of the large enamel running in boards from Maidenhead but thought it'd be out of our price range, it went for about £120 in the end and we're kicking ourselves now...

 

Nidge

[beast66606]

Hi Nidge,

 

You might find if you had bid that the other guy was prepared to go a lot higher, happened to me once, bidding on an early sectional

appendix for the Birkenhead Joint lines, was prepared to pay roughly 5 times the going rate, outbid in seconds I got another one not long after for a fraction of the price but at the time I was gutted.

 

I've got a nice token from the Dunstable line somewhere in my box of tricks. I also own a lot of the diagrams from local boxes (and not so local), including an original LNWR one B) along with various block instruments, repeaters and other stuff.

 

Roman - cheers for the GN shot All the best to you too.

[Rugd1022]

You're probably right Beast, I've missed out on a lot of interesting stuff by bottling out when things got a bit busy.

 

I've got a few bits and pieces from my own patch but not the holy grail, which in my case would be a Rugby Midland or Rugby Central totem, rare as rocking horse pooh they are. Managed to save a pair of BR 'black on white' nameboards though when the old LNWR roof was taken down, one of them had been driven over by a digger but it's still worth keeping. Most of the local BR stuff was binned, what a waste. In the past couple of years I've rescued two upper quad semaphore stop arms which were literally found in bushes next to colour lights I'd stopped at!

 

Nidge

[The Stationmaster]

You're probably right Beast, I've missed out on a lot of interesting stuff by bottling out when things got a bit busy.

 

I've got a few bits and pieces from my own patch but not the holy grail, which in my case would be a Rugby Midland or Rugby Central totem, rare as rocking horse pooh they are. Managed to save a pair of BR 'black on white' nameboards though when the old LNWR roof was taken down, one of them had been driven over by a digger but it's still worth keeping. Most of the local BR stuff was binned, what a waste. In the past couple of years I've rescued two upper quad semaphore stop arms which were literally found in bushes next to colour lights I'd stopped at!

 

Nidge

 

 

I've got a GWR centre pivot signal arm which I recovered from a patch of lineside long grass - judging from photos I reckon it had been there for a good ten years but was still in fair nick.

 

Signs with station names are usually the things which the most money in auctions, even non-railway 'general' auctions and will almost invariably run into hundres if they are in halfway reasonable condition. A pal of mine has been offered a 5 figure sum for a totem he owns - it is believed to be the only survivor from the station it once graced.

 

Operating publications are very fickle things at auction although generally prices only go really wild when someone who doesn't understand what it is and has too much money gets a dose of 'bidding fever'. I recently got a smashing little selection of Southern (sorry) stuff including an overhead electric line instructions booklet and a 1934 working over book for 40 odd quid while I watched a bunch of working timetables of little interest go up to nearly £50. Mind you I have paid a lot of money for early GWR timetables and service timetables but at least I now know the times of the stage coach connections from Exeter for places in west Cornwall in the early 1850s or which trains (on the entire GWR network) were still running broad gauge in 1891.

[Roman]

Dave,

its nice to see the nameboards again some memories there for myself. Thought you may like the attached shot of

Bromborough Box complete with passing Class 20s. (Permission from GN)

[beast66606]

Dave,

its nice to see the nameboards again some memories there for myself. Thought you may like the attached shot of

Bromborough Box complete with passing Class 20s. (Permission from GN)

 

Bromoborough was notable for a couple of reasons.

 

On the Hooton - Rock Ferry section two boxes were provided with "Gull wings" to overcome the sighting difficulties under road bridges (the other was Spital), this was not common elsewhere although it was used on occasions.

 

The other, more interesting anecdote is a Chinchilla caused structural alterations to a signalbox, when I first went to Bromborough both wings were intact, one of the signalmen kept chinchillas in the wing, when they were cleaned out the water fell into the wing and eventually rotted the floor, so the wing was removed ! about 1980 iirc.

 

Bromborough contained 36 levers and was abolished in May 1985, it also had the last workable LNWR signal on the Wirral*, the Up Slow distant. The replacement was a tubular steel job, which had to be moved back when Bromborough Rake station was under construction, it's post can be made out beyond the third bridge

 

* Canning Street North had a very peculiar concrete post, fixed, distant which eventually simply fell over and was replaced by a reflectorised board, the line had a 10mph speed limit (iirc) and the distant was over a mile from the home - plenty of braking there then

[coachmann]

Has anyone ever bought something and discovered how large railway stuff is when delivered? A pal of mine fancied a small bracket signal at Rhyl station that was being cut down and he bought it. It blocked all his drive, weighed a ton and his wife had to climb over it to get into and out of the house. I think it signalled a divorce...

[Rugd1022]

Has anyone ever bought something and discovered how large railway stuff is when delivered? A pal of mine fancied a small bracket signal at Rhyl station that was being cut down and he bought it. It blocked all his drive, weighed a ton and his wife had to climb over it to get into and out of the house. I think it signalled a divorce...

 

Not bought but given Larry... whilst I was at work one night a mate popped round with two large old signs from his local station which was having new ones put up, they're about nine foot long. He knocked on the door, my other half answered and he said 'which one do you want and where shall I put it?' !! It just about fits in the shed

 

Thinking about it, that Maidenhead running in board I fancied was around twelve foot by four foot.....where would I have put it if I'd won the auction?

 

Nidge

[beast66606]

When I bought the boards off the local boxes, Collectors Corner made me go to Euston to collect them, even though the Rock Ferry one was taken off the box only a few hundred yards away from my house and the others were all within a few miles

 

I borrowed a mates Peugeot estate, another mate and I knocked up a frame work for the roof rack and off we went to Euston to collect them, New Brighton Station is a very long board, around 17' iirc, but it all worked and they were all returned home - where they should be B)

[Michael Delamar]

someone within a quarter of a mile of me has had a Walton junction totem and lamp in his front garden for as long as I can remember,

 

Ive always wanted it

 

Mike

 

 

[beast66606]

someone within a quarter of a mile of me has had a Walton junction totem and lamp in his front garden for as long as I can remember,

 

Ive always wanted it

 

Mike

 

Someone else not too far from you has some Liverpool signalbox nameboards

[triumphdave]

Bromoborough was notable for a couple of reasons.

 

On the Hooton - Rock Ferry section two boxes were provided with "Gull wings" to overcome the sighting difficulties under road bridges (the other was Spital), this was not common elsewhere although it was used on occasions.

 

The other, more interesting anecdote is a Chinchilla caused structural alterations to a signalbox, when I first went to Bromborough both wings were intact, one of the signalmen kept chinchillas in the wing, when they were cleaned out the water fell into the wing and eventually rotted the floor, so the wing was removed ! about 1980 iirc.

 

Bromborough contained 36 levers and was abolished in May 1985, it also had the last workable LNWR signal on the Wirral*, the Up Slow distant. The replacement was a tubular steel job, which had to be moved back when Bromborough Rake station was under construction, it's post can be made out beyond the third bridge

 

* Canning Street North had a very peculiar concrete post, fixed, distant which eventually simply fell over and was replaced by a reflectorised board, the line had a 10mph speed limit (iirc) and the distant was over a mile from the home - plenty of braking there then

The Canning Street North distant you mention was originally Brook Street's distant, hence why it was a mile away!

[beast66606]

The Canning Street North distant you mention was originally Brook Street's distant, hence why it was a mile away!

 

Not the case I'm afraid Dave, Brook Streets distant was a concreted posted example 223 yards from the home,, which became Canning Street Norths distant when Brook Street shut (in 1972), this eventually fell over and a new distant arm was provided at Green Lane Junction, when this box closed the distant was converted to a reflectorised example.