Hi Again.

I am posting the second of the signal box items. This is Manningham Stn Jcn. mentioned in the last posting. A personal note first ..I first worked at this box as a Train Recorder in 1944, crikey that's 70 years ago. The R.D. relief post was a second bite at the cherry. There was a further bite when I got a permanent position at Manningham. It had a 40 lever frame of which 6 were spares. The sidings off to the top left led to the engine shed. At one time there used to be a signal box in the depot which controlled the lines in the complex. When this box was dispensed with I understand Manningham Jcn received a new lever frame (the one the subject of this posting). The original frame overlooked the passenger lines. The new frame overlooked the goods lines. Presumably the old frame continued in use until the new frame was installed. Interestingly this new (midland) frame had four and a half inch centers and it could be a squeeze to get at some levers. I never came across another frame with this spacing. It will be seen engines coming off shed to either the goods yard or the passenger station had a straight run off, Compounds could have real struggle coming off tender first in wet weather and could take all of three or four minutes to clear the East/West jcn points. Engines going on shed were usually run onto the Up Goods line and reversed through number 7 points and then into the shed roads.. Number 2 points were very heavy. Not only were they the furthest from the box. they were triple ended and also had a 60 ft facing point bar. The passenger line crossover 27 was little used and didn't have ground signals to control it, though levers 26 and 28 were spares.The Gas Works siding was never used while I knew the box. The goods lines to Shipley had Permissive block instruments which were turned to 1 when a train passed the box in the rear. If further trains entered the section before the first train cleared the instrument was turned to 2 and so on. The East and West arrival and departure lines had some interesting block or rather bell working. Each line did have it's own Absolute Block instrument but only one bell. ie. the two arrival lines had an A B Instrument but only one bell. This bell only signalled arriving trains. The departure lines were the same, the one bell just used for departing trains. So how did the one bell in each direction work. Simple. Bell signals for trains on the West lines were proceeded by the call attention signal and those on the East lines WITHOUT the call attention signal. Wow, was this interesting if a new Signalling Inspector paid a visit and better still if top management were looking around, The look on their faces. Just to finish. Passenger trains into Bradford were usually sent on the East Arrival.. The reason for this being the signalman at Bradford very rarely had to refuse a train on the East arrival, the only time he had to refuse a train was if there was a loco running on or off the station turntable..I hope this makes sense. Let me know if not, via a comment perhaps.

Derek.