GWR signal box question.

[Michael Hodgson]

42 minutes ago, Hal Nail said:

Isn't that just an entrance porch?

Quite.  The door has windows, inappropriate for a toilet.

Even if they were frosted, how do you get into the box?  There isn't another door on the landing.

The lower door is access to the locking room, and the box is too small to have an internal staircase.

There wouldn't be room to go through the toilet ! 

 

I would suggest that the facilities probably consist of the corrugated iron outhouse seen in this view.

Not a bad model of the box though.

 

 

[David Bigcheeseplant]

Most of the GWR type 5 signal boxes had a combined porch and toilet like this one at Wheatley. Generally, these boxes were constructed entirely in blue brick laid in Flemish bond.

 

David 

[TheSignalEngineer]

3 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Isn't that just an entrance porch?

Correct. 

 

 

[Wheatley]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

On a more common basis the signal box regularly doubled as barber's place of business (the Signalman's  other activity) and staff regularly wandered off to attend to traps laid in various places away from the station for the purpose of catching rabbits.   So hair cutting and the repair of watches were regular activities in quieter signal boxes.

When the signalman at Grange Lane (GCR Meadowhall - Ecclesfield line) died in harness the AMO, according to local legend, had to put a small ad in the Sheffield Star asking anyone who had given him a watch to repair to come in and identify it from the umpteen tobacco tins of partly dismantled and repaired watches recovered from his locker. He knew who they all belonged to. 

 

One of my signalmen rebuilt the less messy parts of a Hillman Imp in Howe & co's Sidings in between trains, another took in ironing and another did wildlife and pet paintings to commission and (imo) to a very high standard. One less successful activity was the attempted inspection of a crate of recently purchased bantam hens by a signalman and a Pway man who shared a smallholding, the conversation beginning with "Roy, why is there chicken s*** all over the box ?".

 

The G&SWR signalbox on my layout has LNER/BR(E) furniture and frame, I copied the box I was sitting in at the time.