Chime Whistle Books

Stafford No.4 had a handful of manual point levers,relating to the nearby sidings, which could be difficult to reverse. Not helped by the fact that the sidings were only used once in a blue moon!

Absolute Aspects make them.

A distant at Hednesford was motorised when a new,lady, signaller was appointed resident and had difficulty pulling it fully off. The box was due for closure,now closed, at that time, so presume this was the most cost effective option compared to installing a colour light distant. A signaller ended up under the desk at Bloxwich when lever 27 snapped as he was pulling off.That's something one just cannot account for when setting a route! Access to Tyseley depot is controlled by Tyseley No.1, a box with no track circuits, and a very busy box on the night shift. Latest estimate for its replacement is 2047!

Yes,the DMUs did a great job in saving many a rural branch from the axe, rather like the class 142s did two decades later! It's also worth noting that some of the figures were manipulated in terms of carrying out passenger surveys on 'holiday branches' during the winter season etc. In addition, the promised repalcement buses only lasted a very short time in some cases, once it was realised that they suffered from the same problem as the trains, namely a lack of passengers to make he services financially viable.

The best things are worth waiting for. I fully understand the frustrations suffered by both David and Colin, as no publisher wishes to send out a sub-standard book for the simple reason that it reflects badly on the publisher, even though it's the printer that actually prints it! Anyway,it's here now and I think we can all agree that David made the correct decision to delay publication,rather than release something on time, but of low print quality.

A few years ago I read that BR,rather naively, believed that investing in diesels during the 1960s would tempt people back out of their cars and onto the railway. It may have had limited success, but it's very hard to put the genie of car ownership back in the bottle, even more so when Beeching cut off large swathes of the country from the rail network, leaving little alternative. Buses have their place, but are nowhere near as successful as trains and trams for promoting modal shift from cars.

I visited both High Street and Pelham Street Junction boxes,just prior to closure. The latter was,in my opinion, the nicer of the boxes due to it being in more GNR condition (block bells etc) than High Street! The signaller at High Street said he had no objection to people filming his box,indeed he well understood why, but found it a bit “creepy” when one chap set up a video camera on a tripod and continually filmed the box for a few hours! It's good that it's still standing, unlike Pelham Street Junction which was demolished relatively quickly after closure. As an aside signaller Peter Lewis, who was on duty during my visit, started his signalling career at PSJ as a booking boy and retired when the box closed. Not many signallers can say they started and ended their railway career in the same signal box.

These candid type pictures work really well.Nothing worse than 'wooden' poses!

Fascinating picture and still recognisable today!