Fiskerton Signal Box

[Gathursty]

I was in the area on Tuesday and had a bit of time to look at Fiskerton and Rolleston stations.

I noticed quite a lean on Fiskerton Signal Box.

Is this normal?

 

[Ashley Hill]

Several boxes suffered from subsidence over the years either from poor foundations or earth movement. IIRC Marks Tey box had substantial wooded supports behind it later in life.

 

[Llanigraham]

My understanding was that Boxes had little to no foundations. Good example of that is the old Church Stretton Box that was twisted and moved by floodwater. Certainly my old Box could be felt moving slightly when a heavy train went passed.

 

[John Webb]

Photographs on the Geograph website show the box was leaning back over 13 years ago.

 

[Elecman]

For extreme propping of unstable boxes look at Bamber Bridge, held up by enormous scaffolding crossing over the tracks

 

[Merthyr Imp]

Little Steeping signal box on the East Lincolnshire line was once noted for its lean:

Little Steeping Signal Box. August 1983.

Viewed from a passing train at speed heading for Skegness this 20 lever Great Northern Railway type 1b box dated from June 1889. It didn't quite make its 100th birthday and fell short by three months being closed by BR on 12/03/1989. Being built on the East Lincolnshire Fenland the ground has...

www.flickr.com

 

[LowLevel]

That box had a load of girders shoved through it years ago to try and prevent it falling into the stream behind it.

Wooden boxes are notorious for movement.

It had a bit of an odd history, ceasing to be a block post back in the 30s or so but still remaining as a crossing box working signals.

Not sure when it will be put out of it's misery, the story changes frequently as to whether it might go to a preserved line, but the dead flower tubs add little to the local ambience where the crossing keepers used to be keen to keep it presentable, it's just a sad corpse now.

 

[zwk500]

One of the boxes on the S&C (Appleby?) Was closed for several weeks a couple of years ago because it was in serious danger of collapse. Either the embankment or a bit of the box needed rebuilding, IIRC.
Block working was temporarily established directly between the boxes either side so trains could continue to run, with a small loss in capacity.

 

[cin88]

One of the boxes on the S&C (Appleby?) Was closed for several weeks a couple of years ago because it was in serious danger of collapse. Either the embankment or a bit of the box needed rebuilding, IIRC.
Block working was temporarily established directly between the boxes either side so trains could continue to run, with a small loss in capacity.

Appleby box was in danger of collapsing. That was a fun one for me on the leaf fall desk at the time because Culgaith had already had two wrong side track circuit failures (track circuit showing clear when occupied) due to leaf contamination. On the day of the second failure, I ended up having to have a very protracted multi person conflab to clarify our understanding of the instructions relating to double blocking in the event of 3 such failures at a given location during the leaf fall season. The local operations manager for Appleby was concerned that with Appleby closing for it's much needed repairs, the resulting block section would end up almost the entire length of the S&C. Thankfully that wasn't to be the case if another failure had occurred.

Bamber Bridge rattles quite badly when trains pass by, that's going to eventually get a rebuild or replacement. I believe at one point they were planning to drill down under the box and put concrete supports in.

One of the Hope Valley boxes (Edale?) was in such a poor state at one point that it had scaffolding coming up through the floor to hold the whole thing together.

 

[Annetts key]

Even brick signal boxes sometimes end up with scaffolding to hold them together until repairs are made, often with extra metal ties to hold the walls together (or apart). I’ve been in one, where every time a HST thundered pass (at 100MPH) or, worse, a 60MPH heavy freight train passed by, you did wonder if this was what an earthquake would be like, there was that much movement…!

And some more (relatively) modern brick relay rooms (interlockings) despite actually having foundations, still experience movement. Especially if they were built on a railway embankment. We at one time had such a building that had a horizontal crack in the outside wall big enough that you could put your thumb in it. The floor was no longer level either, a ball would cross from one side to the other