Maltby station signal box

[carlwebus]

I have two images showing the signal box at Maltby station on the South Yorkshire Joint Railway.

This was sited at the end of the down platform.

In one image (the long shot of the station)the 'box is plainly painted white or at least cream.

In the other, close up, image it is plainly dark red.

Can anyone explain this or give dating information on the change (and which came first)?

 

[eastwestdivide]

As one of the photos is captioned “new railway station”, highly likely that that came first. Is the station even open yet in that photo?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Thursday at 15:41 ==

Also, the photos have that look of being artificially coloured after being taken in black and white

 

[thesignalman]

The pale-coloured view perhaps shows the signal box in primer. Some windows are yet to be fitted, by the looks of it.

The cat will know . . .

J

 

[WesternLancer]

Neither picture looks like it was taken with original colour film so accuracy of the colours depicted is presumably open to question.

Did the joint railway have a known standard painting scheme for buildings?

 

[Gloster]

I came across a reference, which I can’t find again, that said that before 1912 the Great Central used red, possibly a preservative, for the lower part of signal boxes and cream above.

Maltby (presumably) opened in 1909 or 1910, and so would have had these colours on opening as it appears, to my untutored eye, to be a Great Central signal box and, presumably, the GC was responsible for signalling matters.

Here we have a problem with the colouring: it obscures what the original colour in the image was. There may have been good grounds for the colourist to believe that it was red, but they may just be assuming it was.

 

[eastwestdivide]

There a pic of Maltby with a railtour on 11 May 1952 in Railway Memories No.21 Rotherham Mexborough & Wath, p107, where the signal box is mostly obscured by the footbridge, but looks to be a light colour all the way to the eaves.

Similar photo but poor resolution at sixbellsjunction,
R.C.T.S. (Sheffield Branch) South Yorks No.1 Rail Tour

The Railtour Files

edit: photos of that tour including I think both the ones mentioned above at:

61166 Maltby R.C.T.S. (Sheffield Branch) South Yorks No.1 Rail Tour 11th May 1952

railway photographs from the last 100 years

railway-photography.smugmug.com

 

[Gloster]

Searching Images produces one that looks as though it is taken before opening as everything is in pristine condition, although not at the same time as the one above as the box has windows among other details.

Here the box appears to be light coloured, although there appears to be a dark area of roughly three planks width between the windows and the cleaning platform.

Another early photo (an old postcard on Flickr) just shows the top part of the apex, but it is difficult to tell the shade, although a light one looks marginally more likely.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Flickr postcard photo at

Maltby Station

A postcard view of Maltby Station

www.flickr.com

with an annoyingly cut off possible date on the photo itself of (19)15? Unless that’s a catalogue number.
Signal box looks a dark colour to me.