Swanage Railway signal box wins national preservation award from HRA

Press Release from Andrew P.M. Wright - dated 9th Jan 2003
Official photographer & press officer, Swanage Railway.
Photographs are copyright Andrew P.M. Wright To view a larger version of any photograph on this page, just click on the thumbnail photograph and subsequently use the Back button on your browser to return to this page.

Swanage Railway volunteers win a prestigious national preservation award presented by Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal.

Swanage Railway volunteers are celebrating after winning a prestigious national preservation award presented by Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, for their new £35,000 signal box and signalling at the Purbeck Line's terminal station.

Seen here holding the plaque (left to right) are Stuart Ward, Mike Whitwam, Keith Watson, and Dave Cobb.

The independent steam railway - which runs trains along five and a half miles of line between Swanage, Harman's Cross, Corfe Castle and Norden park and ride on Dorset's Isle of Purbeck - scooped the accolade in the National Railway Heritage Awards 2002.

The Westinghouse Signalling Award - sponsored by Westinghouse Rail Systems of Swindon in Wiltshire - has been given for the new late Victorian-style LSWR replica signal box and signalling for Swanage station which has been five years in the making.

For the Swanage Railway, it is the second time in six years that the volunteers have won the award; the first time was in 1997 for their first signal box and associated signalling project at Harman's Cross station.

Stuart Ward, the volunteer head of the Swanage Railway's signalling and telegraph department, said: "We are absolutely delighted to have received this award.

"It is remarkable that the Swanage Railway's first two signalling projects - Harman's Cross signal box in 1997 and now Swanage signal box - have been awarded the coveted Westinghouse Signalling Award in the National Railway Heritage Awards.

"Everyone involved has put a lot of hard work, determination and commitment into the Swanage signal box project and into making sure that it is as historically accurate as possible.

"I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in bringing what has been a very complicated and technically challenging project to fruition - this award is a fitting tribute to them. Sadly, some of those people are no longer with us and this award is a poignant recognition of their work.

"The new signal box is a real gem and a jewel in the crown of the Swanage Railway. As well as being historically accurate in terms of what a London and South Western Railway signal box built in the 1880s would have looked like, the new signal box will also improve the working conditions for railway operating staff and improve operational efficiency, reliability and safety on the railway," added Stuart, a 37 year old Poole electronics engineer who lives in Bournemouth .

Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, presented the award to Mike Whitwam - Swanage Railway signalman and the line's volunteer liaison officer who has worked on the signal box - at a ceremony at the Merchant Taylors' Hall in Threadneedle Street in the City of London. The £500 prize money will be spent on the new Swanage signal box.

The Swanage signal box project was started in January, 1999, when the first sod was cut. The scheme was complicated because before work could start, the embankment into which the box was to be built had to have piles driven into it and a re-enforced concrete retaining wall built. These four photos show the signal box rising from the ground early in 1999 and 2000.

(Illustrated News Items from April 1999, March 2000, June 2000 and July 2000 can be found on the main news page or by clicking on the above dates)

The new signal box has a Purbeck stone base, a wooden lap-board cabin and a slate roof - just like the original signal box at Swanage station which was opened in 1885 and closed in June, 1967, before its demolition in the autumn of that year.

The new Swanage signal box is almost double the size of its predecessor with 40 levers - 37 of which are being used. It has been built on the north side of the line at Swanage, against the Gilbert Road embankment.

It could not be built on the site of the original British Rail signal box at Swanage, on the south side of the line, because there was not enough room with the advent of the Wilts & Dorset bus park on the old railway goods yard.

The lever frame for the new Swanage signal box has been given to the Swanage Railway on indefinite loan by Ralph Montagu of Beaulieu - a railway enthusiast and the son of Lord Montagu who created his world famous motor museum at the family's Hampshire country home.

The lever frame was rescued by Ralph Montagu in the mid-1970s when British Rail closed and demolished the old Brockenhurst 'B' signal box at Brockenhurst station in the New Forest.

Stuart Ward explained: "We have used a larger frame in the new signal box than was used in the old box at Swanage station because the use of push-pull levers, levers that perform two different functions depending on which way they are pulled, are no longer allowed for new projects by the Government's Health and Safety Executive Railways' Inspectorate.

"More levers are also needed in the signal box because the new signalling scheme for Swanage station has more shunting signals than in British Rail days. Swanage station is busier than in British Rail days because it is not a quiet country terminal station - it's the base of the Swanage Railway with more locomotive and carriage stock movements required.

"Although the new signal box is not on the site of the original BR one - because there was not the room to re-instate it - it is opposite where the 1885 box was built and the new signal box does have a better view of the main station platform which is important.

"We have been training signalmen to work in the new signal box for the past six or seven months. The new signal box will mean that signalmen will work in a better and safer working environment - warm, dry and with a lavatory and facilities to make refreshments.

"The introduction into service of the new signal box will replace the use of ground frames with no weather protection for signalmen which have controlled track points at Swanage since 1978 when the fledgling railway first started with a few hundred feet of track.

"The ground frames were used for the last time for signalling public passenger-carrying trains on Sunday, January 5th, 2003 - the last day of Swanage Railway operation ahead of the line's annual six week shutdown for maintenance work," added Stuart Ward.

The new signal box is due to be inspected by the Government's Health and Safety Executive Railways' Inspectorate on 28th January, 2003. It is planned that the new signal box will signal its first passenger-carrying trains when the Swanage Railway re-opens on 22nd February, 2003.

Attending the London awards ceremony were Swanage Railway's Stuart Ward, Swanage Railway operations manager Paul McDonald, ex-BR and now Swanage signalman Keith Watson, signal box engineer Dave Cobb and signalman Mike Whitwam.